When infrastructure and westie culture collide

In an ode to the seminal New Zealand television show, Outrageous Fortune, two particularly important columns in the construction of the City Rail Link tunnels have been given the names Loretta and Pascalle.

The columns act as part of the foundation system for the Commercial Bay sky scraper – a 39 level office building that will be known as the new PwC tower.

These columns, which support the tower above, were specifically named because they are ‘outliers’ to the normal column system and required unique geometry to fit around the CRL tunnel alignments; in the curved central wall between the two CRL tunnels near Britomart.

Scott Elwarth, CRL Head of Delivery, said the columns were particularly challenging in their design due to the very limited distance between CRL tunnels at these locations and the diagonal orientation of the tunnel.

“It’s important to have some fun at work too. In my view these are some pretty sassy columns, so I commend the designers on some columns well designed and aptly named”.

The columns were originally called something else but were renamed to Loretta and Pascalle by the original Precinct design manager for the Commercial Bay project - an Outrageous Fortune fan – and the names stuck.

The two characters are daughters of the career-criminal West family, whose antics graced Kiwi TV screens from 2005 to 2010.

The columns themselves each hold about 5000 tonnes above them. Loretta is under the south west corner of the tower and Pascalle more towards the centre.

At one point there was going to be another special column named Cheryl (Loretta and Pascalle’s mother), but apparently no other special geometry columns were required.