The Earthquake Strenthening of Friends House

This booklet records the major project undertaken between mid-2011 and mid-2016 to seismically strengthen the Quaker Meeting House in Wellington to meet the updated Building Act 2004. 

The existence of the Meeting House, named Friends House when built in 1929, owes much to the guidance of many English Friends and the financial support of Britain Yearly Meeting. Wellington Friends now rejoice that Friends House has the status of a heritage building. However, this status carries responsibilities and limits the architectural changes which can be made. 

In the 1990s Friends House had not been found to be earthquake-prone under the codes of the day, but building standards were raised nationwide in 2004 and councils around New Zealand revised their assessments of potentially unsafe buildings. Wellington City Council (WCC) reviewed Friends House under the Building Act requirements and advised the Meeting in January 2011 of its findings that Friends House was potentially earthquake-prone under the new standards.  Download the pdf to read on for the full story of what followed . . .