The Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility (ARWCF) is the first purpose-designed and built women's correctional facility in New Zealand and was considerably re-scoped, under urgency, following the award of the project.

Following a competitive, transparent and audited selection process the Department of Corrections, Hawkins Construction and a team of specialist design consultants entered into a collaborative working arrangement in April 2004. This type of contractual framework involves a participative approach to decision making and planning, underpinned by a continuous improvement philosophy, with risks shared appropriately and was chosen due to the size and complexity of the project, combined with the tight timeframe for delivery within the overheated nature of the Auckland construction market.

Three months after the contract was awarded, with project planning underway but construction not having commenced, the project scope was significantly altered in response to a sharp rise in female prisoner population projections. The new brief was to go from a 150-bed to a 286-bed facility, with supporting infrastructure to cater for potential future development to a maximum site capacity of 350 beds plus 20% contingent capacity.

However, the key challenge was that the facility still had to be ready for prisoners in August 2006, which meant that the construction timeframe could only be extended by two months, from March to May 2006. This was successfully achieved.

ARWCF is an open-style complex, comprised of some 38 individual buildings incorporating residential, custodial, educational, recreational and light industrial design and construction. The new facilities incorporate design features that are intended to be more effective in terms of safety, security and rehabilitation. ARWCF has been designed to encourage prisoners to improve behaviour and take some responsibility for themselves while enhancing the safety features for the public and staff.

While ARWCF offers the same range of educative and rehabilitative programmes as existing facilities, higher activity levels are planned for prisoners within self-sufficiency activities (cooking, laundry and grounds maintenance), employment training based on NZQA unit standards, business-like activities to assist prisoners with employment skills and experience, work parties in the local community and “release to work”.

The facility has been designed to create a more normalised environment, with prisoners encouraged and expected to be responsible for getting to employment activities on time, attending rehabilitative programmes or visiting the site's health facilities when needed. ARWCF complies with the Department of Corrections energy brief in line with triple bottom line reporting requirements.