15 Stout Street & MBIE Workplace
This former Departmental Building, built in 1939, is listed by NZ Heritage as a Category 2 Historic Place. Located in the Wellington City Council Stout Street Precinct Heritage Area, the building is in the “Moderne” or Art Deco style featuring an “H” shaped plan configuration around a central interior courtyard and lightwell.
As both base-build and fit-out architects, Warren and Mahoney was able to view the project holistically and design a fully integrated workplace which maximised both the tenant’s requirements and the base-build renovation of the historic building.
The roof, level 8 and plant room, together with the addition of the atrium, have now been unified through a simple palette of sympathetic materials and detailing. Where possible, these extensions have been pushed back from the existing building parapet to preserve the original appearance of the building from the street. Additionally, the entrance canopy has been removed revealing the coat of arms above the entrance. The original light fittings either side of the entrance steps have been fabricated and replaced based on original drawings.
Internally, the entrance lobby and stairways have been restored. The central courtyard is now an enclosed glazed atrium fully open to each floor. This has transformed the building interior providing a point of orientation, good natural light, supporting interaction and visual connection between floors.
The fitout, designed for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's new premises, offers a high performance workplace which enables the Ministry to strengthen its inter-departmental and public relations activities.
Workstations have been designed to enable flexible expansion through all departments. A range of meeting points have been distributed across each floor to encourage inter-departmental relationships and meeting rooms have been detailed to offer high quality audio-visual facilities in good quality acoustic environments.
The design team worked closely with MBIE and Argosy to ensure that the Stout Street building not only fulfilled the current working requirements, but provided for future enhancements to benefit the organisation moving forward. The project is designed as a fully integrated solution with every element and consideration being viewed collectively to ensure a unified and cohesive workplace supporting an IT enabled workforce, a collaborative work style, and inter-departmental connectivity.
The building has been awarded a New Zealand Green Building Council 5 Star “Built” Office certification.
