This project relocated and consolidated Mercury's Auckland employees under one roof, using an agile workstyle across the business.
The challenge was to connect Mercury's 600 staff together - six floor plates over three levels, separated by a central atrium. The business units – ‘Corporate’ (activity-based workers), ‘Contact Centre’ (homebase, rostered breaks) and ‘Field Workers’ (remote work, drop-in) each use the workplace in a different way. Our focus was on ensuring the largest unit; Contact Centre, was afforded the most efficient and liberating experience. The design moniker is ‘Nature Mirrored’, providing a sustainable home with wellbeing at its heart.
Warren and Mahoney modified the base building by opening up the atrium with glass balustrades in lieu of curtain wall glazing, consolidating link bridge connections and adding interconnecting stairs to provide vertical and horizontal links to support circulation and to connect people. Our design enhances the possibility of incidental meetings with colleagues and integrates the Contact Centre on levels 3 and 4 with a social hub. The showpiece is the large grandstand stair at the heart of the atrium, from level 5 down to the social hub. This solution sought to bring everyone together by creating a large AV enabled, versatile and open space that enables Mercury to connect across their national network.
The atrium showcases lively and dynamic activities, adjacent shared work zones, social areas and informal meeting spaces which can be experienced throughout the day. Finishes mirror nature throughout, with woven vinyl flooring, lightly stained timber cladding and hanging plants and gardens surrounding the social spaces. To add to the drama, dichroic film adorns the grandstand stair and boardroom pop-out as a physical representation of energy, constantly changing colour throughout the day, mirroring the nature within and the surrounding cityscape of Newmarket. The large ceiling feature in the atrium provides acoustic absorption to this lively space.
A core deliverable for the project was to create ‘brand buzz’, both within the workplace and brand showcase area and outwards to the surrounding area of Newmarket. The building itself is striking and the visibility into the dynamic atrium space gives a sense of the activity and energy within. The ‘lightning bolt’ of dichroic film across the grandstand stairs and boardroom pop-out is an affordable way to create a bold statement, widely visible across Newmarket. The space provides an exciting environment for Mercury to do their best work and their post-move staff satisfaction survey far exceeded expectations.
