Description:

Contact Energy’s new office at 188 Quay Street in Auckland reflects the company’s focus to advance the quality of home life for all New Zealanders and responds to the brief for a workplace that embraced Contact’s ethos of ‘It’s good to be home’. The design response was centred around creating a safe, comfortable space that felt warm and carried the personality of a home.

Ways of working and analysis of the building led to a transition space that became a link and connection, bringing the outside in. Distinct zones branch off either side of this central ‘social’ space - ‘meet’ to the left is made up of phone rooms, meeting rooms and large boardroom, while to the right the ‘work’ space houses individual workstations, collaboration spaces and further task focused rooms that provide choice and flexibility.

Planting created a garden space and connection with nature, delivering a warm welcoming environment. Soft round curves of Contact’s arc shape influenced the built environment, symbolizing the human energy which flows through Contact.

Looking out to Princess Wharf from the garden space allows for a moment of retreat before ‘coming home’, which for Contact’s people meant engaging with different parts of the floorplate to gather, meet, and collaborate. Sprinkled thought the workspace are thoughtful touches of Contact’s signature red, bringing balance and further enhancing connections between dedicated zones.

Contact is focused on home life - both our lives at home and across Aotearoa. Acknowledging that the everyday home is a blend of styles meant wall treatments, textures, lighting, and materiality had to be carefully considered for an inclusive and authentic space.

Auckland-based staff have flexibility for where they work, driving Contact’s requirement to attract staff and deliver a space its people choose to come to more frequently, to connect, collaborate, to think, design and to do.