Deloitte Auckland.
Workplace & Client Facility
7500m2,
Full Interior Design Services by Custance Fisher
Photography by David Straight
Awards:
Bronze Winner for the 2024 Best Awards for Workplace Environments 1000m2+
Bronze Winner for the 2024 Best Awards for Spatial Colour Award
An opportunity presented for Deloitte to relocate to new premises at 1 Queen St. A comprehensive workplace strategy process defined the project vision:
“We are a diverse nation of navigators, bound by a shared whakapapa, brought together by our collective arrival through the gateway of Tāmaki Makaurau. Our Auckland workplace, like our city, is a destination that continues to ground us, guide us forward and bring us together with our clients, our community and our nation to navigate toward an innovative future”
The Story of Navigation for this client and space represents a rich and diverse journey. From the historical significance of 1 Queen as a national gateway and important meeting and trading hub, to present day as a welcoming meeting place from which to Navigate the future across industry, client, and individual.
For Deloitte, the future of this space needed to celebrate diversity, prioritise wellbeing, and support sustainable design principles, while also meeting the practical and functional accommodation needs as defined by the workplace strategy.
The concept of Navigation was embraced as the central narrative. It informed the planning, design and detail for the project, assisting the team to realise both practical and aspirational elements of the brief. This included the sense of arrival into the space, cues for orientation within, and how the spaces bring together Deloitte’s people, clients, and community to chart new courses toward an innovative future. Symbolically, this is most evident in two feature elements within the Level 20 reception:
The tauihu wall represents a carved waka prow figurehead and the concepts of journey, navigation and specifically, 1 Queen Street as an important landing point and trading hub. Its wedge shape anchors the circular reception point. From here, a personalised, concierge style greeting welcomes clients and visitors into a Koru style lounge which is serviced by a refreshments/ coffee bar recessed within the wedge.
Opposite, the korowai wall represents a woven cloak. It features a tāniko/ border referencing Auckland’s many volcanos. Kaitaku, a highly prized korowai speaks to arataki – a Deloitte NZ value, to lead the way. These walls are angled so that on entry, a visitor’s eyes travel from the Deloitte branding on the korowai wall to the reception point, and then to the expansive view beyond.
The wide vistas of the harbour and Hauraki Gulf are celebrated on all six floors providing a direct connection to 1 Queen Street’s harbourside location and the commercial heart of Auckland. A central stair provides connection between the floors.
Level 20 is designed to facilitate a variety of meetings and gatherings in size, style and tradition. The Innovation lounge and conference rooms can be set up in a variety of configurations with several fully catered events occurring at any one time.
Level 17 houses the staff café and Deloitte’s Greenhouse - a corporate executive’s space for solving business challenges. A multipurpose lounge area between the café and Greenhouse caters for extension of either space and together they open out for all of company or large community events.
Layout of the 4 work floors were informed by user group workshops which called for a modular office pod design to house focused and collaborative work functions. The design creates a see-through meeting space island to both the central area and southern perimeter. Two main pod blocks create the central entry to each work floor
A base palette of natural materials and neutral tones are common throughout with each of the six floors subtly informed by a different Tāmaki Makaurau quality or landscape. This assists with navigation through the levels, and drives the selection of colour, texture and motif.
Deloitte advise that their "teams have been overwhelmingly positive about the design and what it offers them”. They feel the design supports the diversity of Deloitte’s people and is warm and inviting. “The shared kitchen/hub has been an overwhelming success. It is a point of connection, communion and celebration which is used throughout the day. Every day we see teams either sharing time together socially or working together in a more relaxed setting which has significantly reduced the need for meeting room space and has provided an environment to take sometimes noisy conversations away from workspaces where people need to have a quiet environment where the can deeply focus”.
The design has greatly increased connectivity between business units, lifted morale and improved productivity. A greater percentage of staff are now working from the office.
The reception floor is a hub of activity with informal meetings taking place in the lounge areas ensuring it is more than just a waiting space. The relationship between the innovation lounge and conference rooms offers connectivity and flexibility for how the spaces are used beyond what was anticipated, facilitating new ways of hosting client, training and community events.
Deloitte’s new workplace at 1 Queen Street is the outcome of innovative design and strategic vision, creating a dynamic, welcoming, and functional environment that aligns with the company’s values and aspirations.
“Proof is always in the pudding. Our teams have been overwhelmingly positive about the building, its design and what it offers them. After being in the building for only 5 months we decided to do a building restack. It is a testament to the design thinking that has gone into 1 Queen Street that we were able restack a significant amount of the floors with little to no disruption and still accommodate the diverse needs of the workforce. Quite pleasingly we actually think the building and its fitout is working better for us after the restack than when we first moved in.”
— Grant Frear Partner, Deloitte NZ