AIA House, Smales Farm

A hybrid workplace with a new heart

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Adapting to evolving workplace requirements

AIA’s New Zealand head office, located in Auckland’s Smales Farm business community, has undergone a refurbishment to meet the needs of a modern, hybrid workforce. The move to increase hybrid working prompted a reduction from five to three floors for its 700+ team – an opportunity to reset workplace culture in a bespoke space aligned with AIA’s global brand and purpose.

As one of the world’s largest life insurers, AIA places strong emphasis on employee wellbeing – a commitment that has been embedded in its workplace design. The refreshed interior reflects the brand’s core values through a high-performing, flexible environment that offers a range of settings to support different modes of work. With a reduced footprint, AIA required a new social space for people to gather and connect. A full plank on the middle (fourth) floor has been transformed into a social kitchen – the heart of the workplace – offering an expansive space for connection and cross-pollination.

Improving staff wellbeing

To optimise the work environment, the new office layout pulls workstations away from the building perimeter to reduce screen glare and create space for greenery and informal break-out areas. AIA NZ has adopted an agile, flexible desking model, with all workstations shared. A key feature, the ‘Vitality Trail’, connects all three floors via stairs and encourages movement throughout the day, reflecting AIA’s purpose of healthier, longer, better lives.

What was once an executive boardroom overlooking the atrium has been repurposed as a tranquil retreat space for staff to unwind or attend events, exercise classes and workshops. Across the workplace, a variety of meeting rooms support diverse work styles: a traditional boardroom that can open into a hosting area, a circular boardroom designed for interactive discussions, a green room equipped for in-house content recording, and a mix of pods, typical meeting rooms and focus spaces.

Perforated metal screening around meeting rooms echoes the reused mesh panels from the building’s newly refurbished façade, now featured on select walls and ceilings. A light, bright and neutral colour palette is contrasted with accents of AIA’s bold signature red, while acoustic interventions, including a three-storey feature wall, reduce sound transmission between open working floors.

Benefitting from a future-fit building upgrade

AIA House underwent a major upgrade in parallel with the workplace fit-out. The original single-glazed façade with external mesh shading was replaced with a high-performance double-glazed curtain wall system, dramatically improving natural light internally and enhancing views of Lake Pupuke, Waitematā Harbour, CBD and Takapuna Golf Course. The de-mounted external mesh panels have been reused throughout the interior, reducing waste to landfill and providing a unique exemplar for repurposing existing materials to reduce embodied carbon emissions.

The building refurbishment also included upgrading seismic performance, services and acoustics, significantly enhancing the building’s internal and external appearance and overall functionality.