NZ Super Fund Office

The Guardians’ new office is breathing life back into the upper levels of Auckland’s CPO building. Home to postal workers a century ago, the carefully restored grand dame is ready for a new chapter in its history to be written. With the glories of the original structure exposed and reinstated by Cheshire Architects, Jasmax worked with the Guardians team to create a 200+ person, three-level workplace that will be home for the next 20 years. Capitalising on CPO’s original features, the space includes a light-filled atrium, the centrepiece of the building.

The Guardians wanted a welcoming, timeless environment blending old and new. Therefore, the contemporary workplace design embraces a simple, stripped-back aesthetic inspired by the New Zealand coastline and the modest bach-like homes designed by New Zealand architect Vernon Brown in the late 1940s. Over restored kauri timber floors, dark-stained timber-clad meeting rooms with white joinery recall the creosote weatherboards and white windows characteristic to Brown’s elegant, yet laid back designs.

In an effort to reveal as much of the original fabric of the building as possible, these simple box-like forms hover between weighty neoclassical columns creating a fluid, open-plan series of ​‘neighbourhoods’ to foster team identity and connection. The flexible space, illuminated by white-painted walls, ceilings, services and French windows is designed to optimise workplace culture with generous staff amenities and a wide variety of work settings supporting concentration and collaboration.

Jasmax also prepared a number of occupancy scenarios to enable short-lease subtenancies of varying sizes, making efficient use of space beyond immediate requirements.