TSA Management — Auckland Office
Eager to enhance their working style, access to amenity, and user wellbeing, project management firm TSA embarked on a search for new accommodation within Tāmaki Makaurau. Acting in the capacity of Project Architect for workplace strategy and architectural services, I guided the distillation of TSA’s aspirations into a resolute project trajectory — a launching point for a new design expression.
Landing on a built-up waterfront location in Auckland’s ebullient business epicentre, a thoughtfully composed user-centric environment inserts itself within a 1970’s office tower, neatly resolved around inherent constraints such as lift locations, sub-tenancy placement, and outlook. True to the modus operandi of those who reside here, a forensic analysis of organisational habits favours collaborative settings in lieu of the mundane. Energised by its surrounds, this place of work embodies the character of a legacy aesthetic while looking to a newfound tectonic — inviting visitors and staff to co-locate around framed viewshafts over Britomart’s municipal precinct.
Arriving by elevator, a suggestively cranked wall ushers people into the heart of the arrivals sphere, ensuring guests are promptly welcomed and tended to. A timber-clad three-metre-wide pivot door recedes into a monolithic wayfinding plane to skilfully dissolve the secure line. Traversing the social arena, prominent island enclaves are exquisitely shaped for unobstructed pathways. Akin to the organic smoothness of sculpted river stones, these elements stand proudly as central buffers between public and private.
The architecture presents a willingness to endure knocks over a working day, while holding onto the virtues of a softer domestic quality. Primary columns are treated as compositional nodes, providing a framework for elements to start, stop, or converge. In keeping with this utilitarian doctrine, focal pieces exude individuality, bound by the common threads of form, assemblage, and sense of place.
Prominent island enclaves are exquisitely shaped for unobstructed pathways. Akin to the organic smoothness of sculpted river stones, these elements stand proudly as central buffers.
Blackened and bright steel culminates as friendly counterparts, celebrated in the prominent central coffee island and suspended planter. Stoney greys, fawns and muted greens introduce a delicate softness through acoustic panelling, textural weaves, bouclés, and knitted suedes, culminating in the restrained integration of earthy terracotta — pulled from the plaza’s whāriki below (Te Komititanga — meaning “to mix” or “to merge” — a foundational value shared by the client).