Trustpower HQ, Tauranga

Project details

This headquarters building for a major electricity generation and retailing company is located on a 2,700 m² central city site in Tauranga. Office accommodation is arranged on ground floor and two upper levels with a main entrance from Durham Street. There is a semi basement parking/services level accessed at grade from Durham Lane. The Gross Floor area of the building is 9,750M².

The building occupies the entire width of the site. A large central atrium provides physical and visual connection between the three office floors. Above this atrium is a saw-tooth roof. This introduces glare free natural light to the centre of the floorplate. The Durham St façade comprises two horizontal glazed bands floating above the recessed ground floor. Mediating between these is a triangulated steel canopy. Where the building meets the footpath is a continuous limestone-clad planter. This is broken only at the entrance recess where a limestone-clad wall guides visitors into the building. Full-height glazing to each upper level is broken by a recessed aluminium panel at every floor. This expresses the dynamic horizontal quality of the space behind. The glass is a random mix of four colours and three widths, selected to create a subtle mix of transparency, tone and reflectivity. The glazing to the upper floors appears to be stretched between the textured concrete end walls that wrap around onto the principal elevations. These introduce a vertical emphasis to contrast the horizontal glazing and express their structural purpose to provide seismic bracing to the extensive floorplates.

Trustpower are the sole tenants of the building and were involved in the development of the design from the beginning. Our design objective was to create an efficient, functional and flexible workplace for Trustpower and in doing so, make a positive contribution to Tauranga’s maturing CBD.

Awards

2016 NZIA Award for Trustpower HQ

2016 NZIA : Waikato Bay of Plenty Architecture Award