A new development at Smales Farm on Auckland’s North Shore the business hive – the B:HIVE – has been hailed as New Zealand’s most future-focused building. The TSA Auckland team provided full project management services from conception across all phases including feasibility, urban design development, documentation, procurement and construction. Early on, we provided high-level strategy planning to mitigate the risks associated with working within a CBD site. We also managed the design and consent phase of B:HIVE on an aggressive program that tied together staged building consents and design deliverables.
The B:HIVE has a strong focus on wellbeing, with an emphasis within the design to bring the outdoors inside. A central feature is stunning, vertical, open-air atrium with 360-degree stairway, which delivers natural light deep into all floors and incorporates several full-height central planted columns, allowing people to feel connected to the time of day and outside conditions.
The innovative use of space and the creation of positive work environments were front and centre of all design decisions for the 11,000m2 of creative and highly-flexible workspaces across five floors. The agile floorplan allows for flexibility of usage and gives tenants options around how much space they want to lease. The shared spaces on each floor include meeting rooms, a concierge service, social spaces, fully equipped kitchens and access to the latest communications technology.
A hospitality zone on the ground floor completes the vision. With a tree-lined laneway of boutique eateries, event and conference facilities and even working greenhouses. All part of the plan to integrate with the local community, creating a place to work and a cultural destination on weeknights and weekends.
Designed by Australian architects BVN and local architects Jasmax, the B:HIVE is an award winner.
- Winner, Interior Architecture Category 2019 Auckland Architecture Award
- Voted the best office in the world at the 2019 World Architecture Festival
- Winner, National Category Winner in the CARTERS Commercial Project Award in the 2020 New Zealand Commercial Property Awards.
“Aspiring to be the best has required us to really think through what that means. For us, it means building the kind of environment where people actually want to go to work. It means good design that attends to all the dimensions of the workplace. It means delivering the best to all our stakeholders: the people who work in our buildings, the companies who operate from our buildings, the local community and – in the widest sense – shouldering responsibility as good corporate citizens to make a positive contribution to the economy and country as a whole.” – Director Greg Smale.
SMALES FARM B:HIVE 2019 from BVN on Vimeo.
