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Awards: 2008 DINZ Gold Spatial Design for Offices and Workplace Environments 2008 DINZ Stringer Best in Discipline Spatial Design for Offices and Workplace Environments 2008 NZIA Architecture Commercial & Industrial Award 2008 NZIA Interior Design Award 2008 ACENZ Gold Award of Excellence for Fire Engineering 2008 ACENZ Award of Merit for Structural Engineering 2008 RMB Commercial Project of the Year 2008 RMB QBE Insurance Retail and Business Project

Sovereign House is a six-storey building – a ground floor with five levels above it. It is the New Zealand head office for Sovereign Insurance, which is part of the ASB Group, and accommodates more than 750 employees in a new, contemporary workplace.

Two fundamental precepts influenced the important decision to design from the inside-out, with the architecture of the building thus expressing the activities within it. First, people are an organisation’s future, therefore a healthy workplace environment shows respect for its employees; second, the future will be different with dwindling resources making responsible use of energy a central social issue. Furthermore, the building and design have to respect the human spirit, and the building must contribute to sustainability.

This was the first commercial building in New Zealand to forego traditional airconditioning in favour of convection-driven chilled beam technology, thereby reducing energy consumption and helping to improve indoor health for occupants.

An internal park (the atrium), like a village square, is space for the office community to gather and collaborate, giving residents (the employees), a sense of place and ownership. The design drew on ideas about internal working environments arising from BVN’s interaction with the Department of Human Ecology at Cornell University in New York.

Three large open plan floor plates surround the atrium, linked vertically and horizontally to each other and to the atrium via bridges, stairs and a bank of lifts. These steel-floored glass-sided air bridges are suspended above and beneath the floors giving clear views to meeting rooms, people at their desks and the internal cafes, encouraging movement and interaction. The “bump” factor this enables is a recurring attribute in BVN’s workplace portfolio.

Sustainably sourced plywood was used throughout the interior, including the lining of areas of the curtain wall and floors are polished concrete. Chilled beam technology requires control of sunlight thus sun screening shrouds the building. This gives a light, delicate quality to the facade, despite the underlying precast structure and an18-metre clear span floor plate. This consequently appears as a series of layers rather than a single solid mass. As the sun moves in its arc and shines on the screens, Sovereign House comes alive, at times letting the inside of the building be projected outwards, turning the facade into a sort of theatre.

Team