Flight Centre | Auckland

New connections for a multi-storey tenancy.

Location: Auckland | Size: 5,600m²

Every decade or so, a company needs to re-evaluate its physical environment to ensure it still supports it culture, meets the needs and expectations of its team, attracts the next generation of talent, and embraces changes in workplace technology. For Flight Centre, this milestone came around for its 5,600m², seven-storey HQ in Auckland’s CBD.

Spread through a vertical tenancy, the design challenge for Unispace was how to connect 400 staff better physically, socially and professionally. Interior designer Antonia Walmsley created stronger visual identities for each floor and a central social hub to bring people together more casually and frequently in an attractive hospitality space. The working floors have elements of an agile environment incorporated, with new fixed desks now joined by less formal settings and a shared project space.

New workpoints needed to support their ideal team sizes and styles, which operate in an egalitarian culture. The Aspect design team developed pods of three, six and nine workpoints by adapting the Zurich 5 system with an extended desktop surface. The new shape creates extra room for meeting at the end of each pod, supporting more collaboration between team members, and workspace for people from other floors dropping by.

New technology includes swipe card access integrated with our Smartalock app, the new lockers allowing staff more choice and mobility about where they work, while keeping their belongings out of the way. Groups can form and reform easily, creating a more dynamic team culture, with all the health, social and productivity benefits of a flexible workplace environment.