Boiling point 18

18

Zip instant boiling water

in state-of-the-art spaces

Instant Boiling Water

Boiling Point Issue 18

zipindustries.com

Welcome to Issue #18 of Boiling Point, the magazine for Zip HydroTapÂŽ, providing instant boiling and chilled filtered water to state-of-the-art design and architectural spaces.

Commercial P.02 Ecosciences

Science and design come together in this new precinct in Brisbane designed by HASSELL, where the country’s top issues are tackled.

Commercial

02

P.06 Eastspring Investments An asset management company provides a welcoming environment for its staff with an organic tree-and-root based design by Geyer in Singapore.

Profile

P.08 Mia Feasey: Siren Design

06

Principal of Sydney-based Siren Design, Mia Feasey, introduces us to her (almost) all-female team and their award-winning projects.

Commercial P.11 EMI

08

When global music company EMI needed a change of space, The World is Round delivered a fittingly creative solution in Sydney.

11

Cover image: Eastspring Investments, Singapore Photography: Owen Raggett

News from Zip New Markets This year, thanks to the enormous support given to Zip by the architectural world in Australia, our export markets for Australiandesigned and Australian-made Zip instant boiling water systems have seen an increase of more than 20% – up from over 50 countries last year to over 60 countries this year. Today Zip HydroTap under-bench instant boiling and chilled filtered water systems and Zip Hydroboil on-wall instant boiling water systems are specified by architects, interior designers and consultants around the world, with more growth anticipated during 2012.

Sydney Festival As you know Zip does its best to support the community. For the second year in a row, Zip was Principal Sponsor of Sydney Festival 2012, a major musical and performing arts festival attracting an audience of close to a million people from January 7 to January 29. Apart from its role as Principal Sponsor, Zip also provided free filtered drinking water stations involved in distributing more than 60,000 refillable drinking water bottles to patrons of major Festival events in Sydney CBD, The Domain and nearby City of Parramatta.

Venice Biennale This coming August, Zip will be lending its support to the launch by the AIA of a new pavilion showcasing contemporary Australian architecture to the hundreds of thousands of art and architecture enthusiasts attending the Venice Biennale.

It’s a great opportunity to expose design-conscious prospective clients to the achievements of our own innovative architects, and everyone at Zip is particularly pleased to be able to support this initiative by the Institute.

Boiling Point in The Mail If you would like to receive your own copy of Boiling Point by mail each six months, simply send your name and mailing address to marketing@zipindustries.com – and remember you can also view back and current issues on line by visiting zipindustries.com/media-information.

As always, thanks for your ongoing support and interest.

Michael Crouch AO Executive Chairman Zip Heaters (Aust) Pty Ltd, a member of the Zip Industries Group michaelcrouch@zipindustries.com

Boiling Point Issue 18

zipindustries.com

Ecosciences Precinct Words: Guy Allenby Photography: Christopher Frederick Jones Architect: Hassell Interior Designer: Davenport Campbell

In collaboration Brisbane’s Ecosciences precinct has folded a whole range of scientific agencies into one single structure and has created a place where collaborative research can blossom.

The pioneering Ecosciences Precinct in Brisbane is all about fostering collaboration. It’s a place that brings together 1,000 scientists from four state agencies and six divisions of CSIRO into one collaborative research environment, with a shared laboratory and offices. Previously spread across eight different sites in south-east Queensland, the Ecosciences Precinct was designed as a scientific facility “without walls”.

Fundamentally, in other words, it’s a place where enquiring minds – previously scattered in separate locations – are given the opportunity to bounce ideas around and exchange knowledge both formally and informally.

Not that breaking down existing institutional boundaries and maximising the opportunities to share didn’t present enormous challenges, but these have been expertly met in a 50,000 square metre environment with shared facilities that include greenhouses, controlled environment rooms, stores, sample processing areas, glassware and media preparation, Integrated Circuit Testing and electron microscopy.

03

zipindustries.com

The new facility has been designed to enable some of Australia’s top scientists to tackle issues such as climate change, bio-security, air and water quality, and sustainable industries and its design came at the end of long consultative program that assessed needs down the highly detailed resolution of each room’s requirements.

It’s wonderful to learn that scientists often met each other for the first time during this process and have since formed new collaborative working relationships. And it’s these relationships, in turn, that now play out daily in spaces designed to engender and support both structured and casual collaboration.

“Interactive food preparation areas are an important part of the facility,” adds project architect, John Irvine, of HASSELL’s Brisbane studio. The spaces, central to the design, are places where scientists can relax and communicate, with stainless steel bench tops fitted with Zip HydroTap systems. “Having instant boiling water and instant chilled water supports the effective use of those spaces,” explains Irvine.

The HydroTap systems are one small element in a structure which features a whole raft of imposing environmentally sustainable features

including a solar control system that shades and filters the high level thermal load (the harsh Queensland sub-tropical sunlight) away from the facades, yet still affords views from inside and plenty of natural light.

Lessening the thermal load offers some fine aesthetic and atmospheric payoffs too: the whole structure is also enveloped by a perforated aluminium veil which means all the outdoor areas – the courtyards which separate the structure’s three wings – are washed by a soft filtered light. Simple elements like the provision of the main staircase in a prominent location also encourage walking rather than taking the energy-hungry lifts and water efficiency was another key feature in the design of the project.

The building is not only a fine contribution to vital research and the advancement of the country’s scientific community, but another great exemplar of environmentally sustainable design. It won the Harry Seidler Award for Commercial Architecture at the 2011 Australian Institute of Architects National Awards.

HASSELL (61 7) 3914 4000 hassellstudio.com

05 “Instant boiling and instant chilled filtered water supports the effective use of spaces�

Boiling Point Issue 18

zipindustries.com

Call to action Interior designer Mia Feasey is the founder and leader of a company on the up.

Is there something unusual about Siren Design that might have something to do with its success?

Perhaps it was planned or perhaps it’s happenstance but one of the first things you notice about Siren Design – headquartered in an old bond store on the western edge of Sydney’s CBD – is that it’s an outfit made up entirely of women. Given the firm’s name, you have to suspect the former. But then, as principal Mia Feasey points out, her team does in fact have one male member. He just wasn’t there when Boiling Point dropped in to visit.

07

“Most interior designers in Australia are women,” explains Mia. “Ninety percent of graduates are female, it’s the pool of talent I have to pick from.” Siren specialise in commercial, hospitality and retail design.

Clients include NAB, ANZ, AGL and Accenture.

The company’s just finished fitting out the Florida Beach Bar at Crowne Plaza Hotel at Terrigal on NSW’s Central Coast. They’re also currently designing a “little cocktail bar” in Potts Point and the company has recently been commissioned to design the corporate interiors for Bendon Bras.

“We have a reputation for doing sexy corporate,” says Mia. “We do a lot of advertising agencies.

We’ve just won an award for Tongue [an advertising/PR agency].”

Mia built Siren from scratch. Hailing originally from the UK and with a background in textiles, she moved to Australia when she was 21.

“I didn’t have a network and I didn’t have any money,” she admits and was working as a waitress until she landed a part-time job in the library at Geyer Design. “I worked my way up to junior designer level in about two or three years.”

She then started doing private work, moved to an architectural firm working on commercial interiors, and then formed a partnership with a builder doing Design and Construct (D&C) projects for a further four years.

“I felt that D&C was more about sales than it was about design,” she admits. “But it was great. I learnt a lot, learnt how to work to budgets, I learnt how to work with builders. I still do a lot of D&C but it’s on my terms now. It’s all transparent, it’s a turn key solution, but I get to pick the builder depending on the client and the job.”

Siren was established six years ago and “We’ve grown up to 12 staff now, which is enough,” she says. Certainly enough for now because, as Mia adds, she has two small children keeping her busy. It hasn’t stopped her from achieving professionally though – in 2010 she was named the NAWIC (National Association of Women in Construction) Businesswoman of the Year.

Mia Feasy and Zip Mia and her husband share an inner-city apartment and life’s been made a little easier thanks to a certain piece of kitchen equipment she discovered in her professional life – the Zip HydroTap. Mia was already an unabashed fan having specified them in “Pretty much every office we design,” she says.

At home Mia admits to loving a regular and restorative cup of tea, but the couple are also bottle-feeding a baby – which ties up the use of the kettle. As she explains: “You can’t boil the kettle because you need the sterile water ready [to mix up the baby formula]. It’s awesome because it means I can always have a cup of tea and there is always sterile water for the baby [that’s ready cooled in the kettle].” Her husband meanwhile likes to drink cold water, so the unit’s chilled/filtered water function means there’s more room in their apartment’s small fridge. “It’s a big thing,” she laughs, “I was so excited about the Zip in my house!”

“They work really well, they’re functional, they’re compact, there’s lots of different options; they’re brilliant. As far as I’m concerned it’s an essential item in an office now. I wouldn’t even think of designing an office without one.”

Nor, it seems, would she now ever consider doing without one in her own home.

“They’re functional, compact, there’s lots of different options; they’re brilliant.”

Spirit of Growth Eastspring Investments, Singapore Words: Guy Allenby Photography: Owen Raggett Interior Designer: Geyer Design

Singapore’s Eastspring Investments has chosen to base its new offices around a breakout area – the “trunk” from which everything else branches out – to breed a culture of interaction, collaboration and communication.

09

When Geyer Design approached the brief it had been delivered by Singapore’s Eastspring Investments (part of the Prudential Group, but known as Prudential Asset Management at the time) it took a very organic approach to the job at hand. As Kahn Yoon, designer, associate and partner of Geyer Design Singapore, explains, “We used the concept of a young growing tree with deep roots to inform our design details and language.” Yoon headed up a team that included designers Serene Wong and Matilda Sung, which was charged with the task of creating a new headquarters for the firm over two floors of a Singapore office block. “They envisioned a workspace that reinforced a unique Asset Management identity while acknowledging the stability and tradition of the bigger Prudential organisation,” says Yoon.

The tree concept can be seen in both the warmth of the materials used and in the design details. At the design’s core is a main staff breakout area that is accessible from the lift lobby that functions, on level 31 and 32 of the building, as the space’s “tree trunk” and focal point – with all the other aspects of the office branching from it.

This breakout area is visible to all visitors from the main reception area, thereby “elevating the culture of interaction and communication”, says Yoon. A staircase links straight into the breakout area from below so that facilities are easily shared between the two floors. The area has

Boiling Point Issue 18

zipindustries.com

“People gravitate to the interaction space for casual discussion, lunch and events”

proven enormously successful. “People gravitate to the interaction space for casual discussion, lunch and company events,” he says. Although the space really comes into its own at “morning tea time and lunch”, he adds, and has been expressly designed to “accommodate the rush for coffee, tea and chilled water with two Zip HydroTap systems of the largest capacity provided.” An additional unit has been installed in the client service area and at an additional breakout area pantry to “provide quick access to the staff on half of level 31”.

“The company values the welfare of their staff and wanted to create an environment that inspired trust in their people and growth of the company,” says Yoon. It’s the staff-centric

approach that also led to creating working floors that determinedly didn’t represent “a sea of workstations” – instead featuring coloured panels, column and whiteboard details and “cross circulation aisles wherever the space allowed,” Yoon adds.

But this commitment to breeding a culture of communication and interaction can really be seen in the provision of an innovative floor plan that has a large welcoming space as its “trunk”, calculated to engender close collaboration over a glass of chilled/filtered water or a steaming cup of tea.

Geyer Design (65) 6594 9355 geyer.com.au

11

The beat goes on When one of the music industry’s big names decides it’s time for a new office, you can be assured the outcome is not going to be run-of-the-mill.

The music business used to be known as an industry with edge, attitude and a taste for excess. The only trouble is however – at least in this the age of downloadable music and diminishing returns – that it’s now a business that’s still driven by creativity and that retains enormously high expectations, yet everything now has to be realised on a tighter budget than in the days of the stretch limousines.

EMI, one of the most respected labels in the music business, is no different – complicated by the fact that the company looked like it was about to undergo a complex ownership change just as they decided they desperately needed to move.

EMI Words: Guy Allenby Photography: Tyrone Branigan Interior Designer: The World is Round

Not, you would imagine, the ideal conditions for creating a brand new working environment.

Then again, as designer Andrew Cliffe of The World is Round explains, “They wanted to get in before that [the change of ownership] was formally announced because if it had been announced before they had moved, they would

13

never have moved”. This also meant that Cliffe came on board early enough in the piece to help choose the ideal site.

EMI and Cliffe settled on one on Flinders Street in the inner-Sydney suburb of Surry Hills – one previously occupied by furniture showrooms designed in 1990 by Burley Katon Halliday (BKH).

The fundamental brief, Cliffe explains, was for a space that “showcased EMI’s position in the market as being very open, transparent, friendly and inviting”. All on a budget that was “ruthlessly scrutinised” by an overseas head office. “EMI’s objective was to create a place of work that celebrated inspiration and imagination,” says Cliffe. Simply put: they understand that creativity breeds creates creativity.

In more practical terms EMI’s requirements were to have ten separate offices for each of the record company’s department heads, as well as open eating and entertaining areas, a traditional boardroom and meeting rooms.

“The idea was to keep it as honest and as raw and as clean as possible,” says Cliffe. So the first thing done was to strip it back to the bare bones of the original BKH design.

“The planning principles were maximising the amount of natural light, making sure the offices were pushed to the core and that people sitting at workstations had access to as much natural light as possible,” Cliffe adds. Knoll workstations were specified, without screens dividing them.

All finishes, products and engineering “were continuously tested to ensure their alignment with EMI’s goals of green design,” says Cliffe.

Take for instance the provision of instant boiling and chilled water. As it turned out, BKH design had specified Zip HydroTap systems in the original design. “They were 22 years old and they were so happy with the way that they worked and were maintained and looked after that they went out and bought [them] again,” says Cliffe.

Indeed it was a decision in perfect accord with a commitment to an approach that took into account everything from minimal lighting and power use to “recycling, photocopy tracking, floor kill switches to turn off standby power and top of the line air con unit,” says Cliffe, “all to ensure EMI’s continuous dedication to social responsibility.” Success without the excess.

The World is Round (61 2) 9365 1414 theworldisround.com.au

Zip Hydroboil

Zip HydroTap

Australia Zip Heaters (Aust) Pty Ltd +61 2 9796 3100 zipindustries.com

New Zealand Zenith Heaters +64 9 838 8612 zenithheaters.co.nz

United Kingdom Zip Heaters (UK) Ltd +44 870 608 8888 zipindustries.co.uk

Singapore Multico Building Products +65 6283 8888 multico.com.sg

Also in: Europe (Germany), Africa, Asia Pacific – Philippines, Thailand, Taipei, Taiwan Published by Indesign Group (61 2) 9368 0150, info@indesign.com.au © Zip Industries Publisher: Raj Nandan Operations: Adele Troeger Editorial: Guy Allenby and Nicky Lobo Production: Shannon Smith Design: Emma Warfield Zip Industries: Murray Pope Zip Industries and the publisher hereby disclaim, to the full extent permitted by law, all liability, damages, costs and expenses whatsoever arising from or in connection with copy information or other material appearing in this publication, any negligence of the publisher, or any person’s actions in reliance thereon. Inclusion of any copy information or other material must not be taken as an endorsement by Zip Industries. Views expressed by contributors are personal views and are not necessarily endorsed

by Zip Industries. The terms ‘Zip’, ‘Hydroboil’, ‘HydroTap’, ‘Power-Pulse’, ‘Chilltap’ and ‘Chill Fountain’ are trade marks.

Instant Boiling Water

Boiling Point Issue 18

zipindustries.com

Welcome to Issue #18 of Boiling Point, the magazine for Zip HydroTapÂŽ, providing instant boiling and chilled filtered water to state-of-the-art design and architectural spaces.

Commercial P.02 Ecosciences

Science and design come together in this new precinct in Brisbane designed by HASSELL, where the country’s top issues are tackled.

Commercial

02

P.06 Eastspring Investments An asset management company provides a welcoming environment for its staff with an organic tree-and-root based design by Geyer in Singapore.

Profile

P.08 Mia Feasey: Siren Design

06

Principal of Sydney-based Siren Design, Mia Feasey, introduces us to her (almost) all-female team and their award-winning projects.

Commercial P.11 EMI

08

When global music company EMI needed a change of space, The World is Round delivered a fittingly creative solution in Sydney.

11

Cover image: Eastspring Investments, Singapore Photography: Owen Raggett

News from Zip New Markets This year, thanks to the enormous support given to Zip by the architectural world in Australia, our export markets for Australiandesigned and Australian-made Zip instant boiling water systems have seen an increase of more than 20% – up from over 50 countries last year to over 60 countries this year. Today Zip HydroTap under-bench instant boiling and chilled filtered water systems and Zip Hydroboil on-wall instant boiling water systems are specified by architects, interior designers and consultants around the world, with more growth anticipated during 2012.

Sydney Festival As you know Zip does its best to support the community. For the second year in a row, Zip was Principal Sponsor of Sydney Festival 2012, a major musical and performing arts festival attracting an audience of close to a million people from January 7 to January 29. Apart from its role as Principal Sponsor, Zip also provided free filtered drinking water stations involved in distributing more than 60,000 refillable drinking water bottles to patrons of major Festival events in Sydney CBD, The Domain and nearby City of Parramatta.

Venice Biennale This coming August, Zip will be lending its support to the launch by the AIA of a new pavilion showcasing contemporary Australian architecture to the hundreds of thousands of art and architecture enthusiasts attending the Venice Biennale.

It’s a great opportunity to expose design-conscious prospective clients to the achievements of our own innovative architects, and everyone at Zip is particularly pleased to be able to support this initiative by the Institute.

Boiling Point in The Mail If you would like to receive your own copy of Boiling Point by mail each six months, simply send your name and mailing address to marketing@zipindustries.com – and remember you can also view back and current issues on line by visiting zipindustries.com/media-information.

As always, thanks for your ongoing support and interest.

Michael Crouch AO Executive Chairman Zip Heaters (Aust) Pty Ltd, a member of the Zip Industries Group michaelcrouch@zipindustries.com

Boiling Point Issue 18

zipindustries.com

Ecosciences Precinct Words: Guy Allenby Photography: Christopher Frederick Jones Architect: Hassell Interior Designer: Davenport Campbell

In collaboration Brisbane’s Ecosciences precinct has folded a whole range of scientific agencies into one single structure and has created a place where collaborative research can blossom.

The pioneering Ecosciences Precinct in Brisbane is all about fostering collaboration. It’s a place that brings together 1,000 scientists from four state agencies and six divisions of CSIRO into one collaborative research environment, with a shared laboratory and offices. Previously spread across eight different sites in south-east Queensland, the Ecosciences Precinct was designed as a scientific facility “without walls”.

Fundamentally, in other words, it’s a place where enquiring minds – previously scattered in separate locations – are given the opportunity to bounce ideas around and exchange knowledge both formally and informally.

Not that breaking down existing institutional boundaries and maximising the opportunities to share didn’t present enormous challenges, but these have been expertly met in a 50,000 square metre environment with shared facilities that include greenhouses, controlled environment rooms, stores, sample processing areas, glassware and media preparation, Integrated Circuit Testing and electron microscopy.

03

zipindustries.com

The new facility has been designed to enable some of Australia’s top scientists to tackle issues such as climate change, bio-security, air and water quality, and sustainable industries and its design came at the end of long consultative program that assessed needs down the highly detailed resolution of each room’s requirements.

It’s wonderful to learn that scientists often met each other for the first time during this process and have since formed new collaborative working relationships. And it’s these relationships, in turn, that now play out daily in spaces designed to engender and support both structured and casual collaboration.

“Interactive food preparation areas are an important part of the facility,” adds project architect, John Irvine, of HASSELL’s Brisbane studio. The spaces, central to the design, are places where scientists can relax and communicate, with stainless steel bench tops fitted with Zip HydroTap systems. “Having instant boiling water and instant chilled water supports the effective use of those spaces,” explains Irvine.

The HydroTap systems are one small element in a structure which features a whole raft of imposing environmentally sustainable features

including a solar control system that shades and filters the high level thermal load (the harsh Queensland sub-tropical sunlight) away from the facades, yet still affords views from inside and plenty of natural light.

Lessening the thermal load offers some fine aesthetic and atmospheric payoffs too: the whole structure is also enveloped by a perforated aluminium veil which means all the outdoor areas – the courtyards which separate the structure’s three wings – are washed by a soft filtered light. Simple elements like the provision of the main staircase in a prominent location also encourage walking rather than taking the energy-hungry lifts and water efficiency was another key feature in the design of the project.

The building is not only a fine contribution to vital research and the advancement of the country’s scientific community, but another great exemplar of environmentally sustainable design. It won the Harry Seidler Award for Commercial Architecture at the 2011 Australian Institute of Architects National Awards.

HASSELL (61 7) 3914 4000 hassellstudio.com

05 “Instant boiling and instant chilled filtered water supports the effective use of spaces�

Boiling Point Issue 18

zipindustries.com

Call to action Interior designer Mia Feasey is the founder and leader of a company on the up.

Is there something unusual about Siren Design that might have something to do with its success?

Perhaps it was planned or perhaps it’s happenstance but one of the first things you notice about Siren Design – headquartered in an old bond store on the western edge of Sydney’s CBD – is that it’s an outfit made up entirely of women. Given the firm’s name, you have to suspect the former. But then, as principal Mia Feasey points out, her team does in fact have one male member. He just wasn’t there when Boiling Point dropped in to visit.

07

“Most interior designers in Australia are women,” explains Mia. “Ninety percent of graduates are female, it’s the pool of talent I have to pick from.” Siren specialise in commercial, hospitality and retail design.

Clients include NAB, ANZ, AGL and Accenture.

The company’s just finished fitting out the Florida Beach Bar at Crowne Plaza Hotel at Terrigal on NSW’s Central Coast. They’re also currently designing a “little cocktail bar” in Potts Point and the company has recently been commissioned to design the corporate interiors for Bendon Bras.

“We have a reputation for doing sexy corporate,” says Mia. “We do a lot of advertising agencies.

We’ve just won an award for Tongue [an advertising/PR agency].”

Mia built Siren from scratch. Hailing originally from the UK and with a background in textiles, she moved to Australia when she was 21.

“I didn’t have a network and I didn’t have any money,” she admits and was working as a waitress until she landed a part-time job in the library at Geyer Design. “I worked my way up to junior designer level in about two or three years.”

She then started doing private work, moved to an architectural firm working on commercial interiors, and then formed a partnership with a builder doing Design and Construct (D&C) projects for a further four years.

“I felt that D&C was more about sales than it was about design,” she admits. “But it was great. I learnt a lot, learnt how to work to budgets, I learnt how to work with builders. I still do a lot of D&C but it’s on my terms now. It’s all transparent, it’s a turn key solution, but I get to pick the builder depending on the client and the job.”

Siren was established six years ago and “We’ve grown up to 12 staff now, which is enough,” she says. Certainly enough for now because, as Mia adds, she has two small children keeping her busy. It hasn’t stopped her from achieving professionally though – in 2010 she was named the NAWIC (National Association of Women in Construction) Businesswoman of the Year.

Mia Feasy and Zip Mia and her husband share an inner-city apartment and life’s been made a little easier thanks to a certain piece of kitchen equipment she discovered in her professional life – the Zip HydroTap. Mia was already an unabashed fan having specified them in “Pretty much every office we design,” she says.

At home Mia admits to loving a regular and restorative cup of tea, but the couple are also bottle-feeding a baby – which ties up the use of the kettle. As she explains: “You can’t boil the kettle because you need the sterile water ready [to mix up the baby formula]. It’s awesome because it means I can always have a cup of tea and there is always sterile water for the baby [that’s ready cooled in the kettle].” Her husband meanwhile likes to drink cold water, so the unit’s chilled/filtered water function means there’s more room in their apartment’s small fridge. “It’s a big thing,” she laughs, “I was so excited about the Zip in my house!”

“They work really well, they’re functional, they’re compact, there’s lots of different options; they’re brilliant. As far as I’m concerned it’s an essential item in an office now. I wouldn’t even think of designing an office without one.”

Nor, it seems, would she now ever consider doing without one in her own home.

“They’re functional, compact, there’s lots of different options; they’re brilliant.”

Spirit of Growth Eastspring Investments, Singapore Words: Guy Allenby Photography: Owen Raggett Interior Designer: Geyer Design

Singapore’s Eastspring Investments has chosen to base its new offices around a breakout area – the “trunk” from which everything else branches out – to breed a culture of interaction, collaboration and communication.

09

When Geyer Design approached the brief it had been delivered by Singapore’s Eastspring Investments (part of the Prudential Group, but known as Prudential Asset Management at the time) it took a very organic approach to the job at hand. As Kahn Yoon, designer, associate and partner of Geyer Design Singapore, explains, “We used the concept of a young growing tree with deep roots to inform our design details and language.” Yoon headed up a team that included designers Serene Wong and Matilda Sung, which was charged with the task of creating a new headquarters for the firm over two floors of a Singapore office block. “They envisioned a workspace that reinforced a unique Asset Management identity while acknowledging the stability and tradition of the bigger Prudential organisation,” says Yoon.

The tree concept can be seen in both the warmth of the materials used and in the design details. At the design’s core is a main staff breakout area that is accessible from the lift lobby that functions, on level 31 and 32 of the building, as the space’s “tree trunk” and focal point – with all the other aspects of the office branching from it.

This breakout area is visible to all visitors from the main reception area, thereby “elevating the culture of interaction and communication”, says Yoon. A staircase links straight into the breakout area from below so that facilities are easily shared between the two floors. The area has

Boiling Point Issue 18

zipindustries.com

“People gravitate to the interaction space for casual discussion, lunch and events”

proven enormously successful. “People gravitate to the interaction space for casual discussion, lunch and company events,” he says. Although the space really comes into its own at “morning tea time and lunch”, he adds, and has been expressly designed to “accommodate the rush for coffee, tea and chilled water with two Zip HydroTap systems of the largest capacity provided.” An additional unit has been installed in the client service area and at an additional breakout area pantry to “provide quick access to the staff on half of level 31”.

“The company values the welfare of their staff and wanted to create an environment that inspired trust in their people and growth of the company,” says Yoon. It’s the staff-centric

approach that also led to creating working floors that determinedly didn’t represent “a sea of workstations” – instead featuring coloured panels, column and whiteboard details and “cross circulation aisles wherever the space allowed,” Yoon adds.

But this commitment to breeding a culture of communication and interaction can really be seen in the provision of an innovative floor plan that has a large welcoming space as its “trunk”, calculated to engender close collaboration over a glass of chilled/filtered water or a steaming cup of tea.

Geyer Design (65) 6594 9355 geyer.com.au

11

The beat goes on When one of the music industry’s big names decides it’s time for a new office, you can be assured the outcome is not going to be run-of-the-mill.

The music business used to be known as an industry with edge, attitude and a taste for excess. The only trouble is however – at least in this the age of downloadable music and diminishing returns – that it’s now a business that’s still driven by creativity and that retains enormously high expectations, yet everything now has to be realised on a tighter budget than in the days of the stretch limousines.

EMI, one of the most respected labels in the music business, is no different – complicated by the fact that the company looked like it was about to undergo a complex ownership change just as they decided they desperately needed to move.

EMI Words: Guy Allenby Photography: Tyrone Branigan Interior Designer: The World is Round

Not, you would imagine, the ideal conditions for creating a brand new working environment.

Then again, as designer Andrew Cliffe of The World is Round explains, “They wanted to get in before that [the change of ownership] was formally announced because if it had been announced before they had moved, they would

13

never have moved”. This also meant that Cliffe came on board early enough in the piece to help choose the ideal site.

EMI and Cliffe settled on one on Flinders Street in the inner-Sydney suburb of Surry Hills – one previously occupied by furniture showrooms designed in 1990 by Burley Katon Halliday (BKH).

The fundamental brief, Cliffe explains, was for a space that “showcased EMI’s position in the market as being very open, transparent, friendly and inviting”. All on a budget that was “ruthlessly scrutinised” by an overseas head office. “EMI’s objective was to create a place of work that celebrated inspiration and imagination,” says Cliffe. Simply put: they understand that creativity breeds creates creativity.

In more practical terms EMI’s requirements were to have ten separate offices for each of the record company’s department heads, as well as open eating and entertaining areas, a traditional boardroom and meeting rooms.

“The idea was to keep it as honest and as raw and as clean as possible,” says Cliffe. So the first thing done was to strip it back to the bare bones of the original BKH design.

“The planning principles were maximising the amount of natural light, making sure the offices were pushed to the core and that people sitting at workstations had access to as much natural light as possible,” Cliffe adds. Knoll workstations were specified, without screens dividing them.

All finishes, products and engineering “were continuously tested to ensure their alignment with EMI’s goals of green design,” says Cliffe.

Take for instance the provision of instant boiling and chilled water. As it turned out, BKH design had specified Zip HydroTap systems in the original design. “They were 22 years old and they were so happy with the way that they worked and were maintained and looked after that they went out and bought [them] again,” says Cliffe.

Indeed it was a decision in perfect accord with a commitment to an approach that took into account everything from minimal lighting and power use to “recycling, photocopy tracking, floor kill switches to turn off standby power and top of the line air con unit,” says Cliffe, “all to ensure EMI’s continuous dedication to social responsibility.” Success without the excess.

The World is Round (61 2) 9365 1414 theworldisround.com.au

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Australia Zip Heaters (Aust) Pty Ltd +61 2 9796 3100 zipindustries.com

New Zealand Zenith Heaters +64 9 838 8612 zenithheaters.co.nz

United Kingdom Zip Heaters (UK) Ltd +44 870 608 8888 zipindustries.co.uk

Singapore Multico Building Products +65 6283 8888 multico.com.sg

Also in: Europe (Germany), Africa, Asia Pacific – Philippines, Thailand, Taipei, Taiwan Published by Indesign Group (61 2) 9368 0150, info@indesign.com.au © Zip Industries Publisher: Raj Nandan Operations: Adele Troeger Editorial: Guy Allenby and Nicky Lobo Production: Shannon Smith Design: Emma Warfield Zip Industries: Murray Pope Zip Industries and the publisher hereby disclaim, to the full extent permitted by law, all liability, damages, costs and expenses whatsoever arising from or in connection with copy information or other material appearing in this publication, any negligence of the publisher, or any person’s actions in reliance thereon. Inclusion of any copy information or other material must not be taken as an endorsement by Zip Industries. Views expressed by contributors are personal views and are not necessarily endorsed

by Zip Industries. The terms ‘Zip’, ‘Hydroboil’, ‘HydroTap’, ‘Power-Pulse’, ‘Chilltap’ and ‘Chill Fountain’ are trade marks.

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