First look: Inside new $300m Beca headquarters, Wynyard Quarter

For Beca chief executive Amelia Linzey, the statement feature wood stairs between floors of her new office are her biggest delight.

“This was the thing that was more exciting when it was finished,” she explains, pointing to the light-coloured pine mass timber structure that required clever engineering by Beca itself.

Linzey and Precinct Properties chief executive Scott Pritchard took the Herald on a tour of Beca’s new $300 million world headquarters, Te Paeroa o te Kawau (the shoreline of the kawau).

That name acknowledges that this site was once part of Te Waitematā and was frequented by the kawau (cormorant or shag) and features prominently in Ngāti Whātua’s stories of the area.

From February until March, the advisory, design, and engineering consultancy has moved 1400 staff from 21 Pitt Street (floor plate 2000sq m) to Beca House, its new Wynyard Quarter waterfront building at 124 Halsey St (floor plate 2800sq m).

Linzey said Project Momentum had resulted in the last group of 250 staff settling into the new offices spread across three separate but interconnected buildings, linked via air bridges, known to staff as Halsey East, Halsey West, and Pakenham.

Pritchard said one building on its own was too small for Beca “so we designed bridges part way through the process”.

Design or construction process?

“Both,” Pritchard said.

He paid special tribute to Warren and Mahoney design head Blair Johnston, saying Wynyard Quayside took many cues from that design practice’s neighbouring Auckland headquarters in the 1920s, character refurbished Mason Bros. building.

A team led by Kate Henderson of Warren and Mahoney also did Beca’s interior design.

Engineering-style features abound. Each floor has open storage for the staff’s orange and black-branded site safety equipment bags. Walls surrounding elevators are clad in silver cable trays, laid vertically rather than the usual horizontal. Ceilings are without linings or tiles but are open to display silver-clad services.

A ground-floor lobby café will open in May for the public and tenants, in a sunny spot facing east towards the city.

Carpet is a ‘70s-style orange and signs and bench-tops are made of recycled resin.

Beca wants a Platinum WELL certification of its fitout, which Linzey said was designed for staff health and wellbeing.

“We hope to be one of only a few Platinum-certified workplaces in New Zealand,” she said.

Precinct is also targeting a 6-Star Green Star rating for the building and a 5-Star NABERSNZ energy rating.

Halsey St-facing floor-to-ceiling glass doors open to decks and the level two boardroom has been used for the first time.

“This move is part of our wider transformation programme on how our people experience and enjoy their work,” Linzey said.

Moving to Wynyard Quarter into Warren and Mahoney-designed offices meant walking distance for many of its clients and other businesses Beca works with.

The new office design was strongly influenced by Beca’s work-sharing model across the Asia Pacific and took cues from Beca’s Melbourne office.

“We’re a global business and we work collaboratively on our projects across the various geographies we work in. Our new workplace is our global hub,” she said, telling of many meeting spaces, breakout areas and the lunchroom which accommodated around 100 recently for an online meeting.

In a hot-desking introduction, only 900 desks are provided because Linzey said only about 800 to 900 people would be at Beca House on a particularly busy day even though staff numbers are 1400.

“You can choose to sit with your team or elsewhere in the building. As well as flexible desks, there are lots of different kinds of places to work, like energy clusters when you want to collaborate, focus booths, quiet rooms, video conferencing rooms for when people need a well-equipped technical room to present across multiple national and regional locations,” she said.

Lunchroom/kitchen/dining areas, called the Heartspace, are on levels three, called Toki Kei Raro, and four, called Toki Kei Runga.

For Linzey, staff enjoying the new Heartplace/Toki Kei Raro kitchen and dining area delights: “One of the biggest cultural changes for me is you don’t eat at your desk”.

But it is those stylish timber stairs that remain the aspect she’s most surprised and thrilled about.

Beca House Te Paeroa o te Kawau

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 25 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.