Westpac Group is exploring a new workplace culture as well as creating an extended campus in Sydney’s new Barangaroo precinct.
March 28th, 2016
Good policy often only results once we have run out of easy off-the-peg labels. Westpac Group’s occupancy at Sydney’s new CBD precinct of Barangaroo is an excellent example of what happens when decisions are evidence-based rather than the usual ready-mades. It is true that Westpac occasionally use terms like ‘agile’, but their new workspace ─ 60,000 square metres over 27 floors or two-thirds of Rogers Stirk Harbour’s Tower Two ─ is actually the result of an inside-out, bottom-up process to arrive at a fit-for-purpose facility.
As Westpac’s Kristen Miller points out, what began as a property consolidation, ended up as a radical re-think of the group’s workplace culture, including the creation of a campus made up of Barangaroo and the nearby Kent Street building (2006) with interiors also by Geyer. Kent Street was already a flexible work environment, so it offered a good starting point and an easy transition to what is now a far more sophisticated strategy. “Our baseline was great,” says Geyer’s Melinda Huuk, “but we were able to enrich it.” The ergonomics, health and well-being, she points out, have gone up to a “whole new level”. Functionality, too, is impressive. Kristen points out that they have achieved 95% height-adjustability for their workstations, and by careful planning they have been able to achieve up to two additional floors of occupancy with very little change to the existing built environment.
Apart from Kent Street, Westpac already has other workplaces which mirror a long-standing company emphasis on flexibility with a large number of the company’s staff already working flexibly. So, says Kristen, the reality already existed and “we have now built another workplace that supports this with our people choosing where, when and how they wish to work
Read the full story in Indesign Issue #64, on sale now. Subscribe here.
Photography by: Richard Glover and Lendlease.
INDESIGN is on instagram
Follow @indesignlive
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
BLANCOCULINA-S II Sensor promotes water efficiency and reduces waste, representing a leap forward in faucet technology.
In this candid interview, the culinary mastermind behind Singapore’s Nouri and Appetite talks about food as an act of human connection that transcends borders and accolades, the crucial role of technology in preserving its unifying power, and finding a kindred spirit in Gaggenau’s reverence for tradition and relentless pursuit of innovation.
Schneider Electric’s new range are making bulky outlets a thing of the past with the new UNICA X collection.
Gaggenau’s understated appliance fuses a carefully calibrated aesthetic of deliberate subtraction with an intuitive dynamism of culinary fluidity, unveiling a delightfully unrestricted spectrum of high-performing creativity.
As nine new projects undergo construction in Brisbane, the Living in the City event will showcase the city’s place in the Asia Pacific region.
After receiving hundreds of submissions for Australia’s most influential awards program for design professionals, the Interior Design Awards has released its much anticipated shortlist for 2008. indesignlive.com has the list right here.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
In a market saturated with sameness, Studio P3 set out to raise the bar, creating four refined speculative suites for Mirvac in Sydney, with Milliken flooring playing an essential role in realising a space with broad appeal – all underpinned by a commitment to sustainability.
From public buildings to private dwellings, the 2025 Victorian Architecture Awards celebrated excellence across the board – here, we take a look at the major winners.
Striking a harmonious chord amidst the urban rhythm of Adelaide’s Festival Plaza, Flinders University’s new campus integrates meticulously crafted soundscapes that soothe the buzz of modern pedagogy, settling into the building’s multifaceted context.