Offices are funny, organic creatures. Staff join, create systems, file papers, leave. New staff then inherit systems and papers and objects, unsure of whether these are important or not, then they eventually leave. On and on this goes so that an office has a detritus consisting of years of ideas, plans started and never followed through, outdated paperwork and odd objects without a real purpose but surely too good to throw out. So it was with AGM Publishing, publisher of niche design titles such as Architecture NZ, ProDesign, Landscape Architecture, Houses and Urbis. Twenty years in the same space provided innumerable boxes of decaying papers, unascribed slides from before the switch to digital photography and old magazines stretching back to the 1920s. The space had begun to sag around us, and a move upstairs gave us the opportunity not only to clean out the accumulation of decades past, but also to draw together some of the design contacts we have been built over the years to create an office that reflected the design content of the magazines.

Workstations, from Furniture Lab, have defined areas for each of the teams — sales, administration, the design studio and editorial — and screening devices such as the Algue from Cite and architectural greenery from Ambius separated out areas within those divisions.

Colour was one of the key design intentions that has been drawn throughout the spaces — from the glossy yellow partitions in the desking systems and the bright orange wall at the end of the design studio, to the stools by Simon James in the kitchen, and the art works, supplied by Art Associates. Visitors to the AGM offices will get to experience a moment of design luxury with classic armchairs and coffee tables from Corporate Culture. The spaces in which we work are so intrinsic to how we work, and so surely, with the injections of energetic colour into calm functional spaces, our magazines will be that much more energetic and functional as well. Here’s hoping!

Credits: Architectural firm Catalyst; Flooring InterfaceNZ; Workstations FurnitureLab; Office chairs Formway, Herman Miller; Reception furniture Ray chairs, white Bond table, Carl Hansen CH07 chair and Lisa Vincintorio Array Table from Corporate Culture; Feature hanging divider Vitra Algue from Cite; Kitchen furniture Pedro bar stools from Simon James, Daylight chairs from UFL, Mobile Storage Lundia; Wallcoverings Fabric from Mokum; Feature lighting LZF Lamps I-Club and Pod,  from UFL; Feature wall (reception) Retroblocks; Lighting Thorn; Trunking PSL; Hardware and taps Häfele; On-bench hot and cold water Merquip; Paint Resene; Ceiling Tiles Acoustic tiles from Asona; Directory Board Rocket Signtists; Frosting Rocket Signtists; UV window protection Rocket Signtists; Blinds NZ Window Shades; Kichen cabinets Superior Kitchens; Appliances Fridge from Award Appliances; Plants Ambius; Art Art Associates

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The design practice Penttinen Schöne was founded in 2009 by Emma Penttinen and Phillip Schöne. Emma Penttinen, originally from Finland  has diverse design experience having published and edited a bespoke art title, falter magazine, and worked for architects such as Foster and Partners. Originally from New Zealand, Phillip Schöne has realised a wide range of architectural projects as director at David Long Architects and previously at McDowell Benedetti Architects, where he was project architect for the Castleford Footbridge.

Project description: This inflatable space can be deployed in as little as two hours for use in events, community activities, and festivals. The design features brightly coloured windows, a mesmerizing internal space with unique pattern design, and an intriguing outer shape. The inflatable was born of a commission by Essex County Council for an interactive arts project by "The People Speak", an artist collective whose projects aim to bring people together to have discussions, play and make decisions in an open-ended and fun way. It was built by Inflate and you can visit the website to check out some other examples of inflatable architecture and other fantastical things filled with air. (Note: let it load.)

The project was set up in reaction to the lack of community space on the estate and to the disruptions caused by an ongoing regeneration process. It grew out of extensive discussions and activities with local residents, facilitated by The People Speak. These included the dynamic 'Talkaoke' — a live, television-style talk show where participants are invited to air their views around a chat table.  Unusually, the purpose and function of this unorthodox community space has evolved in parallel with the design process. Its flexible nature has led to the inflatable being fully integrated into and owned by the community it was built for.

Drawing from ideas used in 'pop-up' design, the structure is both mobile and temporary, using strong design features to provide an instant sense of place and identity. As an enhancement of the inflatable, multi-purpose pavilion, a tool-kit of interactive media has been developed using soundscapes and lighting. The inflatable made its debut hosting a community event on 2 October 2010 on the Craylands Estate in Basildon, Essex, where it was enthusiastically welcomed by the local residents. In addition to its local community use, the inflatable is available for hire by contacting The People Speak.

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Architect’s notes: The interior design at Telecom Place was a real collaboration of architecture and workplace design skills. Design director Andrew Barclay, from Warren and Mahoney, says: “The design team involved in the primary physical design of the interior architecture included architect Blair Johnston and interior designer Asha Page who generated the concept of coloured glass vertical fins to frame the client touchdown spaces on the arrival floor. The ability for clients and Telecom people to meet and work in easily accessible ‘neutral’ territory was essential to the new and open way in which the company wanted to do business.”

This concept supplements the other much more secure meeting suite and boardroom which is concierge-monitored and completely discreet.

The key to translating the Telecom brand into built reality lay to some extent in the establishment of a natural and tactile material palette. “The stone floor slabs, the timber battened ceilings and the selection of colours all echo the New Zealand character without direct reference to imagery. The idea is to allow for change and interpretation throughout the life of the tenancy,” says Blair Johnston.

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It seems weird. An attractive, north-facing character building in the middle of the city … with derelict rooms and a former nightclub downstairs stuffed with debris.
It’s not hidden down some dank alley, either, but has an entrance on gentrified High Street, and a well-established and popular café-bar on the first floor.

The building’s relationship with the creative industries also goes back a few decades. The club, Cause Celebre, broke new acts there. Bono and Public Enemy partied there. In the 1980s, The Listener had offices, and Pavement was based there until its demise in 2007. Indie record labels Propeller and huh! called it home, as did a chunk of the local film industry.

The current tenants include architecture practices and music studios, and recently, the top floor was taken over by an arts collective. In any other city, it would be considered an asset to the area’s development, a much-loved, multi-use building embodying the kind of hip cultural credentials and sense of place councils and developers give themselves a hernia trying to retroactively create.

Which doesn’t explain why, when The Research Agency first clapped eyes on their new office at 35 High Street, it looked like a squat from the Trainspotting set. “It was a total shambles,” says architect Jose Gutierrez. “The concrete floor was actually breaking apart. It was in a real state.” Not only that, but a fake wall had been erected over the bank of north-facing windows, blocking out the light.

However, the company was still keen. While The Research Agency works with corporate clients, director Andrew Lewis was looking for a space that had soul and reflected the boutique character of the company. After removing the false wall, Gutierrez was left with a decent open space, dotted with the thick supportive columns characteristic of older buildings, and two banks of windows, one to the north, and one east over Freyberg Place.

Having previously worked in London on a series of idiosyncratic spaces within heritage buildings and terraced houses, this was familiar territory for him. A series of spatial analyses established a reception area, workstations for 10 people, and a separate boardroom that would also seat 10. A casual ‘ideas space’ with low seating, and a place the staff could eat lunch and have drinks — something other than your typical office cupboard-sized kitchenette — were also on the board, as well as a back office and substantial storage.

The office’s natural light was now one of its best assets — however, the view, of a tired old mansard roof next door, was not. The Research Agency logo is an empty billboard framework, the idea being that the agency provides the content “behind the billboard”. Gutierrez extrapolated this concept to the interior design of the reception area, now designated the “first impression” space: “I wanted to let light in but screen the view. The company filters information, so in a way I used the architecture to explain what they do,” he says.

The raw steel frame he designed will rust over time, while the shadows and patches of light it casts constantly change. “You can imagine an empty billboard in the American desert with cars whizzing past — those were the connotations I used,” says Gutierrez, who replaced the crumbling floor with a FactioStone carpet of glossy black pebbles bonded with resin, giving it the look of a highway slick with rain. It also adds an unusual texture and warmth to the space, so much so that the staff sometimes walks around with bare feet.

The boardroom, where the agency presents its work to clients, was “totally pimped out,” says Gutierrez. The stark black-white colour scheme extended to black ceiling, the glossy surface of which reflects light around the room. “The consensus is that ceilings should never be black, but for me it had to be,” he says. “It makes the space what it is.” A row of Goldie-style portraits of prominent city fathers floats over hanging fabric on one wall. Logan Campbell presides, wielding a retractable four-colour Biro: to play on the idea of Victorian stuffiness, they were PhotoShopped to contain modern ephemera like iPods and tattoos. Similarly, the chairs reference old boardroom style, but are of modern design.

In the main work area, ceiling panels were crucial to the acoustics of the newly open-plan space, and also hide electrical conduits. Gutierrez designed the desks with a linoleum surface that acts as one big mouse pad, and joinery that makes them appear to float. The bespoke “beam of light” above ties the space together visually. His other signature touches include using filing cupboards and the bar island as sculptural elements that integrate extensive storage space. In the casual lounge area, a whole wall has been covered in whiteboard material for easy note-taking, which now adds a personal, dynamic element, while the kitsch lightbulbs from Dark arranged randomly above it break up the otherwise strict order of the plan. Elsewhere, small details, like the metallic finish inside the casement windows, add to the newly high-spec feel of the previously neglected space.

Selected Credits:

Architect Jose Gutierrez
Client The Research Agency
Project Manager Jose Gutierrez
Fit-out contractor Tulp & Walker
Paint Resene
Flooring Spec-Tec International Coatings
Lighting Aesthetics Lighting
Ocasional furniture Robyn Skeates Office Interiors
Textiles Mokum

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‘Accountant’ and ‘architect’ may be close together on an alphabetical list of careers in your school guidance counsellor’s office, but in the reductionist world of small-minded stereotyping where I spend most of my time, they couldn’t be any further apart.

Think architect, and you might imagine a man in his mid-40s in a New York loft-style office. He sips a short black and looks like he is waiting to record a Nivea for Men commercial. There is a gap on his black-rimmed spectacles where the brand should be, because the fashion house they’re from is too exclusive for you to have even heard of. But think accountant, and you conjure a pallid ectomorph in a short-sleeved business shirt. His clammy palm re-adheres a disobedient comb-over to his scalp as he pores over a stack of papers. He is working late and his wife is out with another man.

These are of course caricatures, but a healthy dose of cool for modern accountancy firms like Grant Thornton can’t hurt to banish this unfortunate reputation and attract talented young graduates. Enter Paul Leuschke from Leuschke Kahn Architects.

As soon as Leuschke and I step out of the lifts at Grant Thornton’s Auckland offices it’s clear the cuckold from my vision is a relic. The reception displays the dynamic-purple Grant Thornton logo and I feel a sudden jolt of recognition as I realise the receptionist is the ‘woman in a gigantic bathtub’ my horoscope said I would encounter that day. The tub-shaped desk is daring for an accountancy firm, but seems appropriate for the current economic climate – nearly all businesses are taking a bath, and if yours is, you might just find yourself at this very reception desk for an audit of your practices.

The colour scheme in the lobby is intriguing. The wooden wall panels are painted a mix of rusty oranges, yellows and browns and emboldened by the liberal application of shellac furniture polish. The concept behind the 51 panels was the "we see things differently" campaign out of Auckland ad agency Tequila, which used clever typography to turn numbers into letters. Architect Paul Leuschke had taken Tequila’s original idea and brought it to the big screen, as it were, enlisting the colour palette and sometime sign writing of Auckland abstract artist Richard Adams. Adams sat down with Wayne Pick, the art director from the original ads, and set about coming up with a design for the wall. The scale of the task might be hard to grasp from the photos, but the four months it took from conception to completion should be testament enough.

The end result though, is stunning. The rich, dark hues impart the requisite sobriety of an accountancy firm that must live or die by its reputation in the marketplace. Then somehow, the playful application of glossy oranges and yellows quietly reminds you where you are. You’re not in a high-rise mausoleum with a name like Hammerstein, Rothschild & Trotter on the door. And you’re not in the land of perpetual adolescence you’d find in a hip ad agency (or ideas shop, or whatever it is they call themselves nowadays). You’re somewhere in between: a place where decorum and décor exist in equal measures; a place where they find the balance between being good with numbers and simply being a number.

Leuschke and I explore the meeting rooms behind the bathtub. He describes the logistical features as I admire the view of the oak trees in Victoria Park. There is a side entrance so staff don’t have to walk through reception en route to meetings, and each meeting room has a differing level of formality to suit different clients and situations. Back in the waiting area, Paul points out that the furniture has been selected and arranged in a similar fashion to the meeting rooms – each of the three 'chairscapes' represent low, medium and high levels of formality. A visitor is bound to feel at ease when given that degree of flexibility. I’m keen to try out the nearby coffee machine, which looks capable of time travel in the right hands, but alas, duty calls.

Behind the scenes, the theme of flexibility and seeing things differently continues. The main boardroom has an impressive multi-media centre suspended from the high stud. Along the walls are cartoon drawings of each partner, cruelly highlighting their various and numerous imperfections. Leuschke tells me it’s a company tradition to keep new partners’ feet on the ground. I am beginning to warm to the place and regret not taking my CA exams or, for that matter, even a solitary accounting paper.

The big screen in the staff cafeteria shows a European Champions League game, even though no one appears to be watching. Another one of the time-travelling coffee machines sits expensively on the counter waiting for someone to accidentally punch in the coordinates to 1985 and plummet four floors to a bloody death for lack of a building to support them. A long line of bi-fold doors turns the café into a catering hub for functions held in the adjacent seminar room. A circular mechanism that looks like something for getting water out of a fire hydrant turns out to be a key for unlocking the line of doors. I comment on the layout of the office space and Leuschke replies modestly, “It’s all quite logical really. But of course it’s a logic that takes about two or three months to discover.”
We move down the hallway past pieces of parochial sporting memorabilia. A signed photo of Zinzan Brooke is made out to the good people at the more vernacular Brown, Woolley, Graham – Grant Thornton New Zealand’s former incarnation.  As we head for the lifts, I can’t help but wonder – despite the sleek workplace and state-of-the-art espresso facilities – if it's because Grant Thornton has never lost its essential empathy for New Zealand businesses – its Brownwooleygrahamness – that it really sees things differently.

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‘Art is never finished, only abandoned’, goes the pithy (yet slightly cynical) one liner. Would that the line would relate equally as aptly to architects and their own homes, or perhaps offices — places of constant tinkering and invention; laboratories of architectural ideas. Jasmax’s new-ish Parnell office might well be a laboratory of architectural ideas; the multitude of staff hunkered down in what really is a jolly big open-plan studio certainly give the impression of minds at work.

New Zealand’s biggest architecture firm last year swapped the slightly more bohemian aspect of Newton for leafy Parnell. The shift wasn’t so much about image though, but the construction and design of one’s own offices does present opportunities for reflection on how one works and how one wishes to be perceived. In simple, commercial terms, the lease was up and the burning question was ‘stay or go?’

Jasmax director Tim Hooson says there were a number of motivating factors towards a move, despite strong emotional connections to Upper Queen St. For a man who has spent a fair amount of his professional life analyzing and advising on how to work best, it must have been interesting to turn the lens onto his own firm. Hooson, and project architect for the new building work, Chris Jack, mention that the motivating factor of a soon-to-expire lease also coincided with a burst of research the firm had then recently completed. Jasmax, they say, was interested in understanding how it might better unlock creative potential. Whether that was possible in its current premises was the question.

“Upper Queen St was fundamentally two buildings that were amalgamated into one with a whole new level put on top,” says Hooson. “At the time, Jasmax felt that it wasn’t going to be bigger than one level, and so the structure was purpose-designed with that in mind. But by the time they’d moved in they were on two levels, within 10 years we were over four levels.”

Resources were spent investigating what could be done to increase the potential of the existing building, but “it was impossible to get around the single biggest problem — the building had been conceived as a series of four levels, each level broken into two parts.

“As a consequence we’d ended up fragmented, with great individual team synergies in each space, but with limited inter-team working and knowledge-sharing. We did a range of schemes with the existing building, looking at how we could enhance it, and each time we tried to financially and commercially get those off the ground each one of them tripped over, mainly because the building that we were designing wasn’t suiting the market that it was geographically located in … 1400m2 floor plates went against the trend, and the building owner was struggling with that,” explains Hooson.

Eighteen months out from lease expiry, Jasmax checked the market and drew a blank.  Fourteen months from the lease termination, it became a case of “move quickly or stay put and make do”. An 18 month extension to the lease was negotiated, and the search began in earnest.

Chris Jack, not the All Black, but the architect, says the Parnell building they eventually discovered was previously an agricultural research company. When it started life in the 60s it was a Briscoes warehouse and distribution centre. That original structure was designed for storage — “a big multi-directional flat-slab structure with concrete columns through the lower levels”.

The problem was that it wasn’t big enough, but there was, he says, real potential out the back, where roughly a quarter of the site was covered with “ad hoc structures and machinery”, room for an extra 1000m2 of floorspace, which would make things work. It was also an opportunity to do something interesting in the field of adaptive re-use architecture.

Things moved quickly. The motivated building owner had a good relationship with construction company Naylor Love, bringing them into the mix and asking them to do some initial cost estimates. Within three weeks a basic structure had been sketched up, and the firm had entered into a GMP (Guaranteed Maximum Price) arrangement, a tripartite agreement . That relationship would prove a boon when it came to the task of environmentally ‘up-specing’ the building and implementing the interior design elements.

“The tripartite agreement was initially based on some hand sketches, some notes, and no real design as such,” says Hooson. There was however, plenty of flexibility.

“The real high points for me tie into the sustainability outcomes … the base agreement was set around some very ordinary market understanding — basic air conditioning to a certain degree of performance, for example.

“When we were able to step into it, we were actually able to shift a lot of the parameters within the budgets, especially with the other parties that were around us … We got a number of environmental measures in there that we had alluded to beforehand, but hadn’t secured in the original agreement.”

Jack says the base building elements are very much part of the internal aesthetic. “The mechanical and electrical services were fundamental to the building’s success. All the services were meant to be exposed, but the reality is when you expose services you’ve got to work them hard to make them look half decent, and make them do what they’re meant to do.”

So, at the end of the secondary design process, the architects had introduced a number of environmental measures by working closely with the constructors and the mechanical service engineers and off-setting costs in different areas — “doing these adds and deducts to keep the overall picture the same”.

Jerome Partington, sustainability manager at Jasmax, recently delivered a case study on the firm’s new office at the New Zealand Sustainable Building Conference. He says there were four key principles that helped guide decision making: do more with less energy and fewer resources; minimise waste and pollution and avoid the use of toxic materials; work to enhance and support natural systems; and educate ourselves, our community and partners to deliver a sustainable future.

“The design process was driven by a range of factors including; identified company requirements, Jasmax workplace design and green building experience, a sustainable vision of a new office, using the Green Star tool as guide and check, budgets and rent levels, and the aspirational relationship between Jasmax as the tenant, the landlord and contractor.”

Jasmax, he says, designs green buildings: “As a company that leads in this area it was important to demonstrate the best practice possible, to meet our own needs, those of potential clients and set a public benchmark.”

For two reasons, he continues, the office is not Green Star rated. The NZGBC Office Tool is intended as a whole building rating tool and Jasmax was only refurbishing 70 per cent of the building. Secondly, the firm was focusing on where it could achieve best outcomes. Rather than spreading efforts too thinly, or simply collecting credits.

“The evidence from the finished building points to a high quality, well performing workspace. The office demonstrates that good sustainable outcomes are achievable with a collaborative project partnership approach, by setting clear goals and allowing time to explore design options, and using tools as checklists.

“In the context of an existing building it was an opportunity to demonstrate how excellent practise and treating constraints as opportunities can encourage ‘thinking outside the box’ and better design solutions.”

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Warehouses, as their designation obviously denotes, are generally exercises in functionality, places where purpose wins out over possibility. It has to be said, there are few warehouses that make any memorable display of charm, outward or inward. But there’s always an exception, and Wingate+Farquhar’s Canada St warehouse and showroom is it — a functional space lavished with consideration. Neatly stitched into an unexpected location between a service lane and a hair salon at the fringe of a fringe part of town, this building’s commercial aspect is lightened with unexpected features.

For those unfamiliar with the locale, Canada St is spitting distance from Queen St and a stone’s throw from Newton. It’s the part of the CBD dealt an unfair hand by the northwestern motorway, to which it’s so very close it’s an unofficial slow lane. It’s also very close to the new cafés and stores of Cross St (and the older brothels). This is a regenerating part of town, especially since Ironbank took up its monumental position on K’ Rd, but it’s still debatable whether the suburb’s itinerant transvestite population has fully appreciated the architectural improvements to the neighbourhood. But let’s move swiftly on to Wingate+Farquhar’s contribution to the neighbourhood, which stands on a space that was in the 50s and 60s a motor repair business. More recently it was a silversmith and trophy engraving business, which latterly lent itself to the importation of cheap plastic trophies. The new building consists of two volumes — the showroom, aligned with Canada St and positioned on the street boundary for visibility, and the larger volume of the warehouse, which stretches back parallel to the service lane.

Blair Farquhar, director at W+F, says that most of the materials specified on this project are “no different to what would be used in a normal warehouse — they are resilient and hardwearing, pre-cast concrete, fibreglass cladding, plywood and steel”. The difference is that Farquhar has envisioned the use of these materials in a different way.

For instance, Farquhar’s application of a heavily textured finish to the precast concrete base of the building’s exterior is one subversion of the material palette. It’s a brutalist technique delivered from somewhere in the “deep recesses” of his memory, as he puts it. The rough, pitted surface is solidly interesting, and as Farquhar also mentions, it should prove a relatively unfulfilling canvas for any visiting street artists.
On the eastern, service lane side, of the building, the same pre-cast panels are punctuated with rectangular inserts of coloured glass. Swap the yellow glass for blue and this unexpected flourish could be quite De Stijl-ish, especially as the fenestrations are irregular in size and positioned non-symmetrically.

This concrete base proves a solid contrast to the shoji screen lightness of the showroom, which is clad with the one material that is unusual for a project such as this. Kalwall is an American building material that is insulating, light diffusing and translucent. The material’s appearance, with aluminium strengthening bars visible through the translucent skins, enlivens the cubic showroom day and night, and its performance is indicative of the environmentally conscious design process the architects put the building through with the assistance of eCubed, the services consultant on the project
Farquhar says that showrooms and retail premises can be problematic when it comes to energy efficiency and presentation of products; due to a reflection issue, double-glazing isn’t an option, and tinted glass can obscure products rather than enhance them. At Canada St, the Kalwall reduces heat-loss and attracts attention to the structure, while the aperture of the glazing allows passersby to “easily interpret the building and its functions”.

Glazing presents another efficiency benefit in the warehouse proper, with an expanse of automatically controlled louvred windows aiding natural ventilation. To accentuate this, Farquhar explains that part of the roof form of the warehouse has been designed with three ‘pop-up’ extract windows to facilitate natural ventilation. Other ESD techniques include the incorporation of translucent materials, reducing the need for artificial lighting, and minimisation of mechanical plant and equipment which allowed the architects to achieve a clean rooftop with all the plant concealed. On-site rainwater harvesting and solar water heating are other features.

Throughout the building, the materials are hard-wearing and simple. The lower areas of the warehouse volume are precast concrete, to protect the building from errant forklift work. The upper part of the warehouse is dual-skinned polycarbonate, for insulation and better storage conditions for products. The purposefully limited material palette uses plywood detailing around windows and in the in the upper office space and the lower kitchen amenities.

Farquhar says that like many commercial structures the building was designed to the parameters of the boundaries it inhabits, based on the levels of the buildings that existed prior to it, using materials common to the typology. There are many commercial buildings that are almost cynical in their expression. This is clearly different — a commercial structure built for the long haul and, importantly, also one that could be adapted for another purpose if continued changes to the surrounding neighbourhood dictate.

Selected credits:

Client Samson Corporation
Architect Wingate+Farquhar
Project manager Styles Project Management
Builder Macrennie Commercial Construction
Services consultant eCubed
Structural consultant Brown & Thompson
Window/door joinery Bradnams
Architectural hardware Wilson & Macindoe
Paint Resene
Flooring Polished Concrete; Interface NZ carpet
Lighting Concept Lighting
Precast concrete Wilco
Cladding Kallwall from Jacobsens; Profiled fibreglass cladding from Alysnite

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Howard Wright’s M8 critical care medical bed has won its fourth design award by winning the top award at the Australian International Design Awards on Friday, June 4.

To date, the M8 has also won the prestigious international iF design award, a Red Dot design award from the Germany-based Red Dot Institute, and an award in the Best Design Awards run by the Designers Institute of New Zealand.

The string of design awards for the innovative M8, and the number of Australasian orders, has proven that Howard Wright’s design-led approach is paying off, says Howard Wright’s chief executive officer, Bruce Moller.

“Howard Wright has always been focused on design innovation ever since the company produced the world’s first hydraulic operated medical bed back in the 1960s,” says Moller. "Since we undertook a Better By Design programme in 2005, the M8 has been the first medical bed that we’ve taken through a full design process involving more than three years of research and development with 10 prototypes.” (Studio Alexander was responsible for implementing brand strategy, identity and collateral design. Read the case study.)

With a design philosophy of “making human care easier”, what’s innovative about the M8 is that it allows for a wide range of procedures to be performed on the bed without the need to transfer the critical care patient.

A prime example is its radiolucent deck which allows X-ray and C-arm imaging capabilities without shifting the patient. Such attention to detail given to all aspects of the bed including its aesthetics, choice of materials, functionality, safety as well as comfort for all users of the bed, impressed the Australian design judges.

“Superb functionality, soft-touch surfaces and invited aesthetics are the culmination of a ground-up, human-centred approach to design,” commented the judges. “For a low production run product, the M8 intensive care bed represents the work of an exceptional company driven to lead by design.”

For Howard Wright’s research and development manager Anthony Batley, the M8 embodies Howard Wright’s simple, smart, human design approach.

“Our design process considered everyone who would come in contact with the M8 including the patient, the medical specialists, the orderlies and cleaners—even friends and family visiting the patient!” explains Batley.

An onboard rechargeable battery means the M8 can be wheeled into X-Ray and operated without having to be connected to an external power source. Once there, the M8’s unique telescopic pillars at either end of the bed, its asymmetric design and radiolucent deck mean the bed can be raised for X-ray and C-arm imaging capabilities without shifting the patient.

Using a simple keypad, its fully electric functionality means the M8 can be reconfigured to a cardiac chair, into trendelenburg or reverse trendelenburg positions, raise the lower leg or the upper body, or raise and lower the height of the bed overall.

With patient handling and lifting a key issue for medical professionals today, this means the M8 dramatically reduces the amount of manual handling for 99% of patients worldwide. This covers the shortest or smallest patients up to the largest and tallest patients at 250 kg in weight or up to 2.2 metres in height.

Moving and stabilising the M8 has also been made easier for the orderly and smoother for patient with the latest generation of Tente linea castors and a standard 5^th wheel. A central locking and braking system can be operated at either end of the bed.

A full range of accessories can also be bundled with the M8 such as IV poles, a monitor tray, and three sizes of oxygen bottle holders.

The M8’s design innovations have also been recognised with a good initial order book since it was officially launched late last year. In December, 2009, the M8 was selected as the sole provider in the Western Australian Public Health Unit’s (WAPHU) contract for critical care beds.

The WAPHU contract means Howard Wright is the sole preferred supplier for more than 170 critical care beds forecast over the next five years across the Western Australian Department of Health’s 11 main hospitals as well as regional health centres.

Howard Wright has also been named a preferred supplier with its M7 general ward bed, its M7 stretchers and examination couches, and for its PREMA Advanced III mattress.

In addition, the M8 has been ordered by Southern Cross Hospitals and the Hawkes Bay and Auckland District Health Boards.

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Supreme Award winner, Poppy Thai by Redesign.

The Auckland-based Gascoigne Associates has certainly carved out a retail nice, working with clients such as Glassons, Hallensteins, Rodd & Gunn, Hotel DeBrett, Nosh, Telecom, Toyota et cetera. His firm also recently worked on Dunedin mall project Wall Street, a large-scale retail project that comprised three buildings linked together via a large central atrium.

For the record, here's a list of some of Gascoigne's winning projects with selected images and judges' comments:

Telecom Botany retail space, Group Award, Leisure: Designed in conjunction with Saatchi Design Worldwide, this project also won the Sign of the Times Brand Application Award. Brand applications were designed by Designworks. Judges said the space was a "great example of brand integration into all the components of the store's design".

Telecom Botany by Gascoigne Associates.

Wild Pair Dunedin, Group Award, Personal.

Nosh Mt Eden and the Hotel DeBrett Atrium, Group Award, Nourishment category.

Hotel De Brett Atrium by Gascoigne Associates.

Glassons Riccarton,  Division Winner and Overall Winner in the Group Award, Personal category. Also won the Interface NZ Flooring Award for its patterned floor. Judges said, "The neutral colour palette works well for the merchandising of apparel and the display features enhance the eclectic chic; making the store and the product more desirable. It is a clever, appealing and unique retail response by a designer who clearly knows the market."

Glassons Riccarton by Gascoigne Associates.

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