Asia & The Gulf Commercial Design Trends Asia Commercial Design Vol. 30/9 | Page 82

Project
Grant Thornton House podium

Location:
Wellington

Architect:
Athfield Architects

LIFE BLOOD
Boasting a contemporary profile and transparent, engaging aesthetic, the
reinvented Grant Thornton House opens up to shoppers at street level

Historically, Wellington grew up as a city of
public servants, not shoppers, and impersonal
streets were home to grey suits and little else.
Decades on, the capital has a pedestrian life to rival
New York – bustling, vivacious, and ready to spend.
To further this trend, the Wellington City Council
(WCC) has designated some thoroughfares in the
capital as premier, as noted in the WCC Public
Space Design Manual: “Premier streets are the
spine of the central city network. They carry a high
pedestrian volume, with comparatively low traffic
movement. The interface on these streets tends to
be characterised by small unit, ground-floor shops.”
Lambton Quay, the golden mile of Wellington retail,
is one such premier street named in the document.
Taking a key position on the corner of Lambton
Quay and Featherston St, the existing ANZ Podium
and Tower was a purpose-built banking head office
designed in the ’80s. However, despite its location,
the building added little but mirrored glass and a
toilet hub to the heart of the CBD.

A transformation of this landmark building,
renamed Grant Thornton House, has made the
tower’s 13 floors of office space more accessible,
and so more attractive, to tenants. It has also
brought the podium to life from the ground up.
The podium redevelopment was undertaken by
Athfield Architects. Project architect Neil Drummond
says several elements were addressed.
“We created a new office entry from Featherston
St, replacing the old corner entrance with one halfway along the building. The relocation made this
access more prominent, which was part of the brief
from the building owner, Willis Bond & Co.
“The new doorway connects through to the
Lambton Quay entrance, establishing a spacious,
light pedestrian cross-link between the two. This
facilitates movement through the building, and
provides improved access into the tower lobby,
also upgraded, and the tower itself.”
The open lobby, at the heart of the cross-link,
features a panelised system of full height, stainless

Before

Preceding pages, below left,
and right:The curving glass
nose of the podium of Grant
Thornton House – previously the
ANZ Podium and Tower – fills out
a premium retail corner that once
accommodated a block of public
toilets (below left). This was one
of several changes to the building
to utilise this key shopping area
in the capital. A new horizontal
canopy turns upwards to signal
the entrances. This carries the
naming tenant’s signage.
Below:Before-and-after floor
plans show how the foyer now
snakes through from one side of
the triangular block to the other,
with the lobby of the refurbished
tower in the middle.

After

Before

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