End User

February 1, 2018

Top Sustainability Trends for 2018

To state the obvious, 2017 was quite the unpredictable year. While sustainable business leaders and climate advocates knew there’d be inevitable changes with a new U.S. presidency, few could have anticipated just how volatile the past 12 months were. From the U.S. federal administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord to the Environmental Protection…

January 23, 2018

Pantone’s 2018 Colour of the Year: Ultra Violet

Over the years, Pantone’s Colour of the Year has reflected a cultural alignment with a specific colour’s meaning. Every year is pivotal, but the significance of 2017 lingers as we open 2018 with new intentions. Ultra Violet is a unique selection from the Pantone Colour Institute. It’s a manifestation of cultural, political and social elements rather…

January 4, 2018

Q&A: How to Inject Critical Brand Values Into a Space

Designed by Andrew Tu’inukuafe and the Creative Spaces team, the Lion’s new HQ in Freemans Bay, Auckland is a solid example of design’s ability to speak the language of a brand and its space. We sat down with Andrew to discuss the project. What was the overall the design objective and brief for the Lion’s HQ project?  Lion…

October 24, 2017

What is Sound and Why Does it Matter?

Sound – especially sound in the spaces where we work – affects us far more than you might think. When it comes to designing interior spaces, acoustic considerations are often put aside or completely ignored in favour of purely visual aesthetics. However, condemning office workers, hospital staff, students and teachers, guests in hotels and even…

September 29, 2017

The True Cost of Noise

Dead silence can be an intimidating working environment. Some sound in any workplace is generally desirable: pleasing background sounds like the gentle, indecipherable babble of colleagues speaking, one’s own choice of music or perhaps the sounds of nature coming through an open window. However, much of the sound in typical workplaces is undesirable: ringing phones,…

September 22, 2017

Using the BRE Biophilic Office Project to Study the Benefits of Biophilic Design

Biophilic Design as a key aspect of health and wellbeing is moving up the built environment agenda fast – and for good reason. With high rates of urbanisation, a rise in stress related illness and an increasing level of technological proliferation – it seems that we are moving ever further from the natural elements that…