New Zealand Commercial Design Trends Series NZ Commercial Design Trends Vol. 35/01C | Página 12

developed the office building above those.” This north side of the site now forms The Grove dining precinct, including grassed and landscaped areas for public use, and a quirky sound shell by Wraight & Associates that opens to provide a stage for entertainers, and provides a wind break function. Soder says No.1 Sylvia Park needed to be designed as a landmark building rather than the typical office park building. “It’s in a retail environment – with a lot of fashion retail. When you buy something like perfume, it comes in a beautiful bottle and is wrapped with beautiful packaging. “The building itself is cuboid, and we looked at the search | save | share at envelope and how we could wrap and package it.” The result is a building with four distinct facades. But these are not just decorative, surface treat- ments – instead they are integral to the design and functioning of the building. To gain as much space as possible for the new dining precinct, the building was pushed as close as possible to the south of the site, adjacent to the motorway overpass running in an east-west direction. “So we placed the core on the south side, and this facade is quite solid with few openings. But it has strong black and white projections forming bay windows looking east and west to pick up on the directional movement of the traffic.” Below:The north facade is a fully glazed curtain wall, with horizontal black and white sun louvres. Three food and beverage outlets at ground floor help integrate the new building into the centre’s existing dining options. Facing page:A grassed and landscaped plaza on the north side of No.1 Sylvia Park provides an attractive outdoor public space, as well as being a venue for entertainment.