BVN’s National Director James Grose will take Australian and New Zealand workplace design to the world stage this week when he presents at the WorkTech 15 Conference in New York.
In adhering to the conference theme of “Transforming our Future Workplaces”, Grose’s presentation will focus on the future of financial workplaces, making reference to BVN’s ASB North Wharf Headquarters project in Auckland for case study material.
If his recent video presentation (see bottom) about the ASB North Wharf Headquarters is anything to go by, Grose’s presentation will touch on what he describes as a “shift” in workplace thinking that occurred in the first half of this century, which rethought the role of human experience in workplace design.
“Contemporary issues in making commercial office buildings…started in the year 2000, when workplace was identified, in the business world, very much as a business tool as opposed to an annoying facility that needed to be provided for people to sit in,” he explains in the video.
“The shift that happened during that first half of this century is the realisation that the value of people is equal to the value of most other things in corporations.”
Grose continues BVN’s recent participation in global workplace design forums, following Principal Bill Dowzer who last year delivered a keynote on Australian workplace design at the London Work Symposium.
The WorkTech 15 conference programme, to be held 14 May, will bring together industry professionals from around the globe who the organisers have described as being: leading international thinkers, industry strategists and radical visionaries.
A statement from BVN says that Grose’s invitation to the event, as well as recent requests to work on projects in other countries, shows that Australia is on the map when it comes to looking for precedential workplace design.
“[We are] receiving increasing enquiries from North American clients who have become aware of our workplace projects, through a combination of published stories and visits by international representatives for business purposes,” they say.
“Clearly Australian architects are seen to be at the leading edge of workplace design to warrant an invitation to address an audience of professionals in the Big Apple on the Conference theme of ‘Transforming our Future Workplaces’.”
