Flinders Gate: NextHome

John Holland have been instrumental in creating the built environment of Melbourne, Australia and thus, their new headquarters “NextHome” is in Melbourne’s heart opposite the iconic Federation Square on Flinders Street. The design-thinking strategy considered time, space, and human engagement in an ongoing dialogue with nature, with seasons, the profitable undertakings of the business, and the agency of those people to create the best possible journey. The project brief was to reflect a workplace that is welcoming, healthy, happy, productive, and connected. Creating this agile, people centered and meaningful environment required an attuned understanding of their fresh vision as well as innovative design thinking that focused on the development of a community which reached beyond desks, teams, and walls and into Purpose. John Holland’s aspiration to “Transform Lives” reflects their importance in the Victorian community. NextHome, will over the coming years, house countless industry events inviting peers, collaborators, educators, community leaders, graduates, students, and general members of the public. NextHome showcases the importance of where, how, and why we gather. Raw steel work on columns, complete with builder’s survey marks and the palimpsest of process remind the team that their business is about construction- the contrast from finish to raw is a welcome connection from ivory tower to coalface, and keeps the process and practice of John Holland connected to the purpose. The porosity and the emphasis on the importance of human interaction through the design features will revitalise a workforce that is ready to reconnect in the new COVID normal we live in. NextHome is where the John Holland family can work, breathe, gather, and create in harmony, with choice and independence enhanced in settings and spaces. The weaving diagonals that underpin this project enhance and guide the individual’s journey through the office space, encouraging serendipitous interactions and experiences, adding a porosity and adventure to the otherwise deep floor plate. The axial vistas frame key views, encourage intuitive way finding, and allow daylight to penetrate throughout. Consistent curved terminations to the glazing and wall battens enhance connection and flow of energy and people in the space, always inviting exploration and efficiency in movement, with no sharp stressors present. Like the night sky stars that sailors once navigated by, the ceiling treatments in NextHome are designed as clear way-finding visual and acoustic guides that delineate walking paths, communal gathering spots and even quiet moments. Timber-look battens are suspended above the ‘streets’ and a digitised ‘cloud’ formation of acoustic ceiling tiles differentiate the workstation zones, with circadian task lighting suspended on the meshing orientation of desk lines below. NextHome features biophilia in both planning and planting- through living flow paths, an ecology of spaces, and directly in the vegetation featured in the atrium verandahs, in the atrium green wall and distributed in office planters throughout.