NAB 3 Parramatta Square

Completed in 2020, NAB 3 Parramatta Square (3PS) is a 13 level, 35 000sqm adaptable workplace that responds to NAB's vision to 'deliver an authentic and agile workplace experience that enables and empowers our business, people, customers and communities to realise their potential and maximise performance.’ The workplace is located in the heart of greater Sydney, central to one of Australia's largest urban renewal projects, the Parramatta Square precinct. The integrated fitout project was designed and delivered by Woods Bagot in parallel with a new NAB workplace offer in Sydney’s CBD, NAB 2 Carrington St (NAB 2CS), leveraging intelligence from the transformational NAB 700 Bourke St project in Melbourne. Together, these buildings form a consolidated NAB Sydney campus accommodating over 6,000 desks across all business functions and provide a unique opportunity to boldly transform NAB's customer experience, by being highly connected to both its current and emerging customer base. Consideration of the relationship between the two sites as well as their unique locational attributes and demographics played a pivotal role in the design process, to ensure a distinct yet unified solution for each. The design response for the NAB 3PS project was informed by an ‘emerging’ project persona, in contrast to the ‘respected’ persona of its NAB 2CS counterpart. The ‘emerging’ theme focussed on creating a raw, surprising, authentic aesthetic, representative of the greater Sydney context and a culturally diverse demographic. Movement, spatial distribution and forms within the interior create a bold and interactive experience by intersecting and layering space. The lower levels of the building encourage engagement with the public realm, deliberately 'lifting the curtain' on the inner workings of the bank by drawing the customer and community inward and providing a range of immersive spaces to enable connection and co-creation, as well as accessible amenity for staff. On the upper levels, the workplace design evolves the existing NAB workplace strategy by providing a diversified suite of spaces and offering a superior level of amenity for the bank's support staff, who comprise a large proportion of the building's population. A unified experience is created, both physically and visually, through the introduction of dramatic interventions to the base building ceiling on each floor and a dynamic 'red thread' stair, commencing at the ground plane and traversing through a large central atrium to connect all 13 levels of the tenancy, fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration. The workplace demonstrates NAB's commitment to sustainable communities and holistic wellbeing through the inclusion of a range of outdoor spaces for work and social activities, a dedicated staff support and wellness suite, integrated internal planting and environmentally conscious materials selection. The fitout was designed to achieve 6 Star Green Star, 5 Star NABERS and Gold WELL ratings. The design supports changes in how project teams are working today with an adaptable and unified space that fosters a culture of innovation and collaboration, serving the organisation within and the surrounding community, allowing genuinely meaningful partnerships to be built for the benefit of all.