The proposed Mako Network’s four star Green Star New Zealand corporate headquarters is a response to strict operational and security protocol, and the client’s desire to encourage social interaction within the fast-growing international company. The result is a conceptually driven metaphorical design response to the social effect of technology on the modern working environment, and how built and virtual space is now perceived and occupied.

In today’s modern workplace, the primary space for communication, interaction, and exchange of information occurs inside cyberspace, currently known as the “Cloud,” creating a social phenomenon where human interaction occurs through a virtual interface. As a consequence, the real or built reality and the human interface become secondary to the virtual.

The challenge was to counter this social phenomenon by transposing the perception of what is virtual and what is real by architecturally constructing the virtual, and deconstructing the real.

Therefore, the various secure administrative, laboratory, programming, research, and library spaces have been programmed into two conceptually deconstructed pixelated buildings organised around a central translucent atrium housing the public reception, cafe, and break-out lounges. Symbolically, the atrium is the virtual “Cloud”, a built forum for the exchange of information and ideas as well as a catalyst for social interaction.

Visual transparency and vertical and horizontal circulation permeating through the “Cloud” promotes visual awareness and further encourages physical interaction, collaboration, and social networking between the various departments and 200 employees.