Microsoft

Microsoft

Technology focussed inspired by nature

Microsoft’s new Australian Head Office located at 1 Denison Street in North Sydney, breaks away from a traditional workplace environment and is a fully immersive experience.

Drawing inspiration from Australia’s diverse and wild natural landscape, the workplace provides a journey of discovery. Parametric walls mimic the Figure 8 Pools, to cave-like huddles and tunnels of greenery.

The Environment

Spanning 10,000sqm across seven levels, the collective expertise of the design team has delivered a bold, future-shaping workspace that veers confidently away from the archetypal tech office.

Five work floors are linked by an interconnecting stair providing visual connectivity and encouraging collaboration through all levels. The stair is illuminated via a digital art installation that runs continuously throughout all floors and references Microsoft’s digital code.

The Concept

The headquarters has been designed as a platform for ongoing exploration, with a myriad of bespoke spaces that remove the familiar interpretation of a workplace — pushing boundaries with a wholly out-of-the-box solution.

Underpinned by a strong connection to the natural environment, this is a bold destination that surprises, inspires, and is conducive to future ways of working for the 1400 employees it accommodates.

The biophilic design evokes a connection back to nature while balancing heavily integrated technology.

Creative Execution

The environmental graphics are a complimentary overlay to the interior scheme to further harmonise the overarching conceptual themes. As each floor was designated a particular location within the Australian landscape, its unique geographic features were used as visual building blocks.

The derivation for the graphics language began with the main location, explored down to a micro level, and from there an abstract biophilic pattern was created in a way that was uniquely different from the others, but existed in a cohesive graphic family.

Executions were varied including printed glazing with privacy requirements, full-height walls and locker banks, to perforated FC sheeting in the boardrooms.

The environment delivers a benchmark outcome for Microsoft in the context of environmental performance and wellbeing, embedded with strong biophilic references throughout the finishes and environmental graphhics to benefit all users.

Elevating the concept of collaborative workspaces and delivering an industry exemplar in the provision of focus space for quiet concentration work, the design raises the technology workplace bar.

GroupGSA Graphics team:
Ant Newman – Graphic Lead
Barbara Beckmann – Senior Graphic Designer

Photography credits – Steve Brown

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