Firm on the crest of a wave
Leading New Zealand architecture and design firm Warren and Mahoney has reached a major milestone – it is now working on construction projects in Australia worth $1 billion.
It’s not a story, though, of taking the Australian market by storm.
It’s been a careful and patient journey to reach this point. And the numbers tell that story.
After eight years the company has 40 staff in Australia, split evenly between its Sydney and Melbourne offices (known as studios). About 80 per cent of them are Australian-born. The company has 300 employees in total.
‘‘The Australian market is notoriously difficult but we’re getting noticed by working in partnership with our clients to bring to life identity and belonging in our design,’’ managing director John Coop said.
The firm set up a Sydney studio in 2011 but had been working on projects in Australia for the likes of National Australia Bank and others for a few years. A Melbourne studio followed.
A ‘‘breakthrough moment’’ came last year when the company won a competition to design a 500-apartment complex for one of the world’s largest property companies, Lendlease, as part of its $1.2 billion Collins Wharf development Melbourne’s Docklands.
‘‘I think for our competition in Australia, they would have taken note at that point,’’ Coop said.
Australia has been a graveyard for gung-ho Kiwi companies unprepared for the tough environment and the depth and strength of competition.
Coop said the company’s expansion into Australia had been ‘‘careful and measured but successful’’.
The rationale was to create a better business rather than just a larger one, learn from a more sophisticated construction sector and to diversify its business away from a small and more volatile economy and construction sector.
Boom and bust cycles in a small market like New Zealand were quite destructive, forcing businesses to shrink and expand, Coop said.
Australia’s construction industry built faster and for less cost and was more productive, and Warren and Mahoney was bringing that experience back to its New Zealand business.
‘‘One of the reasons we are in Australia is to ensure we have broad diversity to sustain our momentum here in New Zealand and keep growing our team.’’
There was a lot of deep, specialised talent there which Warren and Mahoney had access to for large projects in New Zealand.
Australia should not be viewed as a one-dimensional market. There was an in intense rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne, for instance. A client in Melbourne was more likely to employ a Kiwi company than a Sydney one.
The company has a long and accomplished history in New Zealand. It was established in Christchurch by acclaimed architect Sir Miles Warren in 1955 and he was joined three years later by the recently-deceased Maurice Mahoney. Growth has been particularly fast in the past 10 years with opportunities in the Christchurch rebuild and in an expanding Auckland.
Skills and experience gained in substantial New Zealand projects like Commercial Bay and the New Zealand International Convention Centre in Auckland and several rebuild projects like the Justice Precinct in Christchurch were enabling them to foot it in Australia.
Much of its design work in Australia had been in collaboration with other architecture and design firms so the Lendlease win was a substantial milestone because it was done completely by the company.
The firm also had an executive architect role, working in close collaboration with designers A+ group, on the prestigious Sydney Landmark Tower.
Another major project was the $150m La Trobe University Sports Park where Warren and Mahoney was providing a master planning, architectural and interior design services from concept to delivery.
It had master planning and urban design work in Canberra for the ACT planning authority and some convention centre planning in Launceston, Tasmania.
It had worked on four projects with Melbourne developer Tim Gurner who cold-called the company after liking one of its Queenstown buildings. The projects included the Regent Residences apartments in Melbourne and the refurbishment of the city’s Spanish Club.
Coop said that in the past five years the Australian political and economic community had been showing a little more respect for New Zealand in a range of ways and they were open to the fresh thinking Warren and Mahoney brought to their projects.
A point of difference was the company’s more consultative approach and that was helping it make ground. He put that down to the consultation requirements of the Resource Management Act in New Zealand.
‘‘That approach, quite interestingly, is quite fresh in Australia.’’
It was the reason Warren and Mahoney won a design competition for a new Mona Vale Surf Life Saving club building in Sydney. The community and the club were involved which also helped the consenting process.
New Zealanders’ modesty and humility may win hearts and minds here but they don’t cut it in Australia.
‘‘The key is to adapt to the situation you are in. We partner with Australian architects, we employ Australian architects. We have card-carrying Warren and Mahoney people who are Australians.
‘‘And they stride into the room and they open their mouths with an Australian accent and they, with us, with the best people from New Zealand that are right for that job, they go in there and they go about their business and they win work.’’
Staff worked across borders on projects in both countries and within New Zealand where it has studios in Auckland, Wellington, Tauranga, Christchurch and Queenstown.
‘‘It’s a different mindset than saying we’re going to hop on a plane and go over and conquer Australia because we will fail if we adopt that mindset.
‘‘What I’ve said to the team often is that to succeed in Australia we need to manifest and exhibit the very best qualities of being Kiwi that Australians respect.’’
That was being competitive, fast, warm and friendly, tech-savvy, highly creative and lateral, bringing a fresh perspective and posing questions Australian architects might not think of, Coop said.
‘‘The last thing we should do is be timid or modest because they will misinterpret that.’’
But back in New Zealand they had to be careful not to be over-confident.