Fisher & Paykel turns on the flair for NZ Experience Centre
A muehlenbeckia “chandelier” hangs above one kitchen showroom, there’s a harakeke installation above another, while an
8m-long spiral LED Italian Flos light brightens the darkness above a
9.5m long swamp kauri 22-seater dining room table, thought to be from a log about 40,000 years old.
Dark, moody, indigenous — welcome to the new Fisher & Paykel Auckland Experience Centre — covering 820sq m in the Crest apartments at 199 Great North Rd, Grey Lynn.
If Giltrap’s new headquarters by Warren and Mahoney at 119 Great North Rd is a “jewellery box for cars”, then the collaboration between Nga¯ti Wha¯tua O¯ ra¯kei, Alt Group and Rufus Knight’s Knight Associates is the same for kitchens, laundries and outdoor cooking.
How could something so utilitarian, perhaps even pedestrian, become the hero of interior design?
“We take people to Waiheke, Queenstown and then here,” explains F&P Appliances’ design and brand vice-president Mark Elmore, now based in East Ta¯maki but eventually moving to Penrose in a $220m three-building scheme where construction starts early next year.
“This is a physical manifestation of our brand,” he says of the showroom where ovens are more likely to be controlled by digital pads than knobs and the outdoor barbecue area is styled along American lines, designed for twin outdoor eating areas, with its DCSbranded appliances.
Think flat-screens showcasing our scenery, including West Coast beaches and a 4000-year-old sculptural trunk of swamp kauri, split lengthwise to uncover the contours of its natural heart.
On entry, you’re greeted by a sixtonne basalt rock, turned into a sculpture, at the entrance, a modern interpretation of Tumutumuwhenua who was an ancestor of the Nga¯ti Wha¯tua peoples, with its carved bowl of fresh water rising and falling in sync with the Waitemata¯ tides.
Rammed-earth and black sandinfused plaster walls surround to¯tara flooring, made from a
700-year-old wind-felled log. “Keep in mind, 80 per cent of our products are sold overseas,” Elmore says. The centre is expected to attract many foreign and local architects, designers, developers and clients.
That 9.5m “waka table” for 22 people with Simon James chairs was designed to represent the entrepreneurial spirit of Pa¯ora Tu¯haere, the Nga¯ti Wha¯tua chief who bought a schooner in 1863 and sailed between here and Rarotonga, establishing trade routes and making enduring connections.
Tu¯haere’s reversal of traditional migration narratives — his “chasing the sun” back across the Pacific — is captured by that Flos feature light of blown-glass modules, which signifies star navigation and hangs majestically above the table.
Nga¯ti Wha¯tua O¯ ra¯kei’s Rangima¯rie¯ Hu¯nia says the building was a result of discussions about reciprocity and authenticity that were held over a long time. At the po¯whiri in August, she applauded the way Nga¯ti Wha¯tua O¯ ra¯kei cultural narratives, taonga and the natural materials of Ta¯maki Makaurau were woven into the display showroom.
Knight said he worked closely with associate director Dahlia
Ghani, who led the project with him. Decorative elements such as the chandeliers were commissioned by Alt Group as the creative directors of the project, Knight said. Top Auckland graphic designer Dean Poole led Alt’s involvement and he is a co-founder of that business.
Fisher & Paykel Appliances has experience centres in other countries but this is the largest and most ambitious, created by design partnerships with international kitchen design companies Boffi, Arclinea and Henrybuilt. Poole said Mt Eden’s Isadia floral design studio made the shrub and flax overbench decorations.
Isabel Johnston, who owns Isadia, said she and business partner Lydia Reusser designed three decorations.
Asked how the 3m long muehlenbeckia installation held together, she said: “We used wire and the actual form of the shrub to weave it into itself. Then it was hung on wire cables from the ceiling. We built it on-site. We used lots of pieces of the plant. First, we had to dry those to remove all the leaves which took about three weeks.
“They’re like floral installations,” she said of the plant and flax art.
The flax was created by making rope knots using the fibre “and we kept on building crazy loops until we got it to a shape we were happy with”.
A hanging akeake branch was installed on a wall above a seating area, also by Isadia.
“We selected the branch and dictated with Alt Group how it was hung,” Johnson said.
Fisher & Paykel Appliances worked with Boffi on the laundry and wardrobe areas, where washing machines, driers and a new fabric care cabinet (looks like a fridge, more like a mini-dry cleaner or steamer, selling for just over $6000) is built into a luxurious walk-in wardrobe.
And the cost of all this? Elmore isn’t saying, but certainly, the appliance giant’s property footprint is changing across three sites and is a story of growth and expansion.