Evolution or revolution was the theme of CoreNet New Zealand’s 2013 symposium, held at the Viaduct Events Centre. The wider group of attendees included corporate property owners and management teams, corporate real estate boffins, architects and workplace specialists, contract furniture providers and facilities managers.

CoreNet speakers are often a diverse bunch, and this year was no exception. There were three pre-lunch keynote presenters. First up was Frank Duffy, who beamed in from London via video link. Duffy, a former RIBA president, was a founder of DEGW – a firm that really helped write the rulebook on workplace design practice. Duffy was meant to be in Auckland in person but, due to health reasons, was precluded from being here. In his place was Steven Smith, another erstwhile DEGW team member, who at one stage also worked with Terry Farrell and Partners. Today Smith, an architect and urbanist, has his own design firm called Urban Narrative. 

Duffy and Smith’s talks were quite complementary. Duffy’s revolved around the justification of physical place in an increasingly virtual world. Smith’s looked at the Southbank Centre master planning project that he undertook with Frank Duffy, and how nimble and at times low-budget solutions have been great enablers of use of space. Could the corporate world learn from such adroit lateral thinking? One suspects so; Smith clearly does.

The third morning session speaker was Christian Hurzeler from Google. Hurzeler is responsible for the delivery of projects in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and is currently helping orchestrate ‘project queen’ – a large-scale new-build project – for Google in London. Hurzeler’s talk was peppered with a number of (some might say) twee infographic videos in the ukeleles-to-the-fore style we’ve become accustomed to from Silicon Valley’s finest. Some years ago now, Google’s Zurich office went ‘viral’; the ideas behind that office, a playground for its staff of developers, are still apparent in Google’s new interiors. Not all in the audience were enamoured of this style of design, with some concluding that you can’t actually force people to have fun by integrating buses, slides and whatever else into spaces, but what was interesting was the bottom-up approach to design, and the apparent willingness to let staff decide what it is they are provided with.

All up, it was an informative day that rounded out with some afternoon workshops on real estate in Christchurch, a government accommodation workplace update and a look at the philosophy behind Z Energy entitled “petroleum and sustainability, oxymoron or opportunity”. Finally, a leadership seminar by Mark Strom, a noted speaker on the subjects of wisom and leadership, wrapped up events.