Trade Me’s new premises in the new One Market Lane building in Wellington sizzle with colour and, yes, there is a barbie outside on the third-floor balcony. The barbecue, however, occupies a more conventional place within a design that brings inside a quirky assortment of Kiwi outdoor objects (some of which were, fittingly, bought off Trade Me) – a caravan, three slides, two picnic rooms with synthetic grass, a lawnmower and more. But the sizzle (which becomes a giggle or chuckle that grows into a LOL with every new discovery) starts with the carpet. It’s all about Trades Me’s informal, fun, interconnected approach to doing serious, hard work.

The chequered, radiating carpet pattern changes from red to green to blue through the three floors and is loosely associated with earth, trees and sky says Max Herriot, of Herriot + Melhuish Architecture (HMA).

“It’s full on. As you go up through the building, there’s a different density of colours so right in the centre by the lift core the colour is really dense and, as it radiates out [in combinations, for example, of greens, yellows, darker greens, yellow greens, etc.], it becomes lighter. Container kitchens [which reflect the port across the road] and other finishes are strong splashes – it’s exciting and invigorating.”

Trade Me people think so too, say Trade Me Chief Operating Officer Michael O’Donnell (aka “Mod”) and Sarah Hard, Company Secretary.

“Staff members come to work in the mornings with big smiles on their faces. It creates a buzz and there’s another level of energy around the place,” Mod says.

He has travelled through several migrations of Trade Me since there were 10 staff in Featherston Street. The company now numbers 350 nationwide with 270 employed in Wellington. Market Lane will be home until at least 2020.

“As a listed company, we wanted a secure home. When Trade Me moved into NZX [just across the road], we took up one-third of it and could play soccer, ride bikes around and play hacky sack.”

But the company continued to grow until people were bumping into one another. Some moved into the ‘bullnose’at Xero House where they tried their first between-floor slide experience. Now, having brokered an agreement with Market Lane owners Willis Bond and contractor LT McGuinness, they have a three-levelled spiral slide around a staircase.

HMA’s overarching design concept was a sense of New Zealandness, Herriot says. “There was this idea of bringing the outdoors in. So we have given the picnic room a flavour of being on the edge of a forest through the glazing and the enclosing walls.” The mix of different objects and spaces offers staff varied experiences within a cohesive whole. “The caravan is on the fourth floor so to have a meeting there you have to walk through the rest of the space and it has
a different feel.”

The different colours, materials and textures create a stimulating and relaxed outdoors/indoor feel. The pallet room with timber pallet seats, is a meeting and presentation space that seats around 60. A garage door opens to create an amphitheatre.

Around the central core, four blown-up photographs of landscapes taken by members of staff suggest volcanoes, grass, trees and sky.

“Every shear wall has an image on it and a piece of each one of those images is on each level but they rotate around sort of like a Rubik’s Cube,” Max says.

Rough-sawn timber ceilings above the circulation hubs –the kitchens, cafés and play zones – delineate those spaces; translucent material around the boardroom creates a totally different, ‘ghosting’ effect. The boardroom cladding also features Trade Me one-liners such as, ‘Don’t be a dick!’

The environment meets the brief to be “fiercely anti-corporate, energetic, open plan, simple and flexible” with many different opportunities for interaction.

There are pool and football tables – areas for video conferencing, hot desks, small, simple desks that make pods, stand-up desks, Twitter feeds on the wall, and kitchenettes. The main café area is already being used for smaller meetings with clients.

The slides reinforce the non-hierarchical structure – and, in true Kiwi egalitarian fashion, CEO Jon Macdonald works from a standard desk amongst other employees on the third floor.