Around 100 years ago, Swiss-French architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, more widely known by the pseudonym ‘Le Corbusier’, stated: ‘Une maison est une machine-à-habiter’, which translates as ‘A house is a machine for living in.’ More fully he said ‘A house is a machine for living in. Baths, sun, hot-water, cold-water, warmth at will, conservation of food, hygiene, beauty in the sense of good proportion’, by which he meant that utility and comfort may be two sides of the same coin.  In their design for the new headquarters of Rethink Investing, a high-profile Australian buyer’s agent for commercial real estate investors, Luigi Rosselli Architects extends the philosophy, that comfort and utility may be one and the same, to the office environment: ‘une machine à travailler’.

Since the workplace disruptions brought about by the pandemic, employers in certain industries have had to work harder both to encourage their existing employees to return to the office, and to compete for new talent.  Accordingly, an appealing office space has itself become part of that pitch.  A central, well connected location, a vibrant, lively locale with a variety of amenities, and attractive and structured surroundings all now count among what draws people back to the office; Rethink Investing’s prominent new premises located on the corner of a busy thoroughfare in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs caters to many of those desires.

Situated as this office is, in the prime ground floor tenancy of a recently constructed mixed-use development, meant that the design had to achieve the dual aims of lending an arresting and appealing street presence to both the tenancy and the building itself, and also provide an inviting space for co-workers and clients alike.

Internally, the blank canvas space opened out to a double-storey height, characterised as many modern buildings often are by a wall of glass, and structural concrete pillars.  The vertiginous space naturally invited the inclusion of a mezzanine level to provide additional floor space for this rapidly growing business, and to break up the vast volume of the tenancy and lend it a more human scale.  In turn the means to access the mezzanine suggested a deft method to entirely disguise one of those sturdy and utilitarian columns, by wrapping it in a helix stair of Carrara Statuario marble.

Carved in sections where it was quarried and then recomposed on site, in the manner of the relocation of the temple at Abu Simbel, the sweeping, sculptural form of the marble stair is not only highly visible from the street through both the side and bow windows of the tenancy, but it is also the first element of the workspace one encounters on stepping inside.  It represents a bold statement of design intent, suggesting that the materiality and craftsmanship found within will be its equal, and provides an elegant and tactile ascent to the upper mezzanine level, which contains a suite of private offices for sensitive discussion.

Throughout, the space is softened by architectural and cascading planting, which benefits from the abundance of natural light provided by those grand, full height windows, and will eventually grow to provide a green privacy curtain behind the glass.

Moving through the space, the cool grey tones of the Carrara Statuario are complemented by a deep royal blue stucco lucido render, and contrasted by another stucco render of warm sandstone, along with burnished brass accents, and honey hued carpentry, joinery and leather booth seating.  To the end of the linear circulation on the ground floor, past the main office space, an archway houses a pivoting door of steel and translucent rippled glass, which allows the light from the windows in the conference room beyond to filter through and illuminate the area below the mezzanine.  The richly appointed conference room itself is characterised by more of the warm toned timber joinery, and a ceiling of pressed metal that reflects the abundance of light gifted by those ubiquitous full height windows, which also share a further gift by way of a glimpse of Sydney’s famous harbour bridge.  Finally, at the centre of the room lies a bespoke conference table crafted from oak with a top of leather and marble, and surrounded by matching leather chairs comfortable and supportive enough to settle into for a fruitful negotiation.