Aglionby House
The home of Armstrong Downes Commercial
Client: ADC
Completed: 2016
Award:
Aglionby House has won two awards: a Gold Award at the 2016 Commercial Project Awards in the Commercial and Civic category and an Architecture Award in the Commercial category at the Wellington region 2016 New Zealand Institute of Architecture Awards.
With over 20 years of building commercial buildings throughout the Wellington region for our clients, this new build gave us our own purpose-designed offices at 1 Aglionby St in central Lower Hutt.
The two level office building is on a 600 m2 site with the ground floor providing storage facilities, bathrooms and 12 onsite car parks. The second level provides open plan office space with reception area, meeting rooms, kitchen and desk space for over 20 staff. From this level glass doors lead onto a 60m2 deck that will be used as a breakout area and for many summer BBQ’s.
Designed by DesignGroup Stapleton Elliott, our new building showcases the skills and expertise of our company. We have used a wide range of different materials including exposed structural steel, decorative precast panels, reverse run metal cladding, lots of glass, and natural timbers. Decorative timber fins add character to the exterior frontage of the upper level.
The interior is flooded with natural light and includes highly polished ground concrete floors, multi coloured carpet and colourful pin boards and design accents. The open plan office space uses sound absorbing linings for a very relaxing and comfortable area to work in.
One of the interior features is an impressive spray painted graffiti mural featuring the icons of the lower Hutt area commissioned by Armstrong Downes Commercial to honour our local Lower Hutt roots.
The impressive building is both stylish and modern providing our team and our clients with a very pleasant and dynamic environment in which to work, along with superb facilities, high tech features and excellent services.
Aglionby House showcases not only what ADC brings to each site that we work on but also the skills, products and expertise of our local suppliers and subcontractors. Around 90% of the materials and construction are from local suppliers.
Special Info / Challenges:
The building has been designed for low energy consumption and encompasses several environmentally friendly features such as:
- Rain water recovery for toilets and gardens
- Solar panels for electricity supply
- Double glazing allowing large amounts of natural light and heat conservation
- Full insulation, even between floors
- Sensor controlled low energy LED lighting throughout
- Even the wheel stops in the car park are manufactured from re-used rubber
Called Aglionby House, our new company offices are named in recognition of Lower Hutt’s history. In 1840 the “Hamlet of Aglionby” was the first name given by settlers to the area that is now known as Lower Hutt.
Aglionby House was officially opened on the 10th March 2015 by the Honourable Hekia Parata, Minister of Education on behalf of the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable John Key. The official opening was attended by over 170 guests at a cocktail function.
It will go down in our history that just over an hour before the Prime Minister was to do the official honours he was required to urgently address a national security threat on national television instead. The event went ahead with The Minister of Education Mrs Hekia Parata stepping into the role admirably and enthusiastically as she unveiled the large Hutt Valley river rock as part of the opening ceremony.
