Built by LT McGuinness, it has a 6 Green Star Design rating and features rainwater harvesting, electric vehicle charging and facilities that encourage active commuting. LT McGuinness project director Craig Body said not damaging the timber elements during construction was challenging at times. “This was a finished product right from day one, so everybody had to treat it like a piece of skirting or a piece of scotia [moulding].” Body said the use of timber cut down noise – screws in wood rather than drilling into concrete. Prefabricated timber sped up construction and six people put in the structural elements, he said. Steel frames seismically connected the timber structure to the ground, making it a hybrid building, Body said.

Warren and Mahoney principal architect Asha Page designed the $33.5m interior fit-out, which included meeting rooms, offices, flooring finishes, electrical, digital and IT. She said level two was her favourite floor because it felt like you were in the pōhutukawa tree growing on the harbour side of the building. The tree inspired the interior colour palette, earth tones mirroring the trunk on lower floors, then blue to represent the harbour, green like the leaves, with the top floors red like pōhutukawa in bloom, said Page.

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