BP's new head office in Auckland is located across two floors of an existing building. The challenge for the designers, Unispace, was to connect the spaces, so there was good cross functional interaction between floors and the space felt energised and light. They created a brief for a place that works with the notion of harnessing raw organic energy and radiating it out from it central source. The steel, glass and timber spiral staircase became the central connecting element of the design, enabling interactions and linking the business units.

Glasshape worked with Unispace and Woods Glass to bring this challenging, unique concept to life in an extremely short timeframe and under huge pressure of precision and co-ordination. The custom TemperShield curved toughened glass panels contained more than 400 holes that all had to be in exactly the right position.

A highly accurate 3D digital model and shop drawings of the curved staircase design were created which enabled each supplier to work closely together, ensuring all the elements could be brought to site and assembled seamlessly. Glasshape's ability to accurately manufacture the curved glass ensured the project was completed to perfection within the tight time frame — 40 days from acceptance to completion — including CAD modelling, manufacture and installation.

Glasshape is proud of what they were able to achieve through their advanced glass processing technology and highly accurate digital measuring technology with their TemperShield premium curved toughened glass.