Abstract

Lend Lease is an Australian based Corporation which regards itself as a world leader property solutions; in property capital management, development, design, innovation and construction.<p> Over a considerable period, Lend Lease had offered many of these skills to their clients as individual services. Occasionally Lend Lease were able to bundle all of their skills into a single service, providing a benchmark in good design, service delivery and profitability.</p><p> When Lend Lease decided to relocate their headquarters business in Sydney, they realised that they had an opportunity not only to drive organisational and cultural change within the company but also to showcase all their skills and service offerings in one unified project.</p><p> The result is 30 The Bond, a building that has been recognised for design and construction excellence through over 30 awards, but is, perhaps only just starting to be acknowledged for the delivery of what were the core aspirations of it’s brief and are increasingly relevant to many other knowledge based organisations: the creation of a sustainable “vessel” for the corporate culture and process. </p><p> Not just a building but a place that contained and embodied the organisation on a number of significant levels, that encouraged organisational transparency, collaboration and knowledge sharing, that expanded to encompass community involvement and social obligation, that supported diverse work styles and milieus, that imbued the occupants with a sense of belonging and self worth.</p><p> Can a building do all of this? We think that 30 the Bond has achieved much of this ambitious aspirational program, we also think that a building can do much more than traditionally thought and that many organisations are starting to understand this.</p><p> The proposed paper will present the storey of this building on a number of levels:</p><p> · The traditional process of brief and design in the production of this building · The innovative “Blue-sky” brief making and staff engagement process · The resulting asprirational framework: for building, workplace, organisation and social context · The management subtext of both cultural reinforcement and organisational change · The fruits of the labour – what was delivered and how well it works · What next? Can buildings deliver true knowledge organisms?</p>