Accurate Instruments

A Christchurch headquarters combining showroom, training, servicing and warehousing

Completed in 2017, Accurate Instruments brings the company’s showroom, training facilities, offices, service workshop and warehouse together within a purpose-built Christchurch headquarters. AO Architecture provided full architectural services through design and construction. The brief called for a building that could present technical equipment professionally while supporting the training, calibration, storage and day-to-day work happening behind the showroom.

Making the equipment the focus

You enter through the ground-floor showroom, where polished concrete floors, white walls and exposed black structure create a deliberately restrained backdrop for the products on display. Even the ceiling is pared back: black services and structure sit between suspended white acoustic panels rather than disappearing behind a conventional ceiling.

The Service & Calibration Centre is visible directly behind the reception area through internal glazing. That connection makes the technical side of the business part of the customer experience instead of hiding it away at the back of the building.

One building for several parts of the business

Beyond the showroom, the building accommodates training rooms, offices, warehouse space and workshop areas for servicing and calibration. Steel portal frames create the larger workshop and warehouse volumes, while tilt-up concrete panels provide bracing and required fire separation.

The two-storey frontage puts offices and customer-facing spaces towards the street. Extensive glazing brings daylight into both levels, while stained timber louvres wrap one upper corner, filtering sun and giving the otherwise white exterior a warmer point of difference.

Leaving room to grow

The headquarters formed part of a wider development that allowed for two additional buildings as Accurate Instruments expanded. The main facility could therefore meet the immediate brief without using up the longer-term capacity of the site.

Upstairs, the timber louvres continue past a small balcony and sitting area. From inside, you look through both the glazing and the vertical timber screen – the same element that gives the building its most recognisable corner from the street.

Accurate Instruments headquarters with a two-storey glazed façade, white exterior panels and vertical timber-toned screening around the corner.
Front elevation of Accurate Instruments with extensive two-storey glazing, white panel cladding and vertical screening at one end.
Close view of the Accurate Instruments corner façade with company signage mounted over tall vertical screening.
Accurate Instruments reception with timber-fronted counter, polished concrete floor and glazing into the service and calibration centre.
Accurate Instruments showroom and workspace with exposed dark ceiling structure, polished floor and equipment displays throughout the open interior.
Accurate Instruments concrete stair viewed from above, with a simple black steel balustrade wrapping around the stairwell.
Upper-level sitting area at Accurate Instruments with armchairs beside full-height glazing and vertical exterior screens.
Accurate Instruments upper-floor interior with exposed diagonal steel bracing positioned between large windows overlooking the surrounding industrial buildings.

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