Fisher & Paykel Appliances’ new $220 million world headquarters in Auckland has been built beside the Southern Motorway at Penrose, with high expectations for one of the largest cross-laminated timber buildings in New Zealand.
Appliances are not made in New Zealand because manufacturing left here last decade for Thailand, China, Italy and Mexico.
But the Chinese-owned whiteware manufacturer still employs about 1000 staff in Auckland, many designing kitchen and laundry appliances.
It is those staff and others who will move from old buildings in East Tāmaki to the radical new timber head office alongside a new mesh-covered multi-level car parking building.
The company isn’t allowing media into the buildings yet and has refused to talk about them.
A spokeswoman said it could issue no statement about the value or timing of completion nor anything about the shift at this point.
F&P Appliances explained new HQ
Three years ago, a Fisher & Paykel Appliances executive did speak in detail about what was planned, which some expected to be finished last year.
In 2023, Mark Elmore, vice-president of design and brand, announced the project.
Buildings would have 700 desks for about 1000 staff, planned to work on a hybrid or flexible basis, Elmore said then.
“For us, this is the next platform for Fisher & Paykel Appliances to grow globally – a purpose-built research and design facility very close to a train station,” Elmore said three years ago.
On the timber structure, he said: “That’s intended to minimise embodied carbon and be efficient during the life of the building. In terms of New Zealand, it will be a pretty large-scale mass timber structure.”
Buildings will surround a central heart-shaped landscaped hub with extensive water features, he said.
Administration, research and design, laboratories and testing facilities staff make up the 1000 workers.
The site includes a home building for administration, research, design and product development, a shed building for appliance prototype laboratories and a garage building for employee vehicle parking and end-of-trip facilities.
One source estimated the buildings are only about a month from completion, with landscaping completed on the Great South Rd frontage.
What neighbours say
Neighbours are fascinated by the size of the project, solar panels and eye-catching architecture.
Claddings include “fins” in grey multi-coloured patterns on the main hub as well as a transparent mesh on the car park, a neighbour said.
The cladding has a te ao Māori theme, with a repetititve triangular pattern.
“We’re hoping it’s got a good cafe,” said an office worker nearby, excited at the prospect that facilities could be open to the public.
Another neighbour said: “It looks like it’s almost ready for occupation. They installed a new set of traffic lights on Great South Rd on Wednesday to give access to their new multi-storey car park.”
Preparations must be well underway for the company to leave the East Tāmaki campus.
It once shared that site with Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, before the companies were split apart.
Who built it?
The project was built by New Zealand’s busiest construction business, Naylor Love, but its chief executive, Brune Goedeke, said he could not talk about it.
In April, the Hubexo Construction League report found Naylor Love was New Zealand’s busiest builder last year, based on just over $1 billion in projects started.
The builder started 103 projects in 2025, setting a construction league record.
Last year, Naylor Love lost that top place to Hawkins, which had started $1.2b worth of work in 2024.
This year, Naylor Love topped the list once again.
Via planning business Barkers and Associates, consent was given by Auckland Council to erect and operate a 55.3m tower crane and a 52m to 89.5m luffing crane to build.
The cranes were anticipated to be on the site for 19 months and intrude into the regionally significant volcanic viewshaft for Maungakiekie One Tree Hill
F&P Appliances banned the new HQ’s architects from talking about the scheme.
Ben Hayes of RTA Studio said: “RTA don’t have the mandate to be able to discuss F&P with the media until further notice. We must refer to Mark Elmore from F&P.”
RTA Studio and consultant project manager TSA Management worked on the project.
The site addresses are 830 Great South Rd (valuation $23m) and 16 Holloway Place, Penrose.
That is near the world headquarters of Fletcher Building at 810 Great South Rd.
Why these architects?
RTA Studio worked on the building.
On RTA’s website, director Richard Naish said another Rotorua building his practice designed caught the eye of Fisher & Paykel Appliance executives.
“They admired the eco-design credentials of RTA Studio’s Scion Innovation Hub in Rotorua,” Naish said in describing his practice’s designs of the new buildings.
The Rotorua building was a double winner in the 2021 World Architecture Festival for use of certified timber and in the higher education and research category.
Architecture with a light carbon footprint was a priority, Naish said.
F&P had also wanted buildings that would nurture and nourish the occupants.
“The responsibility for redefining the physical home of one of New Zealand’s iconic brands is a weighty one – but also a huge honour.”
RTA worked with Boffa Miskell on a landscaping strategy at Penrose to regenerate the land using plants that grew there in pre-European days.
China’s Haier bought F&P Appliances in 2012.
In 2013, F&P Appliances won a growth fund grant of up to $15m over three years to support R&D in New Zealand.
In 2016, National Business Review reported how the Government was supporting the company to hire more skilled staff here via the wholly Crown-owned Callaghan Innovation.
That year, the appliance giant was laying off 180 people with the closure of its only remaining whiteware plant.
Swamp kauri log
The new Penrose head office has an unusual feature.
Half a 4000-year-old swamp kauri log was craned into the new Penrose HQs, according to RTA.
The architects posted a video to social showing that happening part-way through the new campus being built.
The other half of the log is the centrepiece of Fisher & Paykel Appliances’ Experience Centre, only opened in Grey Lynn in 2023.
Elmore showed that centre off to the Herald three years ago and explained its genesis.
“Keep in mind, 80% of our products are sold overseas.”
The showroom is as much about voicing this country’s story as showing off one of the iconic local brands from the company, founded here in 1934.
The 9.5m log was split lengthwise to uncover the contours of its natural heart.
Old headquarters’ future?
So what happens at East Tāmaki once all the staff leave for Penrose?
The existing HQ site is being redeveloped by the landlord and NZX-listed Property For Industry.
It has built on part of the land on a 5.3ha site at 78 Springs Rd: a 25,500sq m, five-star, green-rated distribution warehouse for F&P Appliances as the tenant, with an option to expand that to 30,000sq m.
Stage one was originally valued at $76m.
The site is 10.4ha but buildings only cover 40%.
F&P Appliances has been leasing that site after it sold it in 2009.
The 25,500sq m warehouse is leased to the appliance company until 2039 for Haier and Fisher & Paykel Appliances to be imported, stored, then distributed from that warehouse.
The appliance business also has a distribution service centre in Christchurch.
The Auckland warehouse is one of New Zealand’s biggest industrial developments to target a five-star green status.
In 2024, PFI chief executive Simon Woodhams said the development completed the first stage of transforming the ex-F&P Appliance-owned underused industrial area into a 10ha warehouse and storage estate.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 26 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
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