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An Experiential Approach: Fisher & Paykel’s Global Experience Centres
Fisher & Paykel’s Experience Centres in Melbourne, Auckland and London are an expression of the New Zealand appliance company’s longstanding values surrounding craft and locality.
Fisher & Paykel’s legacy is grounded in a pioneering spirit, a rich cultural history and an innate curiosity around the human experience of its products. This three-pronged approach drives the design and evolution of the company’s Experience Centres in Auckland, London and, most recently, Melbourne.
For Fisher & Paykel, the phrase ‘Designed in Aotearoa New Zealand’ signifies the importance of making meaningful connections to place and people. To achieve this in global locations – from Auckland to Toronto, where the next Experience Centre is slated to open in 2025 – the company designs each project in partnership with leading local architects and craftspeople, using locally sourced materials to reflect the natural and elemental qualities of each place.
A design collaboration between Clare Cousins Architects, Fisher & Paykel’s Experience Design team and longstanding Fisher & Paykel brand partner Alt Group, the recently opened Melbourne outpost is a material-forward expression of locality with a domestic sensibility. “Our first love is housing,” says Clare Cousins. “We’re interested in how you can celebrate everyday domestic rituals and what makes a house pleasurable to live in.” She adds that this project “was an opportunity to translate that spirit into an immersive, refined and inviting environment and to establish a connection to place and a sense of luxury through contextually appropriate materials.”
Located within a 1920s-era building in the heart of Fitzroy, the space simultaneously pays homage to its context and Fisher & Paykel’s values. The existing architectural fabric has been embraced and the interior palette is an ode to inviting, earthy tones and textures with locally sourced materials including bluestone, spotted gum and Otway blackwood. “We aimed to create a warm, natural minimalism that speaks to local craft and considered detailing,” says Cousins. Rammed earth and terracotta tiles round out the materiality alongside lighting and tapware from local studios South Drawn, Rakumba and Astra Walker, while floral arrangements by Melbourne-based botanical artist Hattie Molloy bring a residential feel to the retail environment.
Fisher & Paykel’s Experience Centres feature three different kitchens – Minimal, Contemporary and Professional – and each one is a combination of seamlessly integrated or built-in appliances realised in the styles that have come to define the company’s design approach. Melbourne is no exception, and in the Minimal Kitchen, appliances of the same vein exist in support of an integrated architectural concept, demonstrating the possibilities of a quiet, pared-back design rationale.
The Contemporary Kitchen showcases the layered aesthetic of Fisher & Paykel’s Contemporary Style appliances. Standout features include a 3.7-metre-long table by local furniture designer Made By Morgen, hewn from a single log of naturally felled blackwood, with seating by chairmaker Paul Vizzari using remnants from the table. Lastly, the Professional Kitchen, which celebrates powerful, performance-driven appliances in a sleek stainless-steel setting, drives Fisher & Paykel’s wide-reaching expertise home.
Global luxury spaces that express Fisher & Paykel’s identity through a local lens have become part of the company’s modus operandi. It’s a compelling, experiential way to connect with clients while engaging the senses and demonstrating the company’s proficiencies at human scale. This rings true at the Auckland and London Experience Centres, and the former, which opened in 2022, is the most ambitious to date.
“We believe it is important to bring our partners here to experience what designed in Aotearoa New Zealand means – to experience our hospitality and learn about a premium design language inspired by the natural world and by insights into the way people live,” says Daniel Witten-Hannah, CEO of Fisher & Paykel. Created in partnership with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei – the kaitiaki, or guardians, of the area – Knight Associates and Alt Group, it’s a celebration of the company’s origins in Aotearoa and its socially and environmentally driven approach to product design.
Similarly, the London Experience Centre, designed in collaboration with Brinkworth, bespoke cabinetmaker Jacob Alexander and Alt Group, leans into a site-specific design response. The subterranean Social Kitchen is primed for intimate dinner parties and food-centric gatherings where in-house chefs lead Mastery of Temperature culinary experiences, reinforcing Fisher & Paykel’s commitment to food care and cooking. There’s also an apartment kitchen, proving luxurious at-home cooking need not be defined by size.
Each location goes beyond food, with wardrobe and laundry spaces that support the kitchen settings. The company’s exploration of the latter works to demonstrate the evolution of the laundry beyond single appliances that wash and dry to a bespoke architectural solution which can be placed throughout the home and integrated to support the interiors. And in Melbourne and Auckland, outdoor kitchens showcase the brand’s DCS Grill appliances, too.
This attitude towards holistically addressing the idea of home is compelling, and it reveals Fisher & Paykel’s core mission of not only delivering premium appliances but understanding evolving social and economic trends and designing to that tune. The nuanced approach taken with the execution of these three luxury spaces reinforces this principle and the experience is, as a result, unparalleled.
Architecture and interior design by Alt Group, Brinkworth, Clare Cousins Architects, Knight Associates and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. Joinery by Jacob Alexander.
