Procreate HQ

Procreate is a Tasmanian success story – a software development team dedicated to making exceptional software for creatives by combining an outstanding user experience with high quality engineering.  Procreate for iPad is used by millions around the globe, has been the best-selling paid iPad app on App Store for the past six years, and the company has received three coveted Apple Design Awards.  This project is a new home of the Procreate team – 180 staff located in Hobart but drawn from around the globe.

In line with Procreate’s existing culture and workspaces, a decision was made not to build a new headquarters but to explore the reuse of former industrial buildings at the gateway into Hobart – where the harbour, rivulet and city grid converge.  Thus, a diverse international group are “placed” at a critical point in the city from where the genesis of the city can be understood.

The project exists in three registers.  At a strategic level, the deep floorspace of the industrial buildings is punctuated by an open atrium to draw light deep into the workspace, creating a central hub.  At the same time, a new entry component announces the address on Collins Street and provides for breakout and related areas.  This works with other insertions that link the existing buildings on site, reveal the interior workings to the street and sit within a choreography of movement that connects with the flow of the former rivulets that converged in this area to the circulation in the building. Then, at a material level, remnants of industrial equipment and a variety of brickwork, concrete and steel structures are left in their original condition and form a rich tapestry of materials as new insertions meet the old.  Finally, a landscape strategy is woven throughout, a strategy born of a desire to recover an ecological richness once found in this part of the city and which in a direct way affords for healthy workspaces.