Trans-Tasman creative-led interior design agency CTRL Space has unveiled a new, refreshed brand this week as part of its 15-year anniversary celebrations. The award-winning agency, founded by director Chris Stevens in 2009, has studios in Auckland and Brisbane and is the name behind interior works for a swathe of New Zealand’s most well-known and prestigious hospitality venues, hotels and workplaces.
The agency’s vast portfolio includes Soda in Queenstown and Auckland hot spots, Lilian and Hotel Ponsonby. The agency has won numerous awards for its work across the years, including an Architecture Now Interior Design Award for Picnicka Bar & Grill in Tauranga, an award category for which its recent project Metita, for acclaimed chef Michael Meredith, is also a finalist for this year.
CTRL Founder Chris Stevens
The new brand, which was developed in partnership with Seachange Studio, aims to better reflect the CTRL Space values and its aims to push boundaries, challenge expectations and make great design commonplace. Stevens’ ethos has been that original design evokes genuine engagement with the consumer, and creating a strong design narrative is vital to articulate these concepts and ideas.
“The last 15 years have been incredible though not without their challenges. But we live for change and as they say, “adversity births creativity”. We’ve delivered that in abundance and I am so proud of the work that we have produced. We are very grateful to all of our clients for the trust they have awarded us and for allowing us to flex our creativity. The creative journey is a collaborative one and we are excited for this next chapter,” said Stevens.
Having gained such significant tenure and experience over the last fifteen years, Stevens and the team now turn their minds to the next fifteen, with a strategy that includes bolstering its Australian offering and expanding its design avenues to include increased focus on the hotel and accommodation space.
CTRL Space has recently partnered with new Australian lifestyle accommodation enterprise LA Co. (Leisure Accommodation Collective) on a series of five “Drifter” hybrid hotels across New Zealand, with the first opening in Christchurch earlier this month. The concept is unique and experimental in its offering. It focuses on social interaction and showcases the true impact of design on the customer experience.
“With tourism making its way back to strength in New Zealand and across the ditch, we see so much opportunity for CTRL Space to lead the way forward into a new era of design-thinking for the industry," said Stevens.
"The world has changed, customer expectations have evolved. Experiences like the pandemic, and the cost of living challenges, have re-focussed our priorities in terms of how and where we spend our time and money. Venue owners will need to evolve their offerings if they want to survive. And we can help with that. The potential for, and power of, design to impact experience and influence behaviour is huge and we’re here for it.”
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