Ground control
PROJECT/CLIENT: Rocket Lab Auckl and Production Complex
LOCATION: Auckland
DESIGN: Designgroup Stapleton Elliott
PROJECT TYPE: Workplace
“OPEN THE pod bay doors, Hal”. So goes one of the most famous lines in cinema, when HAL 9000, the sentient computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, has gone rogue. I hear the line when I walk through the portal into Rocket Lab’s brand-new head office.
It’s no surprise to find out that Rocket Lab chief’s William Shatner. As part of the New Zealand/American company’s plan for aerospace dominance in the delivery of small satellites into low Earth orbit, a new rocket-building factory, together with research and development facilities and a mission control, was required. The architects at Designgroup Stapleton Elliott (DGSE) were tasked with designing a new aspirational front where the public could watch the mission control in action during launches at Rocket Lab’s Māhia Peninsula launch pad and other venues planned for the US.
