NAB and the WOW factor

Most of you have probably already strolled past the NAB's new head office in the Docklands...

For those of you who don't live locally, NAB is the National Australia Bank, and they've just relocated to the waterfront location in the new commercial precinct of Melbourne.

Love it or hate it, everyone has an opinion about this new way of working. Complete with internal cafe's, serious 'chill out zones' where you can have a game of scrabble or UNO with your workmates (aka brainstorm), this building is certainly redefining the way we work.

NAB was committed to extensive international research, both in terms of the workplace and state of the art sustainable architecture design, and came up with one of the first low energy consumption buildings in Australia. With the creation of internal landscape environments, i.e. palm trees and sunny walkways, it's a little city in itself.

Oliver spent a few days, braving the icy mornings of our winter, and was rewarded with the most magnificent blue skies...

(We all think that the night time shots are pretty good too...).

They say that in coming years the 'inflexible model' of the city skyscraper will be demolished and replaced by 'highly flexible groundscaper buildings...' which require less energy to build, to run and maintain and will last longer.

We kind of like the fact that Melbourne has the best of everything ;)

Bushfire beauty

Every year we hear about the devastation of bushfires that sweep through the Australian wilderness. Houses are lost, and people are often left stranded.

A little known fact is one of the great features of the Australian bush is the way it regenerates afterwards.

Oliver set out to capture the aftermath of the fire that rampaged through Victoria's Grampians, racing north east towards Halls Gap.

What caused them?

People often ask if they were lit, or if they're a natural phenomenon...

The bushfires in the Grampians are generally thought to be caused by lightning, camp fires or occasionally fuel reduction burns that get out of control.

Many native species rely on bushfires to open their protective seed pods so that their seeds can germinate.

When Oliver arrived not long after the grass had started to grow, there had been some good rains, and the trees began shooting out again. Best of all, he even managed to find a few little waterfalls tucked away between the boulders.

The World Cup - GO Aussies!

GO AUSTRALIA!

Some of you asked that we post our recent email promo... so here it is!

And yes, we know it's cheesy ;)