22 Durham Street was built in 1918 as the New Zealand Stock Exchange. It operated as Future Club. From October 2026 it becomes The White Room — a 780 sqm performance and innovation space that operates every day of the week, hosts international touring artists, streams globally via a private AI cluster, and leads a protocol of venues that will follow it to Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne, and beyond.

The building is real. The plans are approved. The conversations with Alberts are progressing. And AUTEX is already part of the Alberts world. The connection between what Andrew Saunders builds and what AUTEX makes is not new. What is new is this room — and what it represents for New Zealand.

The acoustic treatment in this building is not a specification line. It is the foundation of everything the room becomes. The PA system is already professional grade. The rigging infrastructure is already in place. What turns a room with those assets into a world-class venue is the acoustic environment they operate in. That is AUTEX. That has always been AUTEX. And in this room, the world will hear it.

AUTEX has built its name in schools, commercial buildings, recording studios, and performance spaces across New Zealand and internationally. The company has been doing this for nearly sixty years. The opportunity here is not a contract. It is a platform.

The White Room streams opening night to a global audience via LVE — a live streaming platform already operational in Auckland. Every artist who plays this room tells the next venue what the room sounded like. Every journalist who covers TWR:001 hears the acoustic environment AUTEX created. Every architect and venue designer who watches the documentary asks what treatment was used. That is not a client relationship. That is a reference that travels.

There are acoustic treatment companies all over the world. Some have built international reputations on the rooms they have been used in. We are not choosing AUTEX because supporting New Zealand technology matters to this project — though it does, deeply. We are choosing AUTEX because nearly sixty years of innovation in acoustic materials, built in Avondale and refined across four continents, has produced a product range and a knowledge base that is world-class and proven.

The greatest rooms in the world are defined by what they do to sound. Not the speakers. The room. The treatment is the difference between a space that fights sound and a space that holds it. That work is invisible when it is done right. That invisibility is the highest possible standard. It is the AUTEX standard.

The fact that it is New Zealand-made is the part of the story that makes the rest of it more powerful. An AI cluster built in Auckland. A live streaming platform built in Auckland. Acoustic treatment manufactured in Avondale. A 1918 heritage building in the centre of Tāmaki Makaurau. All of these things together in a single room is a statement about what this country can do. AUTEX is not a concession to NZ pride. It is a flag planted.

The alignment between what AUTEX has built commercially — its relationship with Alberts, with the institutional and corporate sector, with New Zealand’s most significant build projects — and what The White Room is doing at the creative and technology edge is not a coincidence. It is why this conversation is happening with Mark.

BLK/WHT — Building the Future of Culture. A documentary series following the build of The White Room from the first conversation to opening night. Feature cut for the international festival circuit. Tone: Jiro Dreams of Sushi meets The Defiant Ones meets Abstract. International distribution.

Every new market the BLK/WHT Protocol enters — the audience has already seen the film. Every venue developer who watches it asks who treated the room. The documentary is not a marketing piece. It is the cultural artefact that gives every decision made inside this building its weight and its story.

The White Room is not a venue. It is the first node in a global protocol — BLK/WHT — that connects cultural and financial infrastructure across cities. Each venue carries the same intelligence, the same technology, the same standard. Each one requires acoustic treatment to that standard. Auckland sets the benchmark.

AUTEX knows how to do this. What follows is the shape of the opportunity, not a specification. The acoustic appraisal starts that conversation — this document starts this one.

One conversation. Then a site visit. The acoustic appraisal follows and becomes part of the noise resource consent submission to Auckland Council — which carries an 8–14 week lead time that means this week matters. Everything downstream of October 2026 depends on the acoustic work starting now.