The White Room · 22 Durham Street · Tāmaki Makaurau · Overview May 2026 · Confidential · Luke Thompson

22 Durham Street

The White
Room

The former New Zealand Stock Exchange — reimagined as the Southern Hemisphere's first convergence of live blockchain trading, artificial intelligence, innovation and world-class culture. One building. Every day. Never dark.

22 Durham Street · Auckland CBD · 1,560 sqm
Target opening: October 2026
Operator: Luke Thompson · _LIVECLAW
whiteroom.live

01 — The Building

The world's greatest buildings are defined by two things. What they were built for. And what they become.

22 Durham Street is the former New Zealand Stock Exchange — the room where New Zealand's financial identity was formed. The old instruments of capital replaced by the new ones. The blockchain trading floor operates on the same floor where the original exchange stood.

Old exchange. New exchange.
Address
22 Durham Street · Auckland CBD · Former NZ Stock Exchange
Total footprint
1,560 sqm
Ceiling height
6.0–6.5m confirmed · professional rigging grid in situ
Capacity
750 — The Floor · plus restaurant · retail · innovation zones
Landlord
Alberts · Quattro Group · advanced conversations progressing
Target opening
October 2026 · TWR:001

02 — The Zones

Four distinct zones. Four distinct revenue streams. One building running simultaneously across all of them, every day.

The Floor
Live Events + Trading
780 sqm · 750 cap
Blockchain trading floor by day. World-class events Thursday to Saturday. The new exchange on the floor of the old one.
The Studio
Broadcast Operation
130 sqm
Complete broadcast facility. Recording, production, AI-managed streaming. Every event a live global broadcast from opening night.
Restaurant
F&B · Upper Level
605 sqm
Franchise or operating partner model. Separate operator. Not in capital raise. Revenue share structure.
Retail
Street Activation
175 sqm · Phase 2
Durham Street frontage. Activated post-opening as the room establishes its identity.

The Residents — AI founders, blockchain developers, digital artists and technology leaders — work across the floor between trading sessions and events. The cross-pollination between disciplines that doesn't happen at a conference or a co-working space. It happens here because the right people are always in the room.

03 — How The Building Operates

The White Room operates on a four-mode daily cycle — no two hours are the same use of the space. The building is never dark.

Asia market hours
Early morning
Blockchain trading floor active · AI cluster running live signals · Trading Floor members at their desks
Real capital · real markets · the building earning before the city wakes up
Business hours
Daytime
The Residents in residence · CEO presentations · Innovation programme · Broadcast sessions
2–3 speaker sessions per week · monthly conferences · AI + Tech + Creative Arts summits annually
US market hours
Afternoon
Trading floor second session · private functions and dinners · CEO summits
Premium corporate events · private dining · the building's institutional revenue engine
Thursday–Saturday
Evening
World-class events · 750 capacity · Hi Ibiza / Night League production standard
Summer season anchor programme + year-round long weekends · Matariki · NZ Music Awards

04 — Revenue Streams

Four independent revenue streams. The building generates revenue before a single event ticket is sold. The lease is priced per square metre. The return is measured per experience.

Stream 01
Events
30 music events · 10 technology events · CEO Summits · NZ Music Awards · private functions and dinners. Summer season November–April plus long weekends year-round.
Year 1 indication: $2.18M
Stream 02
The Residents
12 curated places per cohort. January/February intake, October/November graduation. 8-month programme at $20K per place. 3 scholarship places self-funded by the cohort. The room self-selects for quality.
Year 1 indication: $160–$240K
Stream 03
Trading Floor
12-month memberships across three tiers — individual trader, institutional desk, corporate. All year round. Live AI-enhanced intelligence. The new exchange on the floor of the old one.
Year 1 indication: $258–$414K
Stream 04
Broadcast & Content
2–3 sessions per week · 12 monthly conferences · 3 annual summits (AI, Tech, Creative Arts). Every conversation produced in this building reaches a global audience the same day.
Year 1 indication: $554K–$1M
Year 1 · Baseline
Revenue
$3.15M
Net
$952K
Margin
30%
Year 2 · Established
Revenue
$4.86M
Net
$2.26M
Margin
46%
Year 3 · Protocol active
Revenue
$6.0M
Net
$3.1M
Margin
52%

All figures are indicative — vision stage, pre-HOA, pre-schematics. To be confirmed with Alberts and Quattro input following execution of heads of agreement.

05 — Capital Framework

A $10M vision built in two stages. Phase 1 gets the building open and operational. Phase 2 completes the full specification — funded by trading revenue, partners and sponsorship once the room is proven.

Phase 1 — Opening · Never dark from day one
Entertainment floor fitout — 780 sqm
$3,276,000
AUTEX acoustic treatment
$480,000
Production rigging + lighting
$560,000
Hired PA — opening season
$120,000
Network + AI + trading floor backbone
$515,000
Professional fees + licensing + pre-opening
$855,000
Contingency
$500,000
Phase 1 total
$6,306,000
Phase 2 — Full specification
Permanent L-Acoustics system
$950,000
LED wall + broadcast studio + retail
$1,470,000
Total vision
$10,000,000
Lease term
10 years · $550/sqm · 1,560 sqm
Restaurant
Franchise · Not in raise
Sustainability premium
Pending Quattro guidance · ~10% uplift
All figures are vision-stage estimates. Capital requirements confirmed following receipt of building schematics, HOA execution and contractor walkthrough.

06 — Sustainability

The most sustainable high-technology entertainment infrastructure in the Southern Hemisphere — not as an ambition, as the specification standard from day one.

Audio infrastructure
L-Acoustics — the most energy-efficient professional audio system at this specification level. Lower power draw than any comparable installation.
AI cluster
Apple Silicon — five dollars a day to run infrastructure that would cost a corporation five million dollars a year. The most efficient compute available at this performance level.
Acoustic treatment
AUTEX — New Zealand manufactured. Zero shipping footprint. Local supply chain. Designed and installed by the people who have spent their careers making NZ spaces world-class.
Building use
Multi-use room operating nearly 24 hours across the week rather than sitting dark five nights out of seven. The most sustainable model in the category — by design.
Sustainable practice is central to how we intend to build and operate The White Room. We are seeking our property partner's guidance to achieve it at the standard they set across their portfolio. This is part of the partnership.

07 — The Protocol

The White Room is not one venue. Auckland is the first node in a global protocol — BLK/WHT — connecting cultural and financial infrastructure across cities. Each venue carries the same intelligence, the same technology, the same standard.

TWR · 001
The Exchange
Auckland
Active · 2026
TWR · 002
The Vault
Wellington
Next
TWR · 003
Sydney
Melbourne
Following
BLK/WHT
Global Protocol
Every venue connected
The vision

08 — The Operator

Luke Thompson has spent 35 years connecting the right infrastructure to the right moment in Auckland's music, technology and live experience industry.

Red Bull Studio New Zealand — the room that launched The Naked and Famous to the United States. Voted Red Bull's best global marketing and culture platform. Expanded to 32 countries.

Sky TV OTT — 11,000 to 111,000 subscribers in eight months. Shut down because it threatened their core business model. That is what proof of concept looks like.

Sideline.live — World Sailing Championships world first. 5,000 grassroots events.

Private AI cluster — eight projects, live capital in global digital asset markets, running now on Apple Silicon in Auckland. Five dollars a day.

Every time. For thirty-five years. The White Room is not the beginning of this story. It is the moment the story becomes physical.

09 — Next Steps

Heads of agreement
Draft and review by both parties — lease terms, base building standard at handover, lessor's works scope
Building schematics
Plans and drawings from landlord — gates QS and capital validation
Licensing
Liquor licence and change-of-use consent to be filed in parallel — six month lead time is live
Sustainability
Engage property partner's sustainability team — co-author the specification standard
Capital raise
Figures confirmed on HOA execution — lessor contribution and external raise structured accordingly
The conversation
The vision, the numbers, the relationship — in the room together