For their second project for an Australian financial services group, workspace specialists align were briefed to design 13,745 sq ft of new working, meeting, presentation and break-out space across 1.5 storeys at their client’s City of London offices in order to meet a period of sustained growth and house three divisions of the company, totalling around 150-170 people.
align had previously worked on an office interiors scheme in Reading for the same client, before being instructed to create this new Cat A and Cat B scheme, where the brief was to include integrated, but differentiated, zones that worked within the overall building environment with a pronounced accent on biophilia, agile working and staff wellbeing.
The scope of work mostly covered the building’s 8th floor, where general workspaces are located, along with a staff kitchen/pantry; a large presentation and townhall space (which can also be used for other purposes, eg yoga classes); five meeting rooms and a large breakout area with an indoor-outdoor feel (‘The Terrace’). The multi-use presentation area was deemed particularly important to the success of the project and is able to be combined with The Terrace area, with a folding wall between the two, in order to allow large-scale events to be held there.
Working with the Existing Building
The existing building has a strong statement core, including a red feature staircase created by the scheme’s original architects. This new design project needed to acknowledge and talk to this dominant feature. This was achieved via the occasional and well-judged uses of red throughout - from red lines, for example, within a grey carpet from Shaws Carpets used in corridor areas, that also echo the staircase’s angled geometry, with Fegerhold lights directly above further matching the carpet insert angle.
On the 9th floor, a series of felt-walled phone and single-working booths are by Buzzispace, whilst a previously under-used corridor area has been made much more dynamic through connecting it to the rest of the building to create a new semi-formal meeting space.
A dynamic square light fitting from ALW mimics the table shape below and attracts users’ attention. The addition of greenery and planting creates an indoor-outdoor feel and also connects the space to the floor below, via the same ‘upside-down’ planting detail from Boskke.
Natural Light and Sustainability
The client brief also requested the use of glass to maximise natural light and the scheme therefore features fire-rated glass for dividing walls wherever possible. As the more traditional working zones for the teams also require privacy and security for FCA compliance, privacy manifestations are used for some of the glazed partitions. Further light was created via white-painted ceilings, deliberately exposed, allowing for a very generous 3m ceiling height – almost a metre more than the average office interior – whilst at the same time ensuring a less corporate feel.
From an energy perspective, the large elements of glazing pull in as much natural daylight as possible, with cellular spaces confined to inner core areas and the lighting scheme is entirely LED-driven, with suspended up and down-lighting to limit glare to work surfaces. Floor finishes, meanwhile, feature a high degree of recycled content, as do the slatted timber acoustic panels in the presentation space, made from off-cuts of Australian red cedar.
Workspace furniture includes sit-stand desks from Hayworth, along with a mixture of desks and seating by Naughtone, Orangebox and Brunner. Whilst the scheme created a suite of varied workplace environments for an agile workforce, each work zone also encompassed small meeting spaces and work areas, screened with combinations of furniture elements, hanging planting and open Abstracta frameworks, to create more intimate neighbourhoods within larger zones, along with jump-in jump-out phone booths to provide local quiet spaces. Each area very much has its own character and this approach can also be seen in the different meeting room design treatments, with carpets in two rooms in turquoise, two in green and one in yellow, for example.
A commitment to creating a biophilic environment meant an extensive planting strategy for the space too, creating a natural connection via externally-planted roof terraces, which also improve internal air quality and help mitigate the breakout of sound into the building’s shared atrium space.
Multi-functional / Presentation Area
The multi-functional/presentation area also has completely moveable furniture in the form of stacking chairs, along with folding Torino tables from Brunner, that can be wheeled to one side. The space includes a lectern that can be used in different locations and a large screen at one end. A hexagonal-design carpet here is from Shaws Carpets, whilst the rear wall features a stack-panel cladding system using recycled timber. The carpet continues into The Terrace beyond to link the spaces when the requirement is for a unified, larger space.