Services

Services for occupiers

Workplace strategy and briefing

Defining a clear strategy for your new office will ensure it supports your business objectives – providing the right amount and type of workspace. We can help you create a strategic brief that considers your short, medium and long term goals to ensure you make the right decisions about your business premises. The brief will underpin the subsequent design – ensuring it is flexible and able to adapt to future change.

We can bring this strategy to life with an illustrative workplace concept that shows how your new office might look, feel and function. Using tools including notional space plans, mood boards and images of precedent projects, we can help you to communicate your strategic workplace vision engagingly and convincingly to staff and other stakeholders.

Office search

Finding a new office involves thinking about much more than the postcode and lease terms. To allow your business to flourish, your new workplace needs to offer the right quality and configuration of space. We can help you draw up a list of key search criteria, review potential premises and analyse shortlisted options with test-fit space plans.

User group consultation

A detailed design brief needs structured input from the people who will use the workspace. This isn’t about recording unfiltered wish lists; it’s about understanding what different teams do, how they work and what they need. Through a series of carefully planned user group workshops and/or interviews, we collate all the information necessary to create a comprehensive design brief.

Concept design

This is when the outline vision for your workplace takes form – with detailed space plans and an interior design scheme developed in coordination with the cost consultant and other design team members. At the time of our appointment, we’ll agree the number of options and design iterations to keep the decision-making and programme on track during this highly creative stage of the project.

Space planning

Effective and efficient workspaces don’t happen by accident. They are the result of meticulous space planning based on a detailed brief. Thinking about headcounts and occupancy rates is just the start of it. Our space planners will work closely with you to understand your organisational culture, your teams’ ways of working and optimal adjacencies. Through this collaborative and iterative process, we create attractive, comfortable layouts that support and enhance your business’s operations while meeting all statutory requirements.

Visualisations

Computer generated visualisations are an engaging and accessible means of communicating design concepts to a non-expert audience. We create visualisations at an appropriate level of detail for every stage of a project. This allows clients to explore initial design concepts and then to share the vision of the new workplace with colleagues and other stakeholders – generating excitement about the project before it’s built.

Detailed design and specification

The built quality of a project depends on the quality of the detailed design and specification. Careless detailing undermines the value of the work done at the concept design stage. We pride ourselves on the excellence of our detailing ‒ anticipating challenges and devising elegant solutions that will work within the constraints of the project programme and budget.

Monitoring the works on site, handover and beyond

A successful project is the result of a productive and reciprocal relationship between the design team and the contractor, which allows any issues on site to be identified promptly and rectified successfully. Therefore, we visit site regularly to inspect the quality of the work and deal with any queries.

As the project nears completion, we undertake detailed snagging inspections to ensure a stress-free handover. And, when required, we are happy to undertake detailed post-occupancy evaluations.

Services for landlords, developers and property agents

Building identity and rebranding

Commercial tenants looking for a new office space are drawn to destination buildings. They want premises that reflect their organisation’s culture and aspirations. Working collaboratively with expert property agents and graphic designers, we devise new identities for tired office buildings – encompassing everything from the building name and branding to the design of the entrance and common parts. 

Space plans for letting brochures

Concept space plans are a key part of the design development for cat A and cat A+ fit outs and are an essential element of letting brochures. Drawing on our many years’ experience of working with end user clients, our creative concept space plans are based on typical space standards and working practices in potential tenant sectors. They illustrate possible headcounts as well as showing attractive and realistic solutions for occupiers with a variety of different workstyles. 

Test fit space plans for potential tenants

Once a potential tenant is interested in your building, they may want to understand exactly how they would occupy the space before committing to a lease. This requires a test fit space plan, based on outline requirements of the occupier’s business. More tailored than a letting brochure plan, our test fit plans consider the desired occupational density as well as the need for quiet and collaborative workspaces, enclosed offices and meeting rooms.

Visualisations

Computer generated visualisations are a mainstay of office letting brochures and websites before a fit out or refurbishment project is ready to be photographed. From perspective drawings and shoe box renders to animated walkthroughs, our visualisations create compelling visions that allow potential tenants to get a real sense of how it would feel to occupy the space.

Common parts design – including interior and exterior spaces

Unwelcoming receptions, dark corridors and old fashioned toilet facilities are a big turn off for potential occupiers, while amenities such as secure bike storage and shared outdoor space are becoming standard. Our designs for common parts refurbishments are based on our deep understanding of tenants’ requirements and can transform the lettability of your building. Refurbishment projects often include courtyards and roof terraces too, as well as facade renovations.

We coordinate closely with other members of the design team and the cost consultant to ensure all elements of the design are aligned.

Office floor design – cat A

A good category A fit out provides light, attractive and flexible space that potential occupiers can easily imagine making their own. Our approach to cat A refurbishments is to be as light touch as possible. If elements of the existing fit out still look good and perform properly, then it makes sense to keep them ‒ a win in terms of both budget and embodied carbon.

We coordinate closely with other members of the design team and the cost consultant to ensure all elements of the design are aligned.

Office floor design – cat A+

For both landlords and tenants, plug and play cat A+ fit outs are becoming increasingly popular. With plug and play, tenants avoid the hassle of a cat B fit out. They can just walk in and start working. And for landlords, the benefits are shorter void periods, less need for incentives and higher rents. With our wealth of experience designing workplaces for occupiers, our cat A+ designs create spaces that look right and work effectively for a range of potential tenants.

We coordinate closely with other members of the design team and the cost consultant to ensure all elements of the design are aligned.

Detailed design and specification

The built quality of a project depends on the quality of the detailed design and specification. Careless detailing undermines the value of the work done at the earlier design stages. We pride ourselves on the excellence of our detailing ‒ anticipating challenges and devising elegant solutions that will work within the constraints of the project programme and budget.

Monitoring of works on site and handover

A successful project is the result of a productive and reciprocal relationship between the design team and the contractor, which allows any issues on site to be identified promptly and rectified successfully. Therefore, we visit site regularly to inspect the quality of the work and deal with any queries.

As the project nears completion, we undertake detailed snagging inspections to ensure a stress-free handover.