Work out what the office is for, before you pay anyone to build it.
How many desks, how many meeting rooms, how much of it sits empty on a Friday. The answers change the budget more than any material choice, and they are cheapest to get right on a plan.
What is workplace design?
Workplace design works out what your office needs to do before anyone designs or prices the room. We measure the space you have, look at how it's really used across the week, and test two or three layouts against that, so the number of desks and meeting rooms suits the way your teams actually work.
Since hybrid working settled down, a lot of businesses are paying for floor area they use two days a week and are still short of somewhere to have a conversation without booking a room a fortnight in advance. Sometimes the answer is a refurbishment. Sometimes it's half the floor and a better lease, and we'll tell you early if that's the case.
What does a workplace design project involve?
A workplace design project with us runs in four stages: a survey of the space and how it's used, space planning, design and visualisation, then the build and furniture. You can stop after any of them. Plenty of clients take the finished plan to their own contractor, and that's a perfectly good way to work with us.
A measured survey of the floor you have, and an honest look at how much of it is doing anything. Desk counts, meeting room demand, storage, and the bits everybody works around without noticing.
Measured survey · Occupancy · Desk and headcount planning · Brief
Two or three layouts tested against how your teams actually work, rather than one drawn to fill the space. This is the stage that decides the budget, and it is the cheapest one to change your mind in.
Test layouts · Circulation · Zoning · Options and comparison
Once the plan is right, the room gets designed on top of it. Photorealistic visuals you can walk through, then the drawings and specification the trades price and work from.
Concept design · 3D visualisation · Technical drawings · Specification
If you want us to deliver it, we contract the trades and hand you one invoice, then specify and install the furniture against the same drawings. If you have a contractor already, we hand over the pack instead.
Fit out · Furniture specification · Supply and install · Aftercare
What is office design and build?
Office design and build means one firm plans your space and then delivers it, so you're not managing a designer and a contractor separately. Because we design, build and furnish, the people drawing your plan know what it costs to put up and will be the ones putting it up, which keeps the plan realistic once it's priced.
Once the plan is settled, the rest of it is on its own pages.
The build, the trades and the furniture are on the office fit out page, with a cost calculator that gives you a working range in about two minutes. If you want the planning as a piece of work on its own, our space planning and workplace consultancy pages cover that.
Frequently asked questions about workplace design.
Can we buy the space planning on its own?
Yes, and some clients should. If you are deciding whether to refurbish, relocate or renegotiate, settle the plan first and decide the rest afterwards. You are free to take the plan to somebody else and we will not make that awkward.
How many desks do we actually need?
It comes down to how your teams use the office across the week, and headcount on its own won't tell you. Since hybrid working settled, counting heads gets it wrong in both directions. A measured survey plus a fortnight of honest observation gets much closer than a spreadsheet, and it's where we'd start.
Do you do this for offices outside Yorkshire?
Yes. Most of our work is across South Yorkshire, and we've also worked in Chesterfield, Flixborough, Glasgow, London, Scunthorpe and across five sites for a national brand. If your office is further afield, tell us where it is and we'll talk through how we'd run the project.
Can we see the new layout before anything is built?
Yes. At the space planning stage we test two or three layouts against how your teams actually work, and once the plan is settled we design the room on top of it with photorealistic visuals you can walk through. If you'd like a working budget alongside it, our estimator gives you a range in about two minutes.
Not sure whether to refurbish, move or stay put?
That is a good reason to have the first conversation, and it is free. Tell us what the office is doing wrong and we will tell you honestly whether we are the answer.
Discuss your project