MLA carried out a strategic briefing process with the public sector client and colleagues in 2021. We engaged with senior leaders in the organisation to understand their predicted patterns for returning to the office, space use, activities, and need for workplace settings and technology. We followed up these workshops with several building site walk-through to understand the context these individuals were sitting within.

This brief set out the requirement for a variety of spatial settings which supported team working and collaboration, individual concentrated work, and VC/ Teams calls.  This has driven the design for a new pilot space, and we have worked with the existing spaces and some of the existing furniture settings within the identified pilot space.

This workplace pilot project’s role is to provide a ‘test bed’ for the public sector client’s return to the office programme by providing a new, modern, technology-enabled workspace for staff to use over a 3-6 month period.

The development of the pilot space is currently on hold but the value in the discussions we conducted and the information we received will help inform future decisions at the organisation. We hope the design of the space invigorates the space the staff occupy and makes a lasting impact on their ways of working. Watch this space for future updates.

Consultancy activities

• Strategic Visioning & Briefing
• Building Appraisal
• Interviews & User Group Workshops
• Design Development to Stage 3

We worked up to RIBA stage 4 to provide detailed drawings for the construction process, however due to the project being placed on hold, construction has not commenced.