Springer Nature

Previously an old Stout Factory and then working hard in many different guises, the nine different floors in two interconnecting warehouse buildings on Battlebridge Basin, Kings Cross have been cut & carved over their lifetime with not any one corner or floorplate the same and many ‘discoverable works’, as we soon found out.

The injection of a fresh new palette into focused, strategic areas have energized the tired and complacent environment to ensure budgets were used to provide maximum impact and positive change.

A striking, 4-storey Atrium moss wall provides not only much needed sound absorption, but an engaging, low maintenance natural feature connecting the business across all floorplates. Recycled PET acoustic wall, ceiling and lighting treatments feature heavily to provide enhanced acoustic performance amongst existing services and a cohesive design approach throughout.

This large consolidation project creating fully flexible workspace for circa 2000no. staff has been all about staff wellbeing and optimising performance by fully supporting and enabling a loyal workforce while undergoing huge changes in their comfortable but conventional working practices.

From an embedded culture of 1:1 desks, this project has been about waking up & shaking up the norms, breaking down the ‘silos’ and space-ownership to focus on improved business synergies and shared, community spaces.

After a year of Covid, how do you encourage a large workforce of publishers, researchers, digital techies, editors, accountants and marketeers with a wide variety of needs to commute back to NO assigned desks? How does the office find a new relevance?

Sustainable materials and products were selected to complement and not overwhelm the historical details that still stand strong but were previously overcrowded and hidden in the background. Our goal was to let the buildings breathe again, encouraging natural light into the floorplates and ensuring our design interventions helped the buildings to live up to their lively history.

Stakeholder engagement themes centred around both a lack of quiet, concentrated workspace, low acoustic performance and no buzzing communal environments. The Team listened closely to staff needs to ensure staff wellbeing was at the forefront of the massive shift in office culture and physical environment undertaken.

The wide blend of staff tasks and behaviours are accommodated through detailed planning, great design tools and repurposing and retrofitting a multitude of existing furniture into new rejuvenated agile settings.

Revitalising an abundance of Meeting Pods to create Solo & Duo Quiet-Working Booths with efficient PIR lighting and recycled PET privacy screens; fitting existing dining tables with power/data to give them new life & purpose as collaboration & touchdown settings-was all incredibly detailed but provided sustainable solutions to address Springer Nature’s large existing stock.

Investment in Smart Lockers, new Cycle & End of Journey facilities, light-filled Social spaces, rejuvenated Tea Points, lush internal landscaping, acoustic interventions (including ‘Virtual First’ conferencing pods) and a multitude of new work settings, now provide staff with a choice to work in an enabled and fully supported way.

The capacity of new cycle & shower facilities was key in achieving this new, fully agile environment by encouraging a larger workforce to embrace sustainable means of transport to work.

Whilst embracing but tweaking Springer Nature’s global branding palette, subtle reference has been made to reinforce brand values without uniformity or gimmick. We have created a dynamic new working arena for our Client in this unique and privileged setting in central Kings Cross.