The office is dead. Long live the office! In a post-covid work-from-home world, how do you get people back to the office?

We were shortlisted for the next generation of workspace at the Archiboo Architect Pitch, tasked with bringing back to life a large office on Marylebone Road. We proposed a circular and ‘anti-fad’ approach as a counter to the office fit-out culture; on average office spaces are fitted out every 8 years creating huge amounts of waste. 

We proposed reusing the existing fabric of the building where our interventions involved demolition or removal as well as identifying local construction sites where materials could be sourced and reused in the retrofit. Part of the proposals included providing a community workshop in the basement of the building to encourage the ‘recycle and reuse’ approach to the building, open for local use. We proposed to reuse 85,000 bricks and 65sqm of portland stone as flooring tiles or terrazzo, while recycling 540sqm of the existing glazing into new triple glazed windows alongside thermal performance improvements. Our proposals were commended on their approach to sustainability and circularity.