As lead interior designers for Festival House, we complemented our sister company Cartwright Pickard’s radical refurbishment of this 80’s building, to create a new desirable destination of contemporary co-working and serviced offices in Cheltenham.

Collaboration and phasing was key to successfully meeting the tight time and cost constraints as the building was part-occupied during extensive construction that included upwards extension and upgrading of MEP services.

We developed the full interior design, from colour and material palette, bespoke joinery design, furniture selection and scheduling to wayfinding and signage in parallel with the base-build.

Being involved from the start enabled us to liaise with architectural visualisers for early marketing material as well as fully coordinate technical items such as exposed ceilings, office acoustics and kitchens.

To test our own approach to workplace design in times of pandemic, we undertook a short and focussed pro-bono workplace consultation for national homeless charity Crisis Skylight in Brent.

By re-zoning the existing space and subtly altering the flow through the building to minimise mixing of building users, we were able to find Covid-compliant arrangements allowing the charity to continue their work with vulnerable people with hardly any loss of staff workspaces and with reduced transmission risk.

In fact, we used Covid as a tool to provide a new perspective for improvements such as creating space by de-cluttering, unblocking circulation by consolidating storage, creating zoom booths for new remote services, adapting existing rooms for multiple scenarios with flexible furniture.

“We really appreciate your work. It will make a real difference to us”, Atara Fridler, Crisis Skylight Director. Our tailored back-to-work report has given the client a handy and professional guide allowing them to implement changes entirely at their own pace and in phases suited to their own organisation.

Discover more of our workplace projects.