Honouring historic offices
We had the special opportunity to be invited into Bletchley's well storied offices, to discuss a light office refurbishment. Our highly knowledgeable and passionate client gave us a private tour of the site inlcluding private offices, invaluable in our understanding of the rooms past and their relationship with the people who served in them. We looked at archive photos to understand the significance and how staff used the spaces in the past, which set the tone for how we approached a simple installation.
Our client required sturdy, simple entry level furniture that will last, installed quickly without fuss using trade entrances out of sight of public tours. We very quickly established the building had exceptional attention to detail in its original planning and build. Our site survey showed identical adjoining brick built office rooms to be precisely the same internal dimensions between steel pillars to within +/- 0.0mm tolerance when laser measured. This remains the only time our site survey has experienced such uniform accuracy in a building of this age.
We quickly established a low cost simple furniture solution using CAD planning to fit the spaces perfectly. Cutting worktops to fit around the central steel pillars to mirror historic desk layouts, allowing good verbal and non-verbal communication across desks as was so important in the past. Having all desks in the middle of each room also allowed easy access to windows and radiators, in doing so making these period features visible.
We specified durable, uniform furniture that mirrored internal features. We matched desktops to period corridor hallway stairwell tops, with all the furniture being UK made within two hours of Bletchley. We used a light pastel seating colour to reflect client wishes and lift the room. The end result was an enjoyable installation in a special space, on budget and ontime, and a satisfied client.