Commercial · Office Design · Space Planning
The fit-out cost more than expected. It photographed beautifully for the company website. The team was genuinely excited on the first day. Six months later, the meeting rooms are always full and nobody can find a quiet place to focus. The kitchen is a social hub at the wrong times. Two teams that need to collaborate are on opposite sides of the floor. And the office you designed for the team you had is not right for the team you have become.
This is not unusual. It is, in fact, the standard outcome for a commercial fit-out designed around a floor plan rather than a workflow. The space was designed to contain the team. It was not designed for how the team actually works.
The distinction matters more in a commercial space than almost anywhere else. At home, a spatial mismatch means daily inconvenience. In an office, a spatial mismatch means reduced productivity, increased friction between teams, difficulty attracting talent, and a persistent low-level frustration that nobody quite identifies but everyone feels.
Generic open plan. One type of workspace for every type of work. Teams that need quiet next to teams that generate noise. No design for how work actually happens.
Activity-based design. Zones matched to work types. Focus work separated from collaborative work. Informal areas adjacent to kitchen. Every zone designed for its specific function.
The actual ratio of deep work to collaborative work. Most offices are designed for a 50/50 split between individual and collaborative work. For most knowledge-work teams, the actual ratio is closer to 70/30 in favour of individual, focused work. A fit-out that provides equal quantities of open collaborative space and individual workspace is wrong for the team that actually uses it. The result is too little quiet space, too much noisy collaborative space, and a focus problem that presents as a culture problem.
The informal communication network. Every team has a map of who talks to whom most frequently, which cross-functional conversations happen most often, and which relationships need to be proximate to be productive. This map is almost never consulted during a fit-out. Teams that need to collaborate daily are frequently placed on opposite sides of the floor because the floor plan organises by department rather than by workflow. The result is friction in the relationships that generate the most value.
The hybrid work reality. A fit-out designed for full occupancy is the wrong fit-out for a team that is 60% in the office on any given day. The mathematics of hybrid work require a fundamentally different spatial strategy: more shared, unassigned workstations, more collaborative zones, and different thinking about how much of the floor should be dedicated to individual desks that sit empty three days a week.
The growth scenario. A fit-out designed for today’s headcount is frequently wrong within eighteen months. Teams grow, contract, restructure. A commercial space that cannot adapt to these changes forces either over-occupancy in cramped conditions or under-utilisation in oversized, demoralising spaces. Designing for adaptability — modular furniture, movable partitions, flexible zone definitions — is not a design compromise. It is the highest-value design decision in a commercial fit-out.
Not: how many desks do we need? But: what types of work happen in this office, at what ratio, requiring what spatial conditions, and how will that change in two years? The answers to these questions determine the spatial brief. The spatial brief determines the design. The design determines whether the office works in six months or whether it creates friction that nobody can fully name but everyone feels.
It starts with a work audit. Not a headcount. A genuine analysis of the types of work that happen in your organisation, the communication patterns between teams, the ratio of focused to collaborative activity, and the specific spatial conditions that each type of work requires.
From that analysis, a zone strategy emerges. A focus zone designed for acoustic separation and minimal distraction. A collaboration zone designed for energy, movement, and connection. A social zone adjacent to the kitchen, designed for the informal conversations that generate ideas. A call zone designed for video calls that do not disturb the rest of the floor. Possibly a client zone that can be closed off from the working area when needed.
These zones do not require full partitioning. They require intentional design — ceiling heights, material choices, furniture selection, acoustic treatment, and lighting conditions that signal to the brain what type of activity this space is for. When a person enters the focus zone, they should immediately feel the expectation of quiet and concentration. When they enter the collaboration zone, they should immediately feel the permission to speak, to move, and to be energetic.
“A beautiful office that does not work for how the team actually works is a beautiful problem. The photography does not capture the friction.”
If your commercial space is creating persistent low-level friction, we would like to understand the specific dynamic. The Discovery call is a conversation about how your team actually works and what the space needs to change to support that. Commercial projects welcome.