Granta ParkProject

The brief

COEL was commissioned by a global company, to support them with a functional workplace fit-out for their new premises at Granta Park, a Cambridgeshire science, technology and biopharmaceutical park. In addition, the COEL team also provided commercial furniture, and an ethical recycling service and relocation service. 

As an existing client, with a number of years’ experience supporting their workplace needs, we were approached to help them move from 15,000 sq ft workspace to a new 10,000 sq ft workspace.  

The new workspace, though reduced in footprint, still retained room for collaboration and additional private zones, to enable focus space amongst their hybrid workforce.  

With a strong sustainability ethos, the client’s focus was to move in a way that reduced environmental impact as much as possible whilst considering a workplace strategy that would meet the needs of their team. 

Functionality was key 

Our design team adjusted the initial office layout to suit the client’s needs by: 

• Building a half height reception partition with adjacent post room 
• Creating a new training/meeting room for 14 people 
• Enclosing a staff break out hub to offer privacy and reduce noise heard in the rest of the office, improving acoustics and design with a new wooden slat wall  
• Building a goods-in store area 

Acoustic considerations 

As the new space was largely open plan, it was important to provide solutions to remedy the acoustics and reduce the flow of sound as much as possible. The new meeting room included high performance acoustic construction and wall height acoustic wall panels. 

The main open meeting space, along with the kitchen area, also had acoustic rafts installed, adding an aesthetic aligning with the corporate brand.  

Commercial furniture for their changing business needs

With 75% of their collaboration and breakout furniture being moved from the previous property, the additional commercial furniture chosen included: meeting room tables, chairs and phone booths/pods. By opting for ‘Framery and Silen ’ pods, the client chose high quality phone booths and meeting pods to meet the increased need for privacy in the new workspace. 

Our team, alongside Senator’s Sustain project ensured that as part of the move 2,203 kg of furniture was diverted from landfill resulting in a saving of 3,733 kg/CO2e.