Completed in 2000 to the design of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 88 Wood Street displays many stylistic signatures of the renowned practice, including prominent steel framed service towers, exposed structure painted in bright primary colours and funnel air ducts at street level that recall the seminal Rogers/Piano Pompidou Centre of thirty years earlier.

Our brief was to retain and enhance the building’s essential character, bringing the workspaces up to the standards expected by contemporary tenants and employees, in a way that reflected changing patterns in work and perceptions of the City of London.

Our fresh, high quality, interventions  are both attractive and easy to manage and maintain.  At reception level, the arrival desk has been remodelled to welcome occupants and their guests. The introduction of a retail bar at the building's entry point provides a key social space for interaction and engagement.  Beyond the arrival desk an amenity area has private work spaces, meeting tables and casual seating with a long curtained enclosure offering divisibility as required.  Biophilic design principles are reflected in a green wall running the full length of the reception space, and in generous planting.

Away from the reception area we refurbished five levels of the building to an open plan model of CAT-A standard, with a semi-exposed aesthetic to enhance the building’s Hi-tech origins.  Works were undertaken with the rest of the building still in commercial occupation, and completed in summer 2021.

Consideration of health and wellbeing is further enhanced by the provision of external cycle storage in the undercroft and to the rear of the building, while bathroom facilities at entrance level have been expanded to include showers, changing rooms, lockers and basins with mirrors.

Photography  |  Simon Maxwell