Following a highly competitive tender, Charles Edward were awarded this 27,000 sqft European HQ for global banking giant National Australia Bank, seeing off some of the industries largest fit-out contractors in the process. The fit-out spans multiple levels of the Scalpel tower in the City, one of London’s most desirable spaces. Our in-house design team developed a unique office environment for the bank including a new structural staircase between two floors – a main design feature of the fit out providing a meeting and community space which will be heavily used.

The transformation from shell and core to Cat B included sectional completions aided the high level requirement for staff to relocate from the bank’s existing London base in a timely fashion. The project scope included full design of offices, meeting and break out areas for over 300 people with supporting infrastructure.

The aim of the the internal team delivering the National Australia Bank HQ was to work with a contractor who could not only fit out the space, but also contribute considerable design input. We set ourselves apart from many contractors in being able to do this through our own resources, and were able to do so for the client here. We worked to an exacting set of guidelines in terms of the space and an overall ambition, but without a clear or specific brief on architecture. This led the team to the creation of five “neighbourhoods” across the two floors, each with their own purpose and identity, and housing different bodies of staff.

Our design followed on by integrating a series of satellite areas located strategically across the floors, the aim was to enable staff to choose their working mode at any given time, across focus spaces, quiet spaces and collaborative areas. Our enterprise came in the form of engaging the client to help them understand that their staff were looking for design elements to suit and assist them, in a break from tradition from the archetype of a banking office, this being cellularised, closed-off and private.