6 Duke Street
Clerical Medical’s first building was behind this office block, which they acquired as they expanded. After some years, they decided to move out of London and wanted to maximise the sale value of their vacated premises. We met with the client’s sales agents and devised a strategy.
The central atrium was removed through all the 6 floors of the building and the challenge was to replace the natural daylight with artificial daylight. This was achieved by the introduction of contemporary perforated metal ceilings.
The toilets and stair cores were re-planned to allow for subletting of individual floors and we made the office interiors feel less cluttered by the use of contemporary finishes along with integrated recessed lighting and air conditioning.
We were asked by the client to keep the original marble flooring in the reception area. This created a significant design challenge as the flooring was very colourful with a strong wavy pattern and was not in keeping with the new contemporary style we were introducing to the other communal areas.
We chose to design an equally strong curved feature wall and ceiling, adding up and down lighters to highlight the floor and ceiling and draw your eyes along what was a very narrow reception area. The colours were carefully chosen to complement the flooring and a bespoke, rich warm reception desk punctuated the space perfectly.