Welcome to our London studio
The challenges of an ever-complex world require boundary pushing solutions. As a hub of collaboration, our London studio recognises that it is the combined knowledge and expertise of our multiple design disciplines that allows us to be greater than the sum of our parts; delivering whole places that are holistically responsive in both approach and activation.
Perkins&Will’s Living Design philosophy sits at the heart of our home in London’s midtown district. The framework has been central in 150 Holborn’s evolution as a living lab that supports our commitment to deliver research-driven, human-centric design. It is an empowering place designed with inclusion at the heart, driven by individual agency and self-organisation, where design is the common language for connections.
Developed over the past year by Perkins&Will, Portland and the Royal College of Art’s superFUTURES, ‘The Futures We Build’ is a playbook that emerged from a series of roundtables that brought together clients, partners, designers, changemakers, and business leaders. Together, we asked them to step outside their silos and ask harder questions about the future of the built environment.
The playbook captures what surfaced: seven opportunities urging us to design differently – prompting us to move past function and consider how places influence social, emotional and cultural outcomes. We have more agency than we think; the spaces we create can fragment or connect, limit or inspire, isolate or bring people together.
The theme of last month’s Venice Architecture Biennale explored the climate crisis, demographic change, and the future of human-centric design, while asking: How must design evolve to meet humanity’s shifting realities?
Lara Baillargeon, Junior Designer and part of the London studio’s SIGNALS initiative, our strategic foresight forum exploring emerging global trends, visited the Biennale to find out more.
Reflecting on the exhibition, Lara noted: “Architects are working at scales from the intimate to the infrastructural, collaborating with technologists and measuring impact at both human and ecological levels to achieve not just survival, but genuinely liveable futures.”
Click here to read more
Here’s to celebrating a fantastic year with our incredible clients, colleagues and friends at our annual Champagne & Chips event!
It was the perfect chance to catch up with familiar faces and reflect on the great year we’ve had together. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us and made it another unforgettable evening.
📸 Take a look through some of the highlights of the night captured by the talented @seenbyollie
Chris Poulson, Senior Associate, sat down with See,be to talk about 10 Station Road in Cambridge, a project that pushes boundaries of sustainability, wellbeing, and regenerative design.
The project expresses our Living Design ethos, placing human experience at the centre: prioritising daylight, fresh air, movement and nature throughout. 10 Station Road has achieved BREEAM Outstanding, NABERS 4.5, WELL Core Gold, and EPC A ratings – setting a new benchmark for sustainable commercial architecture in Cambridge.
Click the link here to read the full interview.
Set within 10 hectares of verdant landscape, the campus embodies ACCIONA’s vision of continuous innovation and a deep connection to nature. Designed around the natural elements that energize daily life — light, shadow, air, and water — it brings together 4,000 employees in a workplace that unites sustainability, community, and creativity.
Architectural interventions maximize daylight, natural ventilation, and access to green spaces. Outdoor pavilions and terraces promote flexible, healthy ways of working, while a restrained palette of white, wood, and reflective materials evokes the warmth and simplicity of Spanish vernacular architecture.
Balancing the site’s existing industrial textures with refined new materials, the design creates an honest dialogue between old and new. The result is a beautiful, natural, and sustainable campus — a living expression of ACCIONA’s commitment to people, innovation, and the planet.
In this episode of our Conversations with Colleagues series, we sat down with Intermediate Interior Designer, James Porritt.
Recently recognised in Mix Interiors’ ’30 Under 30′ list, James is a talented designer who pushes boundaries and brings a unique perspective to every project he works on. Passionate about the next generation of designers, he champions shared learning and collaboration in the studio.
We think you’ll really enjoy getting to know James!
At the end of September we marked our London Studio’s first ‘Staff Away Day’.
Through group activities such as Creative Tensions and Exploring Values, we challenged assumptions, which stretched our thinking, encouraged lively discussions, and helped us connect across teams in our studio.
The Away Day was a welcome pause from our routines; a chance to collaborate, recharge, and strengthen the sense of community that underpins our work at Perkins&Will. Thank you to everyone involved!
This new campus puts employees and their wellbeing at the heart of the design. It connects 4,000 people in a progressive workplace at the intersection of sustainability, community, and innovation. In redefining the workplace, it blends efficiency with hospitality, ensuring employees do not just work here, they thrive, connect, and enjoy it.
In our fast-paced and tech-driven world, something fundamental is missing from the spaces we inhabit daily. Through a three-part series, Perkins&Will’s London studio, Portland Design, and the Royal College of Art’s superFUTURES brought together designers, curators, change-makers, and business leaders to create a much-needed platform for futures thinking in the built environment. Take a look behind the scenes with the creatives who brought our Spaces events to life.
Want to dive deeper? Follow the link below to read the article by Elisa Cecilli, Senior Associate in our London studio, as she reflects on the series three urgent questions:
- How do we restore magic to our built environment?
- How do we create spaces that truly serve communities?
- And how do we build resilience for an uncertain future?
Back in June, Perkins&Will and Portland hosted our annual Skyline Soirée – an evening full of thought-provoking conversations, surprising encounters, and summery rooftop vibes.
Early in the evening, we had a short series of insight-led talks from visionary voices including Fillipo Cuttica (Lego), Charlotte Cornish (The Liminal Space), and Annie Auerbach (Starling Strategy), who shared their ideas around the topics of Magic, Communities and Resilience.
Building on our partnership with the Royal College of Art’s SuperFUTURES programme, we also awarded two exceptional graduates a £500 prize – helping to shape the next generation of design-led thinking.
Thank you to everyone who joined us and made it a fantastic evening!
A globally respected voice on the future of place, retail, and human-centred environments, Ibrahim brings decades of strategic design leadership to this new academic role, helping to shape a future-facing curriculum, connect students to industry, and support the university’s bold Futures Initiative.
“It’s a real honour to be invited by the Welsh School of Architecture into their curriculum. I look forward to working with the next generation of designers to challenge assumptions, provoke ideas, and reimagine how we live, work, and connect.”
Read more here
In early April Bri Langtry, our Workplace Strategist, travelled to Milan for the Salone del Mobile with the Perkins&Will team as part of the London studio’s SIGNALS initiative – a strategic foresight forum exploring emerging global trends.
The visit offered a chance to explore this year’s theme, “Thought for Humans”. At a time when artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly present in our industry, the theme served as a timely reminder of the deep-rooted connection between design and humanity – and the irreplaceable need for human interaction in the creative process.
Read the full article here
As a vibrant, community-focused workspace, 1EdCity was designed to foster education, support youth initiatives, and provide new opportunities for the White City community in London. We created a functional, comfortable, and secure environment that supports productivity, collaboration, and employee well-being.
Back in March we hosted the Construction Youth Trust for an evening celebrating Thinking Differently, highlighting the Trust’s incredible work over the past two years in exploring the hidden barriers to entry and retention in the built environment sector.
Through engagement with over 1,000 young people and nearly 150 employers, their report challenges us all to rethink how we can break down hidden barriers to social mobility and create truly life-changing opportunities for young people.
The event brought together some of the industry’s most influential leaders, alongside the charity’s Patron, His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester.
As an industry, we have a collective responsibility to drive change and ensure the built environment is accessible to all. Thinking Differently served as a powerful reminder that by fostering meaningful conversations and taking action, we can shape a more inclusive, equitable, and dynamic future for the next generation of construction professionals.
Set to complete by 2032, the project is part of Wave 1 of the government’s New Hospital Programme. JPUH will join six other hospitals originally built with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, all being modernised to strengthen the UK’s healthcare infrastructure.
Our design framework prioritises future development, enhancing acute care, ambulatory services, staff training, and administration. As one of the largest construction efforts in the area in decades, the expansion will drive economic growth and create job opportunities, while supporting the government’s vision for a modern healthcare system. We’re honoured to be part of such a meaningful project.
✨ Spaces for: MAGIC ✨
At the end of 2024, we brought together designers, curators, leaders, and change-makers to discuss a topic that’s often overlooked: the role of magic in the spaces we inhabit.
In partnership with Gem Barton, the RCA’s superFUTURES studio, and special guests Filipo Cuttica (LEGO) and Marie Stafford (VML), we launched a new roundtable series exploring futures thinking in design.
Why do we need to talk about magic?
In a digitally connected yet emotionally isolated world, constant stimulation leaves no room for pause or creativity, and relentless day-to-day distractions are causing us to lose touch with the present moment. It is in the increasingly scarce liminal spaces that magic happens: in pauses, moments of connection, creativity, and self expression.
These are the experiences that bring magic into our everyday, and which we want to protect for future generations.
So, how do we create spaces for magic? A few calls to action arose from an inspiring morning at ‘spaces for: MAGIC’: click here to find out
Designed by Perkins&Will and delivered in collaboration with JLL and Overbury, our new fit out at the heart of St Paul’s has become the new London home for an industry-leading brand in trading, futures, and global markets.
Thanks to a design process guided by ‘co-creation’ with the client, our team have been able to bring to life a new workplace that remains authentic and loyal to their global brand, whilst also incorporating bold, unexpected moments into the design.
Playful, distinctive geometry translates the sightlines from the surrounding cityscape into the interiors, bright washes of monochrome colour signal the breakout and social areas, and reflective marble pathways integrated into the floors and ceilings guide staff and visitors along their journey through the workplace.
Together, these bold interventions are intended to ‘disrupt’ the sleek, timeless feel of the space to mirror our client’s reputation for being an innovator in their field – making for a memorable experience for staff and visitors alike.
Uber’s new HQ expresses a unique sense of playfulness, where the juxtaposition of new and historic spaces creates moments of magic for teams and visitors alike. The fit out uses geometric forms that mirror the Tripoli building’s abstract architecture to create a memorable journey through the workplace where teams are invited to explore, connect, and interact with their environment.
Each team is located within their own ‘neighbourhood’ where the surroundings express a unique sense of identity, community and individual expression. When moving between neighbourhoods, the playful connections between spaces – featuring bridges, archways, unconventional entrances and pathways – creates an environment where chance encounters come easily, and teams are able to switch between focus work, socialising, collaborating, and recharging, all under one roof.
The Vale of White Horse District Council and Oxfordshire Country Council has announced the adoption of the District Council’s new data-driven, travel-focused Local Development Order (LDO2) to streamline the planning process, and attract even more life science and technology investment to one of Europe’s largest innovation communities. Once adopted, the updated order will help to fast-track planning approvals to just 10 days, allow occupiers to capitalise on growth opportunities to create thousands of new jobs, and deliver high standards of sustainable design and biodiversity net gain.
Collaborating closely with Milton Park, their team, and the Vale of White Horse we developed LDO Parameter Plans for future development that took on board landscape and heritage considerations and established user friendly Design Guidelines for delivering a vibrant science and technology district – integrating state-of-the-art buildings, high-quality amenities, thoughtfully-designed spaces for fast-growing tech businesses, and lively, accessible public realm.
Winning the Green Building Project of the Year category is a testament to the exemplary circular designs that our team and client worked so hard to deliver.
For our client’s new workplace, over 80% of the fit out components – including furniture, carpets, and light fittings – from their previous Premier Place office were all carefully removed and reused in the client’s new BREEAM outstanding space at London Wall, ultimately achieving a 59t CO2e reduction.
With new material reuse guidelines also developed throughout the project as a result of this successful circular design story – we hope that 60 London Wall will set a blueprint for circular economy in our industry for years to come.
As announced on 22nd May by The Crown Estate, Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), and Pioneer Group, our London studio is gearing up to turn the site of a former Debenhams store in Oxford’s city centre into a bustling new life sciences hub.
Amidst the backdrop of limited options for suitable premises and infrastructure for the UK’s science, technology, and innovation sectors, particularly in areas like Oxford, this Debenhams project is poised to make a significant impact. With 100,000 sq ft of state-of-the-art lab and workspace, the redevelopment will reinforce Oxford’s status as one of the world’s premier science and innovation clusters.
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