LONDON, October 2019:Award-winning design and architecture practice MoreySmith has unveiled its designs for McKinsey & Company’s new home in the iconic Post Building, London.
Project Name: McKinsey & Company
Architect Name: MoreySmith
McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm with 30,000 employees. When the firm decided that the time was right to leave its London home for the last 25 years at 1 Jermyn Street and relocate, it appointed MoreySmith to design an exceptional workplace for its people and clients. The new office is located in Holborn, in the heart of London’s Knowledge Quarter surrounded by a cluster of over 100 academic, cultural, research, scientific and media organizations.
MoreySmith initially spent six weeks immersing itself in the firm’s culture and daily activities to develop a deep understanding of the firm. The result is a pioneering new flagship destination, with a light and contemporary environment that feels fresh and dynamic, and enhances wellbeing, happiness, and productivity.
Areas within the workspace range from quiet and studious to open and energetic, and have been designed to encourage choice, allowing employees to select their optimum working environment. Plug and play technology allows absolute flexibility across the various spaces, encouraging collaboration between teams and across sectors.
MoreySmith’s design has increased natural light throughout the workspace by reducing the number of enclosed spaces on the building’s façade, thereby maintaining natural light filtration deeper into the floorplates, a key and early request from the initial immersion and focus process.
A new central interlinking staircase, made from beech plywood, connects the main workplace floors and helps to maximize natural light throughout whilst acting as an artery between the floors, enhancing visual and social connection. At the base of the staircase, biophilic design principles have been applied through the creation of a glazed greenhouse filled with plants and trees to bring the outside in. This approach extends out across all floors with plants included throughout the new spaces. Direct views and access to outdoor space support these principles further, with each floor featuring an outdoor terrace, plus an extended wrap-around terrace on the seventh floor. The Post Building also has its own rooftop terrace, with 360-degree views, which McKinsey employees can enjoy
MoreySmith also used technology to respond to McKinsey’s health and wellbeing brief and incorporated circadian lighting along with internal green spaces to further support colleagues’ wellbeing.
Healthy food and drink options are offered on each floor and the space includes a staff restaurant and coffee and juice bar. Further spaces dedicated to health and wellbeing include a gym, mother’s room, calm – or relaxation – rooms, all intrinsic to MoreySmith’s designs.
The experience for McKinsey’s clients, which includes organisations across the private, public and third sectors, has been carefully considered to foster greater collaboration and provide a premium experience, while maintaining discretion and confidentiality with a range of architectural solutions to provide privacy. The tenth-floor arrival experience is enhanced by 360 views of London, and ‘Astral Projection’, a neon light installation suspended in mid-air, by Welsh conceptual artist, Cerith Wyn Evans. This space has been designed to take client entertaining and hospitality to the next level.
The top two floors of the building enable McKinsey to serve its clients with more agility, seeing a doubling of client space, with co-working space alongside the premium client suite, encouraging co-working and co-creation via hackathons, design workshops and sprints.
The tenth-floor features two concrete and timber staircases that flank the concierge area, and a further two mesh spiral staircases that connect to the eleventh-floor mezzanine and provide direct connections to the rooftop terrace.
Linda Morey-Burrows, Founder and Principal Director at MoreySmith, said:“McKinsey is defined by its commitment to its clients and ensuring that sustained success is achievable. Their values of innovation and collaboration in the workplace inspired us to create a varied environment in which everyone can thrive.”
Dame Vivian Hunt, UK & Ireland Managing Partner at McKinsey & Company, said:“We are delighted to be in our new home. This office provides us with the perfect environment to foster creativity and collaboration. Most importantly, our new office will help us continue to attract and retain the best talent and bring cutting-edge insights to our clients.”
