Whitbread

An open and flexible design to reflect the passion and personality that makes Whitbread brands legendary.

Whitbread is a leading hospitality business, owning the biggest UK hotel brand, Premier Inn, as well as a range of recognisable food and beverage brands. They approached Squaredot initially when downsizing from their previous head offices. The challenge Squaredot faced was housing 500 employees in a building 40% smaller than their previous one. The key to the success of this project was moving to a new agile way of working using intelligent interior design choices to accommodate that shift. Additionally, Whitbread were keen to create a brand specific environment that embodies Whitbreads brands personality, and is recognisable as soon as visitors entered the premises.

The new building revolves around activity based working in an effort to improve communications and positive connections across the entire campus and between brands. An important balance was struck between creating physical shared hubs for easy communication, and quieter spaces that offer much needed privacy when working or relaxing. This was required due to the day-to-day movements and routines of the employees – the start of the week is incredibly busy, with multiple workshops and meetings requiring collaborative spaces to share ideas. However, by the end of the week private or more relaxed spaces are in demand to support alternative, more private activities that staff are undertaking which require confidential and quiet spaces.

Adaptability was key to this project, and the wide array of workspaces instead of more traditional workstations supported this. The modern design Whitbread desired and Squaredot provided was the perfect solution to these juxtaposed working styles, and an intentionally designed workplace to foster collaboration and tacit knowledge exchange in an open and flexible environment was the successful result.