Santander UK’s head office has been designed to consolidate its 6,000-strong workforce into a single site and provide a welcoming space for the public.
Words By Emily Martin
Images By Hufton + Crow
PROJECT INFO
Client Santander UK
Architect LOM Architecture and Design www.lom-architecture.com
Landscape architect Murray & Associates www.murray-associates.com
Contractors SISK Group
Size 80,000m2
Completion August 2023
LOM ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN has completely reimagined what a corporate workplace can be at Santander UK’s head office. Working alongside developers Osborne+Co and contractors SISK Group, LOM has delivered Unity Place: an 80,000m2, newbuild, mixed-use building that is newly opened in Milton Keynes.
Designed as a destination, Unity Place is as much a public building as a commercial scheme. The building welcomes people inside, with almost the entire ground and first floor open to the public, curating a vibrant experience for all, with visitors and workers able to enjoy an expansive food market, grocery store and bakery, bank, retail spaces, community hall, auditorium, conference centre, rooftop restaurant, health and wellness suite, barber shop, and even a brewery.
Santander UK had previously operated out of four office sites in the Milton Keynes area, and wanted to consolidate its 6,000-strong workforce into a single site. The goal was to create greater unity with an inspiring and adaptable workplace, to help retain and attract the best talent, incorporating connections with the local community and economy.
‘The main challenges emerged from driving a new workplace typology, addressing public access and security,’ explains Richard Hutchinson, director, LOM. ‘Unity Place needed to be inviting and open to the general public, so security presented a potential barrier to this more far-reaching aspiration of opening up the corporate bank headquarters. This was addressed through close collaboration with Santander from an early stage, allowing the building design to support a discrete arrangement that is both welcoming and secure.’
The low-rise seven-storey building accommodates approximately 1,000 desks
LOM’s response called for a low-rise seven-storey building where six flexible floorplates accommodate approximately 1,000 desks, connected by three open atria. The design references the Buckinghamshire city’s visionary urban planning heritage and provides a contextual response to the site and its prominent location as an arrival point, situated directly across from Milton Keynes Central train station. The LOM team wanted to fulfil Santander’s desire for a glazed office compatible with its principles of transparency and accessibility, while embracing modern methods of sustainable and commercial construction.
The geometric linear blocks of the building are separated by green atria and landscaped terraces to mirror the wider city’s grid structure – where green boulevards divide landmarks of modernist architecture. The interior design is inspired by the Bletchley Code Breakers, which references Bletchley Park, the former home of the Government Code and Cypher School. This includes motifs such as herringbone timber floor patterns and metal-clad kitchenettes inspired by the huts that accommodated Alan Turin and his code and cypher teams.
The central stair was ‘a technical challenge’
This coding reference appears in other parts of the interiors where early punch card binary codes are used as the inspiration, such as the ‘dot-dash’ pattern motifs used to define reception points and to enrich flexible hanging acoustic/visual PET division panels between open-plan work zones. The importance of the digital realm is reflected in the branding and communications, including a specially developed ‘Unity Place’ brand and three large LED screens.
Warm natural timber is also widely incorporated throughout the atrium spaces to contrast the robust concrete and crisp glass, with a noticeable shift in warmth within the kitchens, break-out spaces, and collaborative zones.
A variety of settings range from peaceful quiet zones to open collaboration and social spaces
Hutchinson says: ‘Vividly contrasting finishes with a refined industrial feel were selected to create a satisfying interior design solution that is cost-effective and sustainable. The material palette supports the rigours of public usage while forming a rich array of warmer and cooler tones and textures.’
The floorplates are divided into neighbourhoods, which create small communities where colleagues recognise each other and support a variety of settings ranging from peaceful quiet zones to open collaboration and social spaces. All neighbourhoods also have access to meeting rooms, innovation space, the quiet area, break-out terrace, and amenities such as wellbeing and faith rooms. The two halves of each floor are accessed from the central vertical circulation ‘hub space’ incorporating the feature wide, weaving staircase, designed to encourage connection between occupants on different floors and to promote an alternative to lift usage.
A variety of settings range from peaceful quiet zones to open collaboration and social spaces
‘The central stair has been highly rewarding as it was a technical challenge, fulfilling a well-being, social and workplace function’, says Hutchinson. ‘A late design change inspired by a visit to the manufacturing site meant an improved outcome, whereby the truss form of the stair structure is expressed, creating a powerful and dramatic focal point at the heart of the building.’
The workplace café at the base of the central atrium on level two provides an enhanced food and beverage option for all occupants on the upper floors and forms a focal meeting and social space, visible from all upper levels.
Warm, natural timber is widely incorporated throughout the building
The building hosts over 1,200m2 of external landscaped terrace space alongside four 18m-long garden bridges on every other floor, providing direct access to external space with seating and planting to promote healthy workplace behaviours, while providing solar shading and biophilic views from inside.
LOM’s energy-efficient design includes daylight dimming for lighting as well as absence and presence detection. An air source heat pump (ASHP) generates both heating and cooling, while water source heat pumps meet the hot water demands for the building, together with energy-efficient appliances. Furthermore, Unity Place boasts a unique battery back-up system for power resilience to support the whole building, replacing the traditional diesel generator system.
Warm, natural timber is widely incorporated throughout the building
Throughout this project, LOM overcame challenges including rethinking the workplace floor design due to the rapid adoption of flexible workplace culture change driven by the pandemic.
Now, this new mixed-use building stands as an exemplar of integrating commercial, community and public space. Local, independent food and beverage traders reinvent the traditional staff canteen, and, critically, ground the building in its local community, marking it as a landmark destination for this evolving city.
Warm, natural timber is widely incorporated throughout the building
‘The team is extensive and very much includes our clients, Santander UK and Osborne+Co,’ says Hutchinson. ‘The design team worked extremely effectively together, resolving the demands generated by changing workplace and business drivers. The construction team, led by the main contractor SISK, managed to deliver the building within an extremely challenging context, including Covid and Ukraine. Ultimately, the success of the project is a bi-product of the positive and proactive attitude of the organisations and their leaders.’
KEY SUPPLIERS
Lighting
Lightivity
www.lightivity.co.uk
Facades
FKN
www.fkn-group.com
