Thirdway crafts calming, textural scheme for Allspring's London workspace.

Allspring has offices around the world, each reflecting the global investment firm’s brand in subtle ways to connect it with employees and clients alike.

So whether visiting an Allspring office in Charlotte, North Carolina or Milan, Italy people feel a sense of familiarity and place. Allspring’s office in the City of London is no exception, with Thirdway staying true to this brief with a design concept that puts a London twist on Allspring’s 12,000 square foot headquarters.

Using Allspring’s North Carolina headquarters as inspiration, the Thirdway team designed the London scheme to be bright and minimalistic with light woods and neutral tones throughout, elevated by the natural light that the panoramic windows provide.

While this Scandinavian inspired design has taken precedent, pops of colour are introduced to the space through bright abstract art pieces.

As well as this, colourful finishes such as orange cushions, chairs and planting throughout, complement the artworks, making sure that the abstract pieces do not feel out of place amongst the otherwise minimal design.

While brand integration is important to Allspring, they wanted to avoid anything that would be too ‘over-the-top’. Their branding is used subtly within the space such as in the logo motif on the meeting room windows, and also in a more understated way at the Coffee Point in the welcome area where an Ondaretta ‘Ginger’ table was chosen as a centre piece.

The curves of the table legs are a subtle nod to the curved shapes in Allspring’s logo, further explored in the breakout area where the flooring under the main counter mirrors these shapes, and in turn the company logo.

Allspring prioritised having a large communal breakout area for their employees within the space, something that they didn’t previously have. They felt that this was a very important addition as they wanted to create a focal point to foster employee connection and collaboration, and as a way of encouraging more people back into the office.

To achieve this, Thirdway designed a centrally-placed breakout area with multiple collaboration tables - a soft-seating area for informal/relaxed gatherings and smaller tables for one-on-one interactions. This design meant that different working and meeting needs were met and the space provided a fully functional and flexible communal area.

Offering different visitor-facing areas was also key to the design with multiple meeting rooms as well as a Townhall area and a designated welcome area. These were all created to provide an optimal experience for visitors to Allspring’s London headquarters. The welcome area has its own tea point and pantry to accommodate meetings and events without interrupting the flow of the employee breakout area.

Circular design (development of products that minimise waste and create a cycle where products can be reused or transformed into other products) was used extensively within this project.

Thirdway reused 80% of Allspring’s existing office furniture, incorporating it seamlessly into the design, such as the collaboration tables in the breakout area, where table tops were switched to a more contemporary oak finish.

“Creating Allspring’s City of London headquarters was a great challenge for the Thirdway team. We had to design a fully functional, sustainable, yet adaptable base that brought Allspring’s brand to life in London in subtle ways. We wanted to create a sense of unity and familiarity with Allspring’s other global offices, while also giving this space its own identity within its City of London environs", comments Sarah Harris, lead designer, Thirdway.

"Building a strong relationship with Allspring, and factoring in its requirements for both employees and visitors gave us a strong foundation on which to create and deliver our design vision. We were also pleased that they were happy with our circular design choices, trusting our team’s instincts on which pieces to reuse and refresh.”