Buro Happold

Overview

Opportunity

Solution

Impact

Team

Buro Happold’s London headquarters brings engineering, sustainability, and inclusive design together in a workplace created as a platform for experimentation and exchange.

Location

London, United Kingdom

Client

Buro Happold

Expertise

Professional Services Strategy

Opportunity

Buro Happold wanted its new London headquarters to reflect its values while supporting hybrid work, inclusive experiences, experimentation, and ambitious environmental performance.

Moving to The Featherstone Building gave Buro Happold an opportunity to create more than a conventional office. The brief called for a workplace that could support a growing hybrid workforce, welcome clients, strengthen culture, and demonstrate the firm’s engineering expertise through the environment itself. Sustainability and inclusion needed to be embedded from the outset, while flexible planning and technology would support changing ways of working. More than 600 employees contributed to the brief, helping define priorities around choice, wellbeing, connectivity, equity, and belonging.

Why This Matters

01
Co-created Workplace
Engaging more than 600 employees gave people a meaningful role in shaping the brief, helping the workplace respond to diverse needs, preferences, and working styles.
02
Inclusive by Design
Accessibility evolved into a broader commitment to inclusion, influencing circulation, sensory conditions, gender-neutral facilities, belief spaces, restorative rooms, and facilities supporting parents.
03
Living the Values
The headquarters gave Buro Happold an opportunity to demonstrate its sustainability and engineering principles through the workplace, turning corporate commitments into tangible design decisions.

We’re proud of our London home. It’s a great place to be and aligns with our ambitious sustainability goals and those of our clients worldwide.

Solution

Gensler organised the headquarters around choice, connection, and experimentation, allowing Buro Happold’s work, people, and environmental ambitions to become part of the design.

Employee neighbourhoods on the upper floors balance open-plan working with focus, breakout, and meeting settings, while levels 5 and 6 create a more public environment for clients and collaboration. A sculptural mass timber staircase links these shared floors, connecting a gallery-style welcome area with the experimental Theatre of Enginuity. The material palette celebrates the building’s industrial character through exposed structure, timber, cork, and reused finishes. Smart systems, sensory design, and a planted roof terrace further support adaptability, inclusion, wellbeing, and environmental performance.

From brief to build: how employee insight, engineering expertise, material research, and performance analysis shaped Buro Happold’s Home for Big Ideas.

The process began with extensive staff engagement, translating feedback from more than 600 employees into 10 workplace performance priorities. Gensler then worked alongside Buro Happold’s own engineering and specialist teams to test planning, inclusion, materiality, technology, and carbon performance together. Design development balanced adaptable neighbourhoods with more experimental interventions, including the Theatre of Enginuity and parametrically developed timber staircase. Circular economy analysis guided material reuse and specification, while embodied and operational carbon were assessed throughout the RIBA design stages to inform key decisions.

Impact

The completed headquarters turns Buro Happold’s values into a working environment that supports experimentation, flexibility, inclusion, and measurable environmental performance.

Low embodied carbon, material reuse, adaptable settings, smart technology, and inclusive amenities create a workplace designed to perform environmentally and socially.

What Changed Because of This

01
Lower Carbon
The Cat B fit-out achieved 75 kgCO₂e/m² upfront embodied carbon through material reuse, retained lighting, raw finishes, and reduced construction layers.
02
Greater Choice
Neighbourhoods, focus rooms, social settings, collaborative spaces, and restorative areas give employees more ways to work according to task and individual preference.
03
Shared Innovation
The Theatre of Enginuity and gallery spaces make Buro Happold’s work visible, creating places where clients and teams can explore ideas together.

Our long-term partnership with Buro Happold gave us a shared understanding of their ambitions, shaping the workplace strategy and design to align with their people, culture and evolving business.

Recognition

01

Building Design & Construction

A ‘home for big ideas’: Gensler collaborates with Buro Happold to design their London headquarters.

02

Mix Interiors Awards

2025 Finalist: Project of the Year – Workplace Interiors 30-70k sq ft

Team

Project Leadership

Naomi Sakamoto

Naomi Sakamoto is a Principal and Technology Leader based in Gensler’s Paris office, leading the firm’s global and regional Technology practice. She brings a multidisciplinary perspective to design, with expertise spanning workplace, technology and the evolving relationship between people, physical space and the future of work.

[FPO] Becky Spenceley

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[FPO] William Mathers

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Jane Clay

As a Studio Director, Strategy Leader and Principal in Gensler’s London office, Jane regularly advises clients on best practice workplace design, approaching each project with a detailed understanding of the impact of design on business performance.

FAQ

01

Where is Buro Happold’s London headquarters?

Buro Happold’s headquarters occupies levels 5–8 of The Featherstone Building at 66 City Road in Shoreditch, London.

02

Who designed Buro Happold’s London headquarters?

Gensler partnered with Buro Happold to create its new London headquarters, with Buro Happold’s own engineering and specialist teams contributing to the integrated design process.

03

How does the workplace support hybrid working?

The headquarters combines open neighbourhoods with focus rooms, meeting spaces, social areas, and collaborative settings, giving employees greater choice in where and how they work.

04

How was inclusion incorporated into the design?

Inclusive design informed circulation, work settings, wayfinding, lighting, acoustics, gender-neutral facilities, a belief room, parents room, restorative space, and accessible refreshment points.

05

How does the project reduce embodied carbon?

The fit-out prioritises furniture and material reuse, retained lighting, recycled materials, raw finishes, and material passports, achieving 75 kgCO₂e/m² upfront embodied carbon.

06

What is the Theatre of Enginuity?

The Theatre of Enginuity is an experimental workshop where Buro Happold teams and clients can collaborate, test materials, explore engineering challenges, and develop ideas.

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Related Expertise

Professional Services Strategy

Buro Happold’s London headquarters brings engineering, sustainability, and inclusive design together in a workplace created as a platform for experimentation and exchange.

Buro Happold wanted its new London headquarters to reflect its values while supporting hybrid work, inclusive experiences, experimentation, and ambitious environmental performance.

Why This Matters

Gensler organised the headquarters around choice, connection, and experimentation, allowing Buro Happold’s work, people, and environmental ambitions to become part of the design.

From brief to build: how employee insight, engineering expertise, material research, and performance analysis shaped Buro Happold’s Home for Big Ideas.

The completed headquarters turns Buro Happold’s values into a working environment that supports experimentation, flexibility, inclusion, and measurable environmental performance.

What Changed Because of This