
AstraZeneca Offices – London
Ekho Studio designed a 7,000 square-foot office space in London for pharmaceutical company Alexion, featuring Art Deco-inspired elements, curved forms, and a focus on calming design for collaboration.
Ekho Studio has completed a 7,000 sq ft office design for pharmaceutical company Alexion, recently acquired by AstraZeneca. The new workspace is located within AstraZeneca’s existing offices at St Pancras Square, London, with the scope also including a business meeting suite for AstraZeneca, directly linking to Alexion’s office space on the 6th floor. The result is a professional, high-quality workspace, where elegant Art Deco-inspired cues fuse with the calming use of curved forms.
‘The new project had a two-part brief’ Sarah Dodsworth, Founding Partner at Ekho Studio explained. ‘First of all, a dedicated office for Alexion’s team, comprised of dedicated desk space and open collaborative areas. Secondly, a business meeting suite, made up of a shared front-of-house reception for Alexion and AstraZeneca and leading to a waiting lounge area, comprised of hospitality spaces, quiet zones and meeting rooms, created to serve AstraZeneca’s global community.’
The principle of curves and rounded edges inspiring calm is well-established and Ekho Studio really embraced this on this scheme, incorporating rounded furniture, from sofas to chairbacks and incidental tables, together with curved joinery. The designers also created curvature across interior dividing walls to soften transitions and create intriguing sightlines.
Lighting was key in ensuring a feeling of calm within the project, with soft and refined layers adding another strong element to the interior. The design boasts several large, multi-use audio-visual meeting rooms, as well as more informal and flexible areas for teams to gather and share ideas. The successful integration of technology ensured planned and impromptu collaboration and idea-sharing would be supported throughout the office.
The new front of house area establishes the scheme’s calm and sophisticated tone and introduces an environment designed to foster collaboration, where work and informal meetings are no longer siloed.
The business lounge is comprised of a small hospitality space, an informal meeting lounge and quiet pods with a large 16-person flexible training and meeting room. A larger, dedicated meeting room for 18-20 people follows, with a blue curved ceiling. Across to the left is the main business lounge, featuring a central island unit – an open space with upholstered seating, which can also be used for informal meetings.
Beyond this area is the 28-desk office for the Alexion team, along with a collaboration zone and a library / quiet zone, plus a flexible central hot desking zone with blue chairs and flexible whiteboards. Office zones are detailed with timber raft ceilings, layered lighting and mid-century-inspired ergonomic furniture. Natural timber materials are complemented by monolithic concrete flooring, tactile wall renders, rich hues and soft pastel tones, along with live planting and carefully-selected artwork.
AstraZeneca places employee wellbeing high on their agenda, and, in this scheme, this is addressed across a range of touchpoints – through the carefully designed variety of adaptable work-settings; natural/healthy material choices; a colour scheme which considers neurodiversity; abundant live planting and improved access to quality outdoor space.
Design: Ekho Studio
Contractor: Overbury
Photography: Billy Bolton