City Place House — lobby refresh, City of London

City Place House workspace concept CGI with open-plan desking, a lounge corner and branded artwork in the building palette, City of London — by HDEY — The concept — open-plan desking, a lounge corner, and the building’s own brand on the walls

What we delivered

Ground floor lobby and amenity design refresh
New logo
Interior concept
Space planning
Marketing visuals

The building

City Place House was a 176,000 sq ft office building on Basinghall Street, moments from the Guildhall in the heart of the City of London. Great Portland Estates brought us here after we refreshed the lobby and amenity at Twenty at New City Court.

The first of the two commissions at City Place House was the ground floor amenity — the reception and shared spaces tenants pass through every day — with the City Place House brand created alongside it.

The lobby was reworked around etched glass screens carrying the name, with planting and a rebuilt desk, so a tenant arriving met the building’s identity before they met a lift.

City Place House reception after refurbishment, with etched glass screens carrying the building name, planting and a rebuilt desk, City of London — by HDEY — The ground floor — the name etched into the screens, and planting to soften it

The second commission

Great Portland Estates then invited us back with a different problem: a vacant upper-floor commercial unit, at that point a bare stripped-out floor plate, being marketed as office space in one of the most competitive leasing markets in the world.

An empty floor tells a tenant nothing. The job of the concept was to show the space working — furnished, branded and full of life — before a single fit-out decision had been made.

The vacant upper-floor unit at City Place House as tenants would have viewed it — bare floor plate with the previous fit-out removed, City of London — Before — the floor plate as a prospective tenant would have walked it

The unit, before

Before — a walkthrough of the vacant unit, the brief in three minutes

The concept

Because we had already built the City Place House brand for the ground floor, the workspace concept could speak the building’s own language from day one — the palette on the walls, the name in the artwork.

The floor plate was zoned the way a modern tenant actually works: open-plan desking softened with planting, a lounge corner for informal conversations, glazed meeting rooms lettered A and B, and a generous teapoint. A full workspace concept designed to show the unit at its best, not a generic furniture plan dropped onto a floor plan.

City Place House workspace concept CGI showing glazed meeting rooms lettered A and B, a teapoint and planted screens, City of London — by HDEY — Glazed meeting rooms and teapoint — zoned for how tenants actually work

Why it mattered

The concept was delivered as a set of photorealistic marketing visuals for Great Portland Estates’ leasing campaign — assets their agents could use in brochures, listings and viewings, so a prospective tenant could see the finished space while standing in an empty one.

This was the third commission from GPE, and the second at City Place House. Because the identity already existed, the marketing concept did not have to start from scratch: it inherited a personality, a palette and a point of view, and turned a bare floor plate into a space a tenant could want.

The building has since made way for GPE’s next generation of development on the site.

This project was delivered under the Ademchic brand.

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