Project: Trainline Office
Architects: Oktra
Location: London EC1
Sector: Technology
Size: 55,000 sq ft
Duration: 36 weeks
Completion Year: 2021
Photographer: Oliver Pohlmann
Trainline, the leading independent rail and coach travel platform, had outgrown their existing office space and required an in-situ refurbishment to transform their way of working. Driven by the pandemic, Trainline wanted to reimagine the way they were using the space and embrace a hybrid set up. Trainline originally occupied two floors within their building before taking an additional floor to help support their shift to a more agile workspace. The existing office layout wasn’t working for their people so Oktra’s design team set out to improve the space with a Cat A and Cat B fit out of the new floor that would use the space to its full potential.
Oktra had the opportunity to get under the skin of the business and take a close look at the client’s ways of working and understand how they work day-to-day. They ran workshops and feedback sessions with Trainline’s staff to get a sense of the challenges the client faced in their office and how they could enhance their space.
Having worked in the building before, Oktra knew the potential of the space. After listening to staff, Oktra observed the space and looked to see where they could add value. With the addition of the sixth floor, they had the opportunity to remodel the space to improve its functionality. To improve the space utilisation, all the functional spaces such as the meeting rooms and whiteboard spaces were shifted to the inside of the property. This allowed staff to be positioned around the perimeter of the working floors to ensure they had the prime real estate with access to natural light.
After Oktra analysed the way Trainline staff used the office, they could see that certain areas were receiving heavy footfall and other areas had become closed off and isolated. Oktra’s solution to unlock the full potential of the office space was to remove one desk from the end of each row.
This was an uncomplicated design solution but enabled them to create a secondary circulation route through the Trainline office and give access to the window bays. The window bays were prominent features in the building but had become cut off from the rest of the office and served as ideal spaces for individual workspaces. By making these small adaptations, Oktra were able to create additional workspaces on each floor without building any partitions.
Following staff engagement sessions, Oktra developed a strong understanding of how Trainline’s people worked and the types of spaces they required. Oktra installed 50 types of agile workspaces per floor, all within close proximity of the main working floors. These include spaces such as high benches, meeting rooms, individual desks and informal spaces which are designed to support the different ways of working in the office. These changes meant the client could triple the number of meeting rooms in the office from 20 to 60. This increase came from introducing new types of meeting room which catered for smaller and larger occupancies. Rather than having three people in a 10-person meeting room, Oktra reallocated that space in multiple, lower occupancy rooms to better support the way staff used meeting space.
