Onoffice magazine

“Bringing the outside in” was at the heart of the aptly named Leafy Shade, a newly renovated office building in Shanghai that offers an enchanted forest fit for fairies inside its walls. The dome-shaped entrance hall, with its backlit leafy pattern, possesses an ethereal quality, so that it feels more like entering the celestial sphere than another day at work – which surely can’t be a bad thing.

Southern Properties’ new Fleet Street acquisition is a suave rendition of humanist architecture in which London-based practice Groves Natcheva has applied a wealth of attractive anthropometric elements.Located in the epicentre of modern law and order, it’s somehow fitting that the refurbished offices at Bolt Court, Fleet Street, take their architectural inspiration from the laws of nature. But Groves Natcheva also made a number of design choices based on the practice’s core manifesto: a refusal of “ego architecture”. “Ultimately, the human…

Situated at the north entrance to Southwark Bridge, at the bend in the Thames, is European law firm SJ Berwin’s new London residence. In an office designed for 1,000-plus staff, each of the four levels covers an area of one acre, including a half-acre roof garden. The angle of the terrace (dictated by sight guidelines that ensure the view of nearby St Paul’s Cathedral is never blocked) creates a vantage point that takes in the cityscape as well as a…

Words by Kerstin ZumsteinWill Alsop’s first UK office project, on London’s South Bank, is now complete. The London Development Agency is the first tenant, occupying two floors fitted out by Sheppard RobsonFor the last three years, Londoners have eagerly been watching Will Alsop’s Palestra building emerge among the grey boxes on the South Bank. True to his famously flamboyant style, this £140m project has changed the face of Southwark. And it’s no surprise that the first tenant to move into…