Pay.UK
We designed the new headquarters of Pay.UK, which runs the UK’s retail payment operations, on a single 22,850 sq ft floor of the White Chapel Building in Whitechapel. The move from 47,000 sq ft across three floors put the whole organisation on one level, with cross-views through the central atrium and daylight from the perimeter and the atrium alike.
Consultation shaped the design: staff wanted one gathering space, collaboration without isolation, and somewhere quiet to focus. The Plenary, a 250-person events space, is the melting pot at the heart of the office and home of the All Colleague Call. Around it, four gardens each have their own tree and palette, from a secluded autumnal guest arrival to a forest-calm library, with project stations dotted through the open floor so people can work together without booking a room.
NOMAD, the nomadic booking system at the centre of the design, gives no one a permanent base. 475 staff share 272 desks, and neighbourhoods shift day to day with demand, so the balance of bookable and touchdown desks changes without moving furniture. Non-bookable quiet areas sit outside the system for focused work.
Materials do the quiet work: cork floors, acoustic felt, ceramic tile and a woodwool ceiling, planted throughout and coordinated with a specialist supplier. An airlocked guest area creates the secure conditions required for work on the UK’s payment systems.
Photography by Tom Green
