/ Works

Becket House, City of London

A sustainable, plug-and-play office floor for a historic City livery company, warmer and more residential than a typical speculative fit-out, and adaptable enough to change with whoever takes it on.

/ Overview:

Client

City of London Livery Company

Year

2023

Role

Interior Design
Technical Delivery
FF&E
Bespoke Joinery

Becket House Level 7 was developed as a new benchmark for sustainable workspace for a historic London livery company. The brief was a flexible, high-quality office floor that could be offered to future tenants complete and ready to occupy, while setting a clear standard for sustainability, adaptability and long-term value.

Saltco co-founder Rufus helped develop the concept and led the technical design and delivery while at QBRE, covering the interior strategy, coordination, material development and bespoke joinery through to completion. It followed three earlier fit-outs in the building, but the client wanted Level 7 to feel warmer, more residential and more closely tied to wellbeing, without losing the clarity a commercial workspace needs.

A flexible workplace with a calmer feel.

The layout was organised around natural light and views across the city, with open work areas along the perimeter and meeting rooms, shared tables and breakout spaces for both collaboration and quieter work. The design takes its cues from wellness and hospitality interiors rather than a conventional speculative office, so soft neutral finishes, planting, warm timber and controlled lighting set a calmer tone, with built-in seating and domestic-scale furniture making the shared spaces comfortable through the day.

A bold blue accent runs through the interior, used within recessed shelving, tea points and feature joinery to connect the areas without overwhelming the softer palette. Modular partitions and flexible layouts keep the floor easy to reconfigure as tenant needs change, so it feels complete and ready to occupy, but never fixed to one business.

Bespoke joinery and material development.

Bespoke joinery does a lot of the work here, bringing warmth, storage and moments of colour while helping organise the plan. Rufus worked closely with the joinery manufacturer to develop the fitted elements in detail, from tea points and recessed display shelving to integrated storage and shared work settings, coordinating proportions, finishes, lighting and junctions so each piece worked operationally as well as visually. Warm timber veneers are paired with pale stone and vivid blue recesses for contrast and depth, with integrated lighting turning the shelving into a feature, so the joinery reads as part of the architecture rather than furniture added at the end.

The wider material palette gives the floor a tactile, crafted feel, through clay finishes, polished plaster, FSC-certified timber and recycled surfaces. Silicastone terrazzo, made from 98% recycled content, was chosen as a durable alternative to conventional stone, while Organoid vegan surfaces bring natural texture from plant-based materials. Rufus also helped coordinate a Whole Life Carbon Assessment, so material choices could be reviewed against their embodied carbon, durability and ability to be adapted or reused over time.

Comfort, acoustics and long-term use.

Acoustic treatments were integrated across the open-plan areas, meeting rooms and shared spaces to manage noise without heavy visual barriers, while curtains, upholstered seating and softer wall finishes add comfort and the lighter palette carries daylight deeper into the plan. New interventions were designed to sit comfortably within the existing building, the contemporary materials and stronger blue giving Level 7 its own identity while respecting the wider Becket House.

Careful technical coordination held it together, with Rufus working across joinery, partitions, lighting, services and material interfaces so the sustainability and wellbeing ambitions survived construction intact. The result is a bright, adaptable workspace that feels far more considered than a typical plug-and-play office.