Background

Market Harborough Building Society is a mutual, owned by its members and rooted in its town. So when the Society moved into a new 20,500 sq ft head office, the brief was never going to be just desks and meeting rooms. This was a chance to build a workplace that serves its people and its community at the same time.

Switch Workplace Interiors was appointed to design the entire building: all three floors, every workspace, social space and meeting room. We delivered the project in April 2024.

Open plan collaboration space at Market Harborough Building Society's head office with suspended acoustic rafts, mobile whiteboard partitions and meeting table, designed by Switch Workplace Interiors

The Brief

The Society asked for three things:

  • A ground floor that works as hard for the community as it does for staff: somewhere to host events, adaptable by design, and welcoming to everyone
  • Modern, flexible working floors above, with space to collaborate and space to concentrate
  • A building that feels like Market Harborough Building Society: professional, warm and genuinely open

What We Did

A ground floor that belongs to everyone. The ground floor is the showpiece: a flexible community space that transforms to suit whatever the day asks of it. A tiered seating area hosts talks from invited experts. A lounge, a bookable meeting space and direct access to the gardens make it somewhere people actually want to spend time. And because it all adapts, the same floor comfortably hosts mother and baby mornings, cooking lessons and the Society’s AGM, while doubling as a dining and social space for the team.

The flexible community events space at Market Harborough Building Society with tiered seating, moveable benches and curtained studio area, designed by Switch Workplace Interiors

A first floor built for teamwork. Upstairs, the first floor combines open-plan office space with dedicated collaboration areas and private meeting rooms. Mobile whiteboard partitions and suspended acoustic rafts let teams reshape the space around the work, rather than the other way round.

Curved collaboration banquette with bar stools in the open plan first floor office at Market Harborough Building Society

A second floor that means business. The top floor centres on a large boardroom with integrated dual screens for hybrid meetings, supported by further office space, hot desking, private meeting rooms and a relaxed sofa area for quieter conversations.

Large boardroom at Market Harborough Building Society with twenty seat table, dual screens on timber slat wall and acoustic ceiling, designed by Switch Workplace Interiors

Throughout the building, we specified the furniture as well as the design: multifunctional pieces on the community floor, focused task seating on the working floors, and lounge settings that give people somewhere to think, meet or simply take five.

Sofa lounge area at Market Harborough Building Society with wing chairs, walnut and leather sofas and planted shelving, designed by Switch Workplace Interiors

The Outcome

The Society now has a head office that does something most workplaces never attempt: it opens its doors outwards. Members and the local community use the building, staff have working floors designed around how they actually work, and the whole place carries the character of a business that has served its town for generations.

But we’ll let the client say it:

This was an amazing project to be part of and I was absolutely delighted with the design inspiration from Keiren and the Switch team. Brilliantly innovative, but also totally engaged with our colleagues across the business throughout the process, to the extent that sometimes it wasn’t clear who was staff and who was supplier! In terms of decisions that I have made during my work life, using Switch Workplace was up there!

Tim Neal, Head of Footprint, Market Harborough Building Society

Planning Something Similar?

Switch Workplace Interiors provides office design, space planning, commercial furniture and full turnkey fit out for workplaces across the UK. Get in touch to talk through your project and we’ll arrange a face-to-face meeting or video consultation to explore the potential of your space.

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