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Moretown Office complex, London.
- Awards: (To be confirmed)
- Client: Resolution Property
- Scope + Status: Workplace landscape, technical delivery & external environment, completed
- Consultants: Beaux Arts Landscape
78 Proposed Trees
Our Principles
740 m² Social/Play Space
55,740sqm Commercial Space
Rewilding the workplace at Moretown
Set just a stone’s throw from London’s historic St Katharine Docks, with the skyscrapers of the City of London beyond, Moretown was just another grey, corporate and uninspiring office development.
Our challenge was to reimagine this office landscape as a lush and welcoming workplace to energise creativity, nurture wellbeing and bring a sense of community into the working day.
At Outerspace, we believe every place has a story. Moretown, with its original ethos based on Thomas More’s Utopia, had clearly lost its identity and sense of place. Here we stepped in, creating an egalitarian setting for staff to play and socialise together, whatever their standing or title.
Design Response:
From office development to garden campus
We began by tearing up old assumptions. What if outdoor spaces could be as productive as offices? What if work and play could exist side by side? What if nature inspired the best in employees?
Leading the design and delivery of the whole project, we together embarked on the transformation of these grey, granite spaces into a network of gardens we called ‘50 Shades of Green’: a rich patchwork of flexible outdoor spaces that blend focus and flow, stillness and sociability.
At its heart is the Relaxation Garden, a peaceful oasis featuring a chill dome, movable furniture, and lush potted planting, a sanctuary for quiet chatting and contemplation. A few steps away, the Play Piazza brings lightness and energy, inviting people to unwind over table tennis or enjoy lunch with colleagues on a long communal table.
Every space was carefully calibrated to offer different moods and rhythms. Our interventions made the campus less of office development and more a series of outdoor ‘rooms’, each with its own ever-changing ambience but lush and comfortable all year round.
“This place is unrecognisable. We love all the planting, it’s so calming but it’s also far more sociable and fun”
Pat and Vanessa
(Staff from Building 2)
Greener. Calmer. More connected.
Once dominated by imposing towers of glass and granite, the campus now offers comfort and refuge, inspiring a palpable buzz of chat, laughter and play.
Planting beds and pots display a diverse mix of species for year-round colour, together with bug hotels and bird boxes, niches for biodiversity have been established within the shadows of the city.
Contrasting forms of planting create rhythm and variation throughout the gardens. Structural architectural planting delineates building entrances, while organic drifts of herbaceous perennials and grasses sway in the breeze. Further to this, we transformed a once-desolate staircase into a celebratory focal point with specimen planting, giant pots, cherry trees and sculptural furniture.
Throughout the gardens, dappled shade is the key ingredient to their success. Neither in the heat of the full sun nor the cold of full shade, seating in these microclimates offers a welcome balance that attracts staff to sit and relax.
Impact: A place to thrive
Today, Moretown isn’t just a place to work; it’s a place to belong and feel part of the community.
The transformation has had a real effect on the people who use the space, with a marked uplift in retention and recruitment. Visitors remark on the modern, energised atmosphere. Employees feel more connected, focused and cared for.
Even better, the community of tenants now plays an active role in maintaining and caring for the site, a living sign of the pride they take in it.
Reimagining work, outdoors
Moretown proves what we at Outerspace know to be true: The most productive workplaces are the ones where staff can step beyond their office doors into a stress-free realm of tranquillity and social connection. This is a place where work and nature coexist, where wellbeing isn’t an afterthought, where the simple act of stepping outside can change your whole day.
Because when places flourish, people thrive.
Learnings & pride points
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Transformed a grey office park into a vibrant, human-centred campus
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A dramatic change of ambience and experience. Previously overwhelmed and overlooked, now comforted, protected and calmed.
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Boosted workplace wellbeing through quality external environments
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Balanced quiet contemplation with energetic, social spaces
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Brought nature into the heart of work culture
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Enabled community stewardship through collaborative care of the space
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Demonstrated how bold, nature-led design enhances employee satisfaction and retention
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We think Thomas More would approve of our utopian vision.