London-based practice Fletcher Priest Architects has unveiled its newly designed headquarters at 100 Fetter Lane, occupying the ground, mezzanine and first floors of the building it also designed for YardNine and BauMont Real Estate, completed in early 2025.
The move marks a significant moment for the practice, which has further strengthened its commitment to environmental and social responsibility by achieving B Corp certification in March 2026.
The new 15,000 sq ft workspace is accessed via its own dedicated entrance through a green pocket park, separate from the building’s main entry, guiding staff and visitors into a welcoming, multi-functional ground floor. The arrival experience unfolds as a curated gallery of architectural models alongside a home-kitchen space that acts as an inviting social heart, supporting informal team meetings, everyday lunches and shared events.
On the first floor, large windows wrap the perimeter, drawing natural light deep into the studio. Desks are primarily positioned along the west and south elevations to capture the best daylight, while locker-lined desk ends incorporate oxygenating planting that further softens and greens the interior, an approach integral to the overall base-build strategy.
A mechanical ventilation system, complemented by opening windows across every floor, ensures a continuous supply of fresh air throughout the building, supporting a healthier, more uplifting environment for focus, wellbeing, and collaboration.
The centrepiece of the studio is The Grid, a 9x9-square-metre space framed by a vibrant yellow acoustic curtain. This flexible area can be fully opened to the wider studio or softly enclosed, providing an atmospheric setting for breakout meetings, roundtables, and larger gatherings which features a variety of furniture settings.
The open-plan studio includes a tea point, a curated library of materials and reference books, and a model maker’s workshop, all purposefully placed on display to celebrate the craft of the practice and give visitors an authentic glimpse into its day-to-day working studio culture. Meeting rooms and a dedicated wellness room offer quieter spaces for focused work, prayer, or restorative breaks away from the desk.
The mezzanine level, currently unoccupied and intentionally kept flexible for future studio growth, is designed as a plug-and-play workspace. It is envisioned as a sub-lettable area for an organisation in a complementary field, helping to foster collaboration with like-minded external partners.
Significant effort was made to retain and celebrate the existing architecture of the newly completed building, with the interiors and architectural teams at Fletcher Priest working closely together throughout the base-build design of 100 Fetter Lane. This continuity of thinking has allowed the floor to remain exposed, while the minimalist concrete soffit is celebrated for its height and material clarity, enhancing the overall sense of volume within the space.
The original lighting and ventilation systems have been retained, demonstrating the inherent flexibility of the base build and reinforcing an approach rooted in minimal intervention and low impact. The resulting stripped-back aesthetic highlights the quality and precision achieved across the building, while clearly expressing the practice’s ethos that less, when done well, is more.
Longevity and reuse are core values of the practice, and, in designing the new studio, the interiors team challenged themselves to maximise the reuse of furniture and fittings from the practice’s previous space. This approach led to close collaboration with in-house and external furniture auditors, who carefully catalogued each item, assessing typology, remaining lifespan, carbon impact and potential for repurposing. Items that could not be retained were responsibly donated to other organisations and charities. The result not only reduced the overall cost of the fit-out, but also delivered meaningful carbon savings by avoiding unnecessary waste and enabling future maintenance and reuse.
This model aligned closely with, and helped to further develop, the base-build material passporting strategy. The building is the first in the UK to implement material passports across the majority of building elements, developed collaboratively by Fletcher Priest Architects and engineers Waterman. Over 5,000 building components and over 80% of the building mass has been passported across the structure, substructure, façade and fitout. Fletcher Priest’s fitout elements have developed this passporting approach, integrating it with the BIM model and making the information widely accessible via an in-house developed app and physical QR codes.
A low-carbon mindset has shaped every stage of the building’s development. The structure achieves an upfront embodied carbon footprint of 561 kgCO₂e/m² GIA and a whole-life carbon footprint of 1,257 kgCO₂e/m² GIA, exceeding GLA benchmarks and targeting the new UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard. The scheme is targeting a BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ rating and has achieved a WiredScore ‘Platinum’ certification, reflecting the integration of advanced technology, resilience, and flexible working practices.
The practice and the wider public will also now be welcomed into the relocated Wild Swan, a new public house operated by Thornbridge Brewery at ground level of 100 Fetter Lane, which opened in April 2026. Designed as an active and generous extension of the building’s public realm, the pub is wrapped in blue faience brickwork, animated by a series of finely crafted feature bricks with subtle 3D relief. Each brick tells a story, drawing on iconography from the site’s layered history, from the ‘Printer’s Devil’, a former pub once located next door, to symbols connected to the area’s rich printing heritage and the character of Fetter Lane itself.
Team:
Architects: Fletcher Priest Architects
Photographer: Kilian O'Sullivan
