F5 Networks

High tech meets hardy grass at London location

Most businesses want their comms rooms tucked away out of sight. Not F5 networks, providers of hardware platforms and technologies. When it came to refurbishing the third floor of their central London offices the brief was clear: The product needs to be on show.

A glass wall was built to house the technology and a side room was constructed to draw air through the space to keep the temperature down. And to offset the high tech spec the design team chose bamboo for the floors and ceilings; a material that was picked for its green credentials as well as its hardwearing capabilities. (Bamboo grows back quickly once it’s been cut, making it a sustainable product. And after treatment, it’s twice the strength of oak.) As well as the comms room, the project also included meeting rooms, team training rooms and open office areas.

Our aim was two fold: To build a state of the art technology centre to ensure the client could offer many more years of quality service. And to deliver the project on time despite the tight deadline. So were we successful? “It exceeded my expectations,” a senior manager at the company told us. “The ceiling and the tables in particular. The level of quality here is fantastic, the best I have seen in the last 17 years. And the fact that you did this work in 81⁄2 weeks is absolutely outstanding.”