Commercial Office Space Design Scheme
Design Files: Boardwalk HQ
Boardwalk is an independent Bristol estate agency, and they wanted a head office that felt as warm and welcoming as the homes they sell. The space is a warehouse space in Clifton, with high ceilings, exposed steel trusses, original skylights and a raw concrete floor. It has great bones, but it needed to work as a hard-working office, a client welcome space and a place the team actually wanted to spend their day. The brief was to create a workplace that felt like home. That meant a reception lounge for greeting clients, an open kitchen and social hub at the heart of the building, a mix of bench desks and high tables for focused and collaborative work, a glazed meeting room, and a sunny snug for quieter moments.
For the colour scheme I kept the industrial character and softened it with a warm, confident palette. A deep olive green runs around the lower walls and the cream above keeps the space light and lets the artwork stand out. The steel trusses are painted a soft blush pink, Boardwalk’s brand colour, which turns a purely structural feature into a playful part of the scheme and links to the pink desk legs, velvet bar stools and accessories at floor level. Sunshine yellow is the accent that pulls it all together. It fills the snug beneath the glazed roof, where it catches the daylight and glows, and shows up again in the curved modular sofa at the centre of the room. Rich chocolate brown, in glossy zelige kitchen tiles and velvet seating, grounds the brighter colours.
Natural textures add warmth to the hard surfaces. There’s oak in the long bench desks which we had custom made by a wonderful local maker, King & Webbon. The natural wood continues through to kitchen handles and floating shelves, cane in the desk chairs and lounge armchairs, and jute rugs under the seating areas. Chrome tubular tables, a classic arc floor lamp and a Crittall-style glazed meeting room give the mid-century and industrial references a modern finish. Layered lighting helps the large space feel intimate. A cluster of oversized paper lanterns hangs over the central lounge, oak pendants mark out the kitchen island, and track spotlights along the trusses wash the walls and highlight the art.
A long picture ledge and statement canvases bring in colour and character, featuring work by local Bristol artists. Playful details like the pink face vase, Bristol magazines and Boardwalk x Holy Moly tote bags make the space feel personal and rooted in the city, rather than a clinical corporate space.
