Handover for Home Group’s Newcastle HQ
The interior design project conceived by DLA Architecture for Home Group’s new headquarters at One Strawberry Lane has been completed.
Soical enterprise Home Group is one of the UK’s largest providers of housing, health and care, employing nearly 3,000 people and turning over £430m. Around 700 staff will be based at the site.
Home will occupy the top three floors of One Strawberry Lane, where floorplates are around 11,140 sq ft. The organisation has taken a 30-year lease for around £30m on the whole building from owner Canade Life Asset Management, and will let out the first and second floors, with Savills and Knight Frank instructed as joint agents. The ground floor is allocated for social spaces.
One Strawberry Lane, in the Gallowgate area close to St James’ Park, was developed by Ask Real Estate and built by BAM. Ryder Architecture designed the building, with Overbury delivering the fit out for Home Group.
The architect said that One Strawberry Lane has been designed for psot-Covid working, and is one of only 80 buildings in the world to receive Smartscore certification.
Kitson Keen, director of development at Home Group, said: “The initial feedback from our teams has been phenomenal. DLA Architecture’s interior design will bring so many benefits to our company culture, our ability to collaborate, innovate and of course integrate with local businesses, organisations, and communities. Who would want to work from home when your workspace looks like this?!”
One Strawberry Lane uses biophilic design. Credit: via French PR
DLA won an invited competition to design the CAT-B workplace fitout during lockdown with a brief very much led by hybrid wroking. The firm said it sed its extensive CAT-A knowledge and experience to reivew and improve elements of the base build CAT-A design.
Biophilic design is incorporated, with a patio and ‘forest’ space at top floor level and a green wall next to the central stairwell.
Neil Matthews, director at DLA, said: “Led by a truly inspirational and creative chief executive, Home Group placed its people and communities at the very centre of the brief.
“This allowed us an opportunity to implement many innovative ideas that we have been developing for some time and create a groundbreaking post-covid working environment. This workspace is like no other – it combines flexibility and innovation with our prime goal to improve the wellness of occupiers.”
John Hughes, managing director of Ask Real Estate said: “We were determined to support Home Group’s aspiration to deliver a building which would be inclusive and reflective of its brand and values and which would deliver real change for the local community from the very outset.”
Peter Knight, managing director at Overbury, said “There’s no denying that this project has delivered on Home Group’s forward-thinking workplace strategy. We’re proud to have been part of the delivery team and help generate £6.4m in social value across the six-month project.”
The building is SmartScore-certified. Credit: via French PR
