Mayfair Members' Club
Mayfair, London
A co-working office in the middle of Mayfair, reimagined as a private members' club. The existing space had been fitted out as a finished commercial office — a white box at the rear, a listed front, and a full set of services and ceilings already in place. The brief was to transform it into something altogether richer, without starting again from scratch.
The studio led the interior architecture, the FF&E, and the curation of every element down to the furniture, lighting, accessories, books, and artwork. A separate practice held the lead architect role, translating the design into buildable detail. The constraint that shaped almost every decision was budget: each fitting, finish, and piece of furniture was specified, repriced, and respecified until the numbers worked, without losing the richness the space was being designed for.
Studio Insight
When the client first came to the studio, the brief was a high-end office. The conversation that won the project, though, wasn't about offices at all.
We took them to see houses. A series of residential projects across central London, with the argument that the right reference for an ultra-lux working space wasn't a better-looking office — it was a beautiful home.
The finished scheme carries that idea throughout. The richer offices at the front of the building borrow from heritage townhouses; the lighter offices at the rear lean toward contemporary residential interiors; the kitchen, drinks stations, and lift lobbies between them read closer to a private house than to a commercial fit-out. The constraint of an existing services layout — ventilation, lighting, and controls all installed for a different kind of space — forced a planning discipline that, in the end, gave the scheme its rhythm.
A members' club is one way to describe the result. A house that happens to be an office is closer to the truth.
