Budget for the room that does nothing

900,000 square feet of new City office. Rooftop, auditorium, a 200 seat conference hall.

The bit I keep thinking about is the library.

Last October we took a group of coworking operators round 40 Leadenhall as part of the GCUC UK tour programme. Huckletree run the flexible workspace and the event space inside it, so we got the full walk.

The Library sits in the atrium. Actual books, properly chosen, properly made. A place to sit and think, in the middle of one of the busiest square miles in the world.

Every operator on that tour could tell you their desk rate, their meeting room utilisation, their event capacity. Almost none of us could tell you where in our own building a person goes to be quiet.

Quiet is the hardest thing to put on a floorplan, and the first thing people notice is missing.

The building makes the same argument at scale. They kept the listed building at 19-21 Billiter Street and built the new one around it, rather than clearing the site and starting clean. Old and new, one footprint.

If you're specifying space this year, budget for the room that does nothing. It's the one people describe to other people.