Penketh Group installs state-of-the-art furniture at Neo

Bespoke office interiors firm the Penketh Group has supplied cutting-edge furniture for Bruntwood’s new co-working space in its £8m flagship Neo building in Manchester city centre.

The co-working space has different zones where people can work efficiently and effectively.

It contains innovative meeting rooms, social zones where people can meet for coffee, nomadic zones where workers can quickly unpack and work for an hour and comfortable lounge seating areas with cubby-hole spaces for short-term focus work.

There are also a variety of co-working spaces and, for those who want to work outdoors, a large open-air roof terrace with all-weather meeting pods and built-in outdoor heaters.

Penketh also steel case fusion benches, height-adjustable desks to give people the choice of whether to work sitting or standing, high tables and stools with wireless charging ports, high-performance ergonomically designed seating and a SMART interactive screen to bring meetings to life.

Penketh worked with designers Bridge Architects to supply the furniture to meet their designs for Neo’s collaborative co-working spaces and serviced offices on the building’s first floor.

Chris Birchall, designer from the Penketh Group, which recently took Neo’s entire eighth floor from which to open its new Worklife Showroom, said: “Many of the best innovations come from interactions that can happen anywhere in the office and not just in a traditional desk-based setting.

“It’s why we are increasingly seeing a demand for co-working spaces as employers look for more flexible solutions to allow their people to work in new, more creative and collaborative ways.

“Bruntwood is a forward-thinking company which understands that where you work can influence how you work and that the right facilities can both help businesses to attract and keep talented people – and help encourage employee engagement.

“Our cutting-edge furniture solutions helped to create the environment that Bruntwood was looking for and we delivered the project on budget and within a very tight eight-week timeframe.”

Bruntwood’s head of sales Charlie Beck said: “We decided to bring something new to Manchester to encourage creatively-minded businesses of all sizes and our co-working space in Neo is the result of a lot of research.

“We wanted an attractive, innovative space with good design that would ultimately help people because wellbeing is very much at the forefront of our plans. So, we have quiet working areas, a lounge area with high stools for hot desking and innovative height-adjustable desks.

“Every piece of furniture is flexible and multi-purpose. For example, the majority of the furniture has power sockets to give people the choice of where they work.

“We’ve already received some great feedback. People like our co-working area because it is so different and they enjoy having a choice of different creative spaces to both work and network in.”

Victoria Kirkpatrick, director at Bridge Architects, said “Neo’s first floor co-working space has been designed to flow from the ground floor reception via a new helical stair, providing a connection with the previously unrealised external roof terrace.

“Together, the linked interior and exterior spaces are intended to echo a boutique hotel lobby, moving on from the recent more ‘quirky’ approach to co-working design.

“Penketh Group have provided us with a carefully selected range of seating types and tables with integrated power.

“These all contribute to a collection of sophisticated, informal and flexible workspaces that give users a choice, while also fostering a sense of community and a space for businesses to connect.”

Bruntwood says Neo, the former 12-storey Bank House building, is its “most evolved collaborative workspace to date”.