That Workplace Experience Podcast

Inside The Jellicoe with Adam Egan & Becky White

• THEM Design • Season 1 • Episode 1

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0:00 | 30:52

In the first episode of That Workplace Experience Podcast, host Dan Moscrop visits The Jellicoe — Fora’s landmark workspace in London’s Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross.

Download the illustrated PDF and watch the episode to see the spaces in full.

Joined by Adam Egan (Fora) and Becky White (Universal Design Studio), Dan explores the vision behind this standout flexible workplace — from its “town hall” community concept to its beautifully designed zones for focus, collaboration and wellbeing.

The episode also dives into inclusive design, neurodiversity, sustainability, and what makes The Jellicoe so much more than an office.

Video production and camera: Calum Lindsay

Camera: Miguel Santa Clara

Illustration: Phoebe Gitsham

Dan Moscrop:

Welcome to the very first episode of that Workplace Experience podcast. The podcast where we examine the best in-class design of the best workspaces and the people behind them. Today we're looking at Foras Jellico Building, 180,000 square foot cool-looking space in the middle of King's Cross. And we're going to be speaking to Adam Egan, who's head of commercial partnerships at Forra, and Becky White, who's the Associate Design Director at Universal Design Studios. We're going to be chatting to them about their full use of colour to define spaces, how the design plays with the senses, specifically smell and touch, and how the attendance design for events influence the design. If you want a more detailed deep dive into this project, there's much more information in the PDF that can be found in the show notes. And make sure you're watching the video version of the podcast to see the footage we've filmed of this incredible building. The building's deep in the heart of Cold Drop's Yard. Was that quite an intimidating space to go into? Because there's so much going on there. And I believe you work with the King's Cross Group.

Adam Egan:

Is that right? Yeah, that's right. So if we go back to the sort of start of this project, we're probably in 2017, 2018 when the conversations started. Credit to King's Cross Group. They wanted to try something really different, really progressive, with um at the time the building was called R8, wasn't it? That was the plot. The plot was called R8. And they wanted to do something really creative with it. So a way to bring in smaller business to allow smaller businesses, still some quite significant businesses, to allow them access to smaller spaces within the estate. Obviously, that goes all the way down to sort of startups and much sort of earlier stages, but you can also be a very significant business and need a relatively small pr footprint in in London. Say if you're coming across from the States and you're a big business in the States, but you're setting up your first office in in the UK. So that's what that was the overall ambition. We also wanted to create a um a space where other customers, other tenants from the estate could access into the building. So this sort of permeability um conversation was was there from the very start. And that was um to give absolute credit, that was King's Cross group who were driving that from the very beginning. Um and actually, if we stand back and look at the building, the concept of having a flexible workspace provider on a management agreement of a building, brand new building of this scale, as an off-plan prelet, essentially. Um that was truly, truly trailblazing, and um no one could really prove it, but we are pretty sure this is the it's the biggest um management agreement, certainly in Europe. Um it's very common in the hotel sector to have deals of this sort of size and this structure, but in the office sector, it's um not that common.

Dan Moscrop:

Back then, 2017, it's obviously a lot happening around the call drop's yard, but this site R8 seems quite probably quite far away from everything that's happening. Did how did that feel at the time?

Adam Egan:

Did it feel that that was sort of tucked away outside of the main Yeah, it I mean, going back to 2018, it was certainly less developed around this particular plot than than it is today. Um I think having six buildings in and around King's Cross, probably a quarter of a million square feet or so, uh, within our business gave us a unique uh confidence and ability to sort of see into the future as to who are the customers, where is the demand, um, and how should we be, what sort of product should we be taking to market to respond to that demand? So looking towards more sort of smaller enterprises and startups as a target? Yeah. Um so not necessarily startups. I think there's a there's a misconception that co-working spaces generally are there for just for startups.

Dan Moscrop:

Yeah, I think I think people often think of like a couple of people as a startup, but I think things have moved on so much and things are so rapid for these companies. A startup can be 10, 20, 50 people very quickly, can't I?

Adam Egan:

They can absolutely can, and and conversely, you could you could have just raised a hundred million series A nowadays with in the world of AI, and you're five people.

Dan Moscrop:

Yeah.

Adam Egan:

Um so you're actually having these they're still a startup, but they're a startup of real serious value and with real um funding behind them, but they're still relatively light headcount. Um so it's important for us, and was always important for us, to have this whole um sort of ecosystem of companies at various stages. So, right from uh sort of inception, so ideation stage, where we have this um deep tech accelerator uh which we operate from the building, they're called Ignite London. Um, it's a phenomenal cluster of uh interesting and brilliant, bright new ideas, right the way through to companies that probably five years ago would still be considered a startup, but they are decorn in terms of valuation, yeah. Um maybe five hundred people maximum as a company globally. So it was important for us to deal with to it was important for us to accommodate the requirements of all of those different businesses. Um they all feed off of each other as well. So if you are the Decacorn, you there is value in you having access to these really progressive founders and startup technologies which are um being explored within the building. It makes for very, very interesting sort of water cooler moments, if you can imagine these people all coming together and also the events that we curate in the building. Um hopefully we're giving something back to the the community.

Dan Moscrop:

When I think of your customers, I'm thinking of people who are you know fairly well established financially. How how how do you service smaller businesses like mine, like an eight-person organization?

Adam Egan:

So that's kind of you to say that is we do have very well-established um large-scale businesses with us, but but we also I think the average size of our customer is 15 desks, 15 people across across the whole of our portfolio. Um at the Jellico specifically, um, we have a planning regulation where um a certain percentage of the building needs to be um needs to be offered to small and medium-sized businesses, so what's known as affordable workspace. Um, and we have to sell those spaces to companies of less than 50 full-time employees. Um, and we have to offer them, this is the real positive thing, we have to offer a three-month rolling break option on those spaces. So if you are just starting out, or if you're not sure of your head count, or if 12 months feels like too much of a commitment, which I totally get, it might to some businesses, um, you can sort of spin the wheel or take a punt, and it's it's only a three-month commitment, which we think's compelling, and to be able to get into a building of the quality and a location of this quality and only take three months of a punt.

Dan Moscrop:

With those sort of customers in mind, Becky, how'd you begin to design something of the scale that we're talking about with Jellicoe?

Becky White:

Yeah.

Dan Moscrop:

Because I think what I've I love about the building is that there's this sort of this sort of stages and thresholds that you walk through. So despite the size of it, you've very cleverly block broken up the space to be different areas.

Becky White:

Yeah. I think that was that was really part of our main concept, to be honest. So um when we started the project, when we were brought on board in 2021, we were really conscious that the building was really big. We didn't want it to feel monotonous, we wanted to have you know different moments throughout. So we kind of carved up the building into these different worlds, essentially. So that was born of the concept worlds within a world.

Dan Moscrop:

And and were you involved before construction?

Becky White:

Yeah, so yeah, design process started about 2020, well, the beginnings of conversations, end of 2021, which probably lasted just under a year, and then there was a bit of a pause before we went into construction. But I think kind of the startup side of it for us, I guess it's it's a really special building, and giving these facilities to startups, like as you said, kind of gives them such a strong credibility. And I think the other aspect of it for us was that, you know, I think it would be probably fair to say that there's quite perhaps a mix of neurodivergent um workers or um yeah, in uh some of those startups. And so it was really, really important to us that part of the design philosophy um, that this kind of neurodivergent aspect came into the project and wasn't just an afterthought that it was part of the concept as well.

Dan Moscrop:

I think what I've noticed is that when people talk about designing for neurodiverse, they think they've got to tone things down. You know, you sort of imagine this sort of beigeing of a space, and the space you've designed is the exact opposite of that. There's some really bold colours, some really interesting materiality going through.

Becky White:

Yeah, we approached the project um with this idea of so we we actually did some really nice mapping at the beginning. So we we zoned the building into really, really clear zones, and then those zones were driven by behaviours and feelings rather than uh another concept. And so we really wanted that kind of function to be the leader and the choice that we made when it came to materials, when it came to colours. Um, so for example, if the space was more about collaboration, perhaps actually the space can be a little bit more open and airy versus somewhere where it is more about like individual focus working, actually we can be a bit bolder here and perhaps it is more about like accentuating natural materials, introducing really, really dark colours. Um and we we we worked alongside um a couple of neurodiversity consultants. So one is a company called Motion Spot, um, and they don't just focus on neurodiversity, they they encompass all um inclusive design. And then we also worked alongside a lecturer, Joan Love, um, who's dedicated a lot of her career um looking into neurodiversity in interior design. Um and so we really wanted to draw on both of their experiences and embed that in the space, and we did that in multiple ways.

Dan Moscrop:

Talking through the space itself, um you arrive and there's this great reception, this beautiful wash of yellow as you walk through.

Becky White:

Yeah. Yeah, so um exactly that. When you arrive in the building, it is a really punchy, bold entrance. Um, again, so the behaviour that we were looking at here is that actually it is a very transient space. You don't tend to spend much time in a lobby. And so actually, we could be quite playful here with the colour, and we wanted it to have that really filmic, cinematic feel. Like when you come in, you're punched with this kind of really warm yellow colour. And then actually, where there are spaces where you do spend more time, you can make it more comfortable, have it more like hospitality feel. Um, but yeah, there's definitely that kind of, as you mentioned before, that kind of filmic cut line. So as you move from one space to another, you really feel the change from one space to another. So after you've passed through the lobby, you then go into the cafe space, and the cafe space, um, as Adam's already mentioned, is actually open to the public. And so the idea there is that it wanted to feel really grounded. There's a lot more like earthy tones, um, all of the joinery is very much fixed and grounded in the floor, and then there's a level of flexibility with other furniture so that it can be utilized for events, but it was much more of an urban approach, very much connected to the estate.

Dan Moscrop:

You mentioned World Within the World before, I rudely cut over you, but World Within a World as a concept. Tell us a little bit about this.

Becky White:

Yeah. So I think this was um really driven by we we really wanted to give people choice. Um, when we, as I mentioned, when we approached the project, you know, four or five years before it was going to open, we really had to design for the future and think about how do people want to use this space. This is obviously like post-COVID. Um, and so we really wanted to give people flexibility and choice in the building. We wanted to give people spaces that could actually really support their everyday lives. Um, so introducing a really strong and dedicated space for well-being on level two was something we really pushed for, so that it, you know, you don't have to leave the building to pray, or you don't have to leave the building to take a moment to do some meditation. Um, so trying to support people so that they can make space for these other moments that are part of part of your life.

Dan Moscrop:

All the time and 70 buildings, obviously, you're getting so much feedback and data from people using it. How has that influenced the the jellico building?

Adam Egan:

So, our our concept has always been to not do one size fits all, and that means the buildings need to be designed for that particular location for the sorts of clients and customers we think are gonna want to occupy those buildings. That said, we've got six buildings now in King's Cross, all of them completely different. They all respond to the architecture of the building as well as the potential customers. So at the Jellico we had the um luxury of working with a br literally ground-up brand new building, PierC Co architecture. Um we really yeah, we had the luxury of choosing what went in it, and that means to a certain degree it could be purpose built on the inside. How that responds to the sorts of customers we think are gonna want it, that means what that really means is we know that startups and scale-ups are quite sociable as as what we know is that startups and scale-ups generally are lower headcount businesses and therefore they have a desire to network and uh speak to the community of like-minded individuals. So we knew that with a building of this scale, 180,000 square feet or so, uh, we needed to put a very generous amount of shared space in to give these companies the ability to uh to meet and interact. Um so I think there's about 44,000, 45,000 square feet of shared amenity if you include terraces, um, which is an incredibly generous amount of space considering it's 180,000 square feet in total. Um these areas allow choice, and that's that's I think the key thing that resonates when I show potential customers around the building, it's letting them know that their their teams have the choice to find different working environments and go and do their best work from those environments, whether that is the wellness room, which I'm sure we'll come on to, or whether that is the indoor garden room for a bit of a I don't know, a retox of um sort of plants and daylight and fresh air. Um you you basically have the option to find these spaces and and do your best work from them.

Dan Moscrop:

I think it does feel like that as you're walking around, there's a lot of spaces to recover. And I know that you know the target customers of you know the the small enterprise and startups, they work at such an intense pace. We talked about 996 as the buzzword. I think I've probably done that most of my life, sadly. But um, I never had the luxury of breaking out into these absolutely gorgeous spaces, and the two you've obviously just mentioned there's the out the indoor garden, you've got a lot of terrace space, but the wellness loom room just absolutely blows my mind. You've dedicated such a huge space to it as well. But tell us about that. I don't want to spoil it for people, but it's it's just incredible.

Becky White:

Yeah, it's a really nice thing to discover, I think, on level two. It's kind of hidden away, you almost don't know it's there. Um, but we it's this kind of timber lined box that sits within the space, and then within it, you've got this incredible um meditation wellness room. And as you step in, you're kind of hit with an assault of the senses almost. There's a lavender wallpaper that we've used on the wall, and you really do smell it, and it really does kind of change how you have a beautiful texture as well. Yeah, it does have a really lovely quality, and then even the carpet, for example, we used a really thick pile.

Dan Moscrop:

It's the deepest pile carpet I've ever walked on. It's what how I imagined as a kid what drowning in a swamp might feel like as you first step in.

Becky White:

It like people have said it looks like sand.

Dan Moscrop:

It looks like yeah, like that. You feel like you're leaving footprints.

Becky White:

Yeah, it does invite you to lie down as well, it invites you to sit on the floor, which I don't think many workspaces do. Like it's rare that you actually sit on the floor. So it's a really special space, and I think it's been really successful. Um, and it's just got some, it's got really good acoustics. You feel momentarily like you have stepped into a different world. Um, and you can just feel your kind of pace slow. Um, it's it's just a really incredible opportunity in the building for people to step away from their busy lives and their busy work, you know, taking lots of calls and then step into this and just take a breather. Um, we had an incredible um site meeting there once when midway through construction, very stressful meetings, and then we sat in there with all the contractors all in our hard hats and hard boots, and everyone was just quiet. And it was so lovely. Yeah. Um, so it's a really it's a really special space.

Dan Moscrop:

And and to your point as well, Eddie, about people using the places flexibly.

Adam Egan:

I think you were doing a show around the other week and you'd gone in and um well that the beauty of this is you whilst the buildings are being built and designed, you're sort of telling the story of how you think people will want to use the space. And then the beauty of it is people are very individual. And yeah, walked in the other day, it wasn't your meeting. Um there was yeah, there was a group of about six people sat on the floor just having a team team meeting, they definitely weren't uh meditating. Um but what an amazing meeting that would have been. I bet that's a memorable one. I bet some great ideas came out of it. Yeah, um, taking yourself out of an office environment, but with your colleagues and sitting down and really thinking about a problem in a space like that is is uh amazing. We could have we could have called it a meeting room.

Dan Moscrop:

We'll talk about the indoor garden in a second, but one of the things I love about the building is the boldness of the colour that's used throughout. And to a listener, it might sound a bit scary. Some of the colours we're going to start describing, but as you go through the cafe area, one of the first things you get hit by is this wash of almost deep terracotta colour. And tell me about the the wallpaper in there. Is it pine?

Becky White:

Yeah, so yeah, exactly that. The inside lining for the room is pine skins, and that also has a sensory element to it. Um, it's this incredible tree bark that they um basically take from trees where it's fallen off, and they can turn it into this incredible wallpaper. And equally, we have an also interesting material on the outside of that space. Um, it's called eelgrass, and it's a compressed, oh sorry, it's called sold, it's a compressed eelgrass. So again, it's kind of foraged from the sea, it's washed up. And I think all these materials have this really like incredible, unruly texture to them.

Dan Moscrop:

It's so tactile right the way through the buildings now.

Becky White:

And I I think for that particular space, um, it's kind of in contrast to the space that sits next to it. So you've got the arcade and then you've got the individual working, and individual working, the idea that it was a bunch of about focus working, it's lined in these individual booths, um, but it was all about these kind of really natural, rich materials which drove the colour there. As you mentioned, it's really deep, it feels really confident, um, but also reassuring. Like you said, it's not scary that it's this really, really deep red colour. It it kind of yeah, it provides a reassurance.

Dan Moscrop:

Sort of envelops you, it makes you want to go in and work and be quiet again. But you know, can you imagine doing you can imagine doing focused work there?

Becky White:

Yeah, and then exactly that, and then adjacent to it, you've got the arcade, and the arcade um is kind of the opposite, it's about Moving people up and through the building, it's a lot more transient. Um, and so we the kind of concept for that as I mentioned, this idea of a kind of colonnade that wraps you around, it's a lot more open, it's a lot lighter. We use this really beautiful sycamore timber to line the space. So the two kind of work in opposition, um, but they sit really nicely next to each other, and you really feel that change as you move from one space to another.

Dan Moscrop:

The other thing I love for me, especially when you're talking about such a big building, it's almost like you've dropped Easter eggs around. So things like the indoor garden, the it feels like you want to explore the space.

Becky White:

Yeah, um, that's it. I'm glad to hear that. I think that was definitely the case. You kind of do discover these things as you move through it. I think probably one of our biggest maybe concerns, if it's I go to say now, but we we were conscious that we also wanted it to feel like one author. We didn't want these spaces to feel disjointed and jarring for anybody to move through. We wanted it to feel like they had some sort of continuity. And so it's really important for us that um the finishes, for example, were the same as you move through the building, but they just shifted totally and that each space had its own little special unique moment, but that there are red threads that run through everything.

Dan Moscrop:

Yeah, they sort of you can tell it all gels together. What were those little red threads? Was it is it the materiality? Is it just the tone of the colours?

Becky White:

Or yeah, I mean there's a few things, really simple things like Lilolium running throughout. Um, we did a chunk of work at the beginning on sustainability and what made sense for the building. Um, it's obviously a mass material that you have to use in a lot of spaces. Um, it's a very natural material, really good for no VOCs coming out of it, which was also part of our neurodivergent aspect. Um, things like ash. Ash is an incredible timber to use at the moment because of the um dieback that's happening, it's readily available. Um, and so we utilize that throughout the entire building, but then we stained it different finishes, different colours throughout. Um, so there's a few um moments like that. I guess also there's the kind of grid motif that exists throughout the building. It's a very, well, I was gonna say subtle, but in some places it's not subtle.

Dan Moscrop:

In reception, you're just different sizes.

Becky White:

Different sizes, exactly. In reception, you're kind of hit with it, and then in other spaces it's a lot more paired back.

Dan Moscrop:

Tell us, Adam, how do people react when you show them around the space?

Adam Egan:

There's a there's generosity to the experiences as you go through them, and I think that rubs off on people. I love how you said there are little Easter eggs hidden around because I feel like you get that sense of anticipation from people as you start to go through the space. They're they're almost thinking, or you can see, they're thinking, what's next? What's around this corner? And you know, being uh on the sort of more commercial side of things, I I want to see potential customers walking through our spaces being um being being wowed and wanting to discover more. You always want to see that, and I think we deliver that in spades.

Becky White:

I think probably what's also we haven't maybe mentioned as well at the top of the building, you've got this kind of dual quality moment through the event space. Yeah. So that was um uh a sort of event space was the brief, a co-working space, but you've got these amazing views across the entirety of London. Um, and so the design there was really driven by creating something that felt like a hospitality-led space. Um, we've got these kind of curved, perforated um acoustic panels, but they curve towards the city. So you've got this kind of interesting reflection of the city kind of facing back at you. And I think that's one of those moments that you maybe don't realise there, but as you move through the building, you experience it at the top.

Dan Moscrop:

Obviously, it's very successful space at the minute, but tricky question. What would you have done differently, if anything? What have you learned about the space that you would change?

Becky White:

Good question. I mean, I think probably from our point of view, the aspect to neurodiversity was quite in its infancy. Um, I think we did test a few things, being quite frank, you know, it was a kind of opportunity to try some things with Forum, and they're an amazing client that allows us to do that. But I think we would love that the next project together we really push those ideas even further. Um, what has worked well, what hasn't, um, where can we improve? And I think those learnings um always inform the next project um for us. So I think we're quite honest about the fact that that was the first time we had adopted this attitude, and it's something that we really want to improve upon and learn from.

Adam Egan:

Great. Adam. Without creating a beige um, without creating a beige space, yeah. Yeah. Um from my side, I'll come at it from a slightly more um end user-focused perspective, um, where I think in terms of amenity, I I think we could have put a bigger, bigger wellness, uh gym facility in, bigger gym facility in. Um something we're exploring now. And that's the beauty of us, is we're we're not normal landlord in that sense, where we deliver a building and disappear. We want to evolve and iterate. Um, and also something that keeps coming up, and this is very topical given where we are, um, podcast facilities and studios. Um in particular in with the client base we've got at the Jellico, I think we could really benefit from from giving them access to a facility like this, um, which they can drop into and use as they need rather than build out themselves or go and rent themselves.

Dan Moscrop:

You mentioned previously that the uh cafes started to become used as an event space, and and that was slightly unexpected too.

Adam Egan:

So the the cafe was already always um designed as an event space, however, what what we weren't expecting was a uh major government client of ours in the building um having a partnership with a essentially a technology and science grassroots events business and coming to us and saying, could we do a weekly event for 200 plus people um from the building? Um but credit to the flexibility of the space, um we delivered that for six months. It was every every Thursday evening. Um I think we had maximum three fifty, maybe more people in the building in the ground floor. It's huge. Yeah, and it took out the entirety of the ground floor. So all those worlds uh that you guys created were were well became one, but they became um they became their own sort of mini event, mini vibe. There was a DJ in the uh the far far room where you said the light was coming through. Uh there were different things going on in the red room and the arcade. Yeah, it it's great. Build for flexibility and be adaptable.

Becky White:

Yeah. I mean, we always try to build for flexibility, I think, in fora projects. Um, but I think it's always about striking that balance between, you know, there has to be some fixed elements and it's acknowledging where the flexibility can be so that it doesn't feel like a big empty cavernous space where you know everything can move around. So I think it's always about getting that balance right.

Dan Moscrop:

And then the most important thing is what's your feedback from the members? What are people saying about it? People who've who've now joined at Jellicore are now part of that community.

Adam Egan:

So it's um we opened at 60 60% full, which for a building of this size is is incredible. We're now just just shy of 90%. Um, if we opened in March, that's not bad going for a building of this size within nine months. Um what people are saying, um, they are staying, they are growing, which is phenomenal to see. We've already had a couple of a couple of customers come back to us and they need more space, which is a great sign of um their sector, but also as a sign that they want to double down in the building um and the flexibility of the building to accommodate.

Dan Moscrop:

Guys, thank you so much. I think it's great advice. Really interesting to find out more in depth about the Jellicoe building. But thank you so much, Becky and Adam. Uh, really interested to speak to you.

Becky White:

Thank you. Thank you very much.