HQs That Work Harder - How Great Buildings Help Shape Better Places

Chapter headingChapter subheadingHow great HQ buildings help shape better places - lessons from the front line of deliveryContents

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HQ's that work harder: How great buildings help shape better places

By Ben Wolstenhome, Contracts
Manager, Morgan Sindall
Construction - North West

For a long time, a successful headquarters building was judged on fairly simple terms: efficient floorplates, dependable services, quality finishes and a smooth handover. That is no longer enough.

Today, major commercial buildings are expected to do more than accommodate an organisation. They need to be flexible, perform technically, support wellbeing and contribute something tangible to the place around them. In town and city centres especially, the brief has widened. A building now has to work as an office, an asset and a catalyst for regeneration all at once.

That has been a consistent lesson across projects I have worked on, from the large-scale Cat B environment at BUPA HQ, to the wellbeing-led delivery of The Spine, to the creation of Grade A offices for Wirral Growth Company in Birkenhead.

It is also something we are seeing again on live regeneration and innovation projects such as Blackpool Multiversity and the University of Salford’s new acoustics facility.

Different buildings, different users, different constraints, but the same principle: the best results come when the building is understood as part of a bigger story about how people work, move, learn and experience a place.

Start with place, not just plot

One of the first questions on any major HQ project should be simple: what is this building doing for the place around it?

Regeneration-led commercial development is no longer judged only by what happens inside the envelope. Ground-floor presence, visibility, pedestrian connections and the quality of surrounding public space all shape how a building is received. A successful headquarters should not feel sealed off from its context. It should help make the wider location feel more active, more legible and more confident.

That was clear at Birkenhead, where Morgan Sindall Construction delivered two five-storey Grade A office buildings for Wirral Growth Company as part of the first phase of the town centre’s regeneration.

The buildings totalled 150,000 sq ft, with one occupied by Wirral Council and the other developed for commercial tenants. Just as importantly, they were connected by new outdoor public realm and adaptable spaces for occupiers, residents and visitors.

That kind of project shows why place cannot be treated as a backdrop. The external environment, stakeholder relationships and the way people move into and around a building are all part of the product.

Constrained sites demand better thinking

Urban regeneration schemes rarely come with simple logistics. Tight sites, public interfaces, neighbouring buildings, buried services, live roads and existing town-centre activity all bring pressure. But difficult conditions should not be treated as a reason to lower ambition. They demand better planning and problem-solving.

Blackpool Multiversity is a good example. Delivered in the heart of the town centre as part of the wider Talbot Gateway regeneration programme, the campus is designed to bring thousands of students, apprentices and staff into a central location, supporting skills, economic growth and wider regeneration.

That kind of publicly-funded scheme depends on more than technical delivery. It needs transparent reporting, proactive stakeholder engagement and a clear understanding of how construction activity affects local businesses, transport, neighbours and the wider community.

The same discipline applies to specialist technical projects. At the University of Salford’s new acoustics building, performance depends on exceptional precision, with vibration-isolated spaces, extra-dense concrete walls and acoustically isolated laboratories. On projects like this, teams need to get into the detail early, test assumptions openly and make sure the plan is robust before decisions become expensive to change.

Flexibility has to be designed in

If there is one theme that now runs through almost every major commercial project, it is flexibility. Occupiers change. Teams evolve. Space requirements shift. Buildings that cannot absorb that change quickly lose value.

At BUPA HQ, flexibility was critical because the project involved bringing around 2,000 staff into one workplace and creating an environment that could support different patterns of use over time.

Our response included raised access floors, open-plan accommodation, collaborative settings and specification decisions focused on durability, ease of maintenance and long-term adaptability.

Birkenhead reinforced that point from a different angle. One building was designed for Wirral Council, while the other was available for businesses to lease. That meant the workspace had to feel premium and future-proofed, but also commercially adaptable. A building should be specific enough to feel purposeful on day one, but resilient enough to respond when use, tenants or working patterns change.

Learning and collaboration are becoming central to headquarters design

Increasingly, organisations want their headquarters to do more than provide desk space. They want buildings that bring people together, support professional development and create opportunities for learning, innovation and knowledge sharing.

The Spine in Liverpool demonstrates this well. While recognised as one of the healthiest office buildings in the UK, it was never intended to function purely as office accommodation.

As the northern home of the Royal College of Physicians, it was designed to support collaboration, learning and professional development alongside day-to-day operations.

Alongside Grade A workspace, The Spine incorporates lecture theatre facilities, flexible learning environments, conference and event spaces, technology-enabled collaboration areas and specialist facilities that support healthcare education and development.

It is a reminder that the most successful headquarters today are often destinations for learning and collaboration as much as places of work.

Grade A performance is about experience,
not just finish

Commercial property still talks a lot about Grade A specification, but the strongest buildings are defined less by surface finish alone and more by how they feel to use. Daylight, acoustics, air quality, layout and ease of movement all shape whether a workplace feels calm, usable and genuinely high quality.

The Spine is a strong example. This was a 14-storey Grade A office building designed around health and wellbeing, with WELL Platinum and BREEAM Excellent ambitions shaping decisions across the project.

Its façade, daylight strategy, natural materials, planting, ventilation and acoustic performance all had to work together. Wellbeing was not treated as a line in the brief. It had to be delivered, checked and protected through design coordination, supply chain engagement and careful quality control on site.

The University of Salford’s acoustics building takes performance even further. Designed around world-class research and teaching, it has some of the most exacting acoustic requirements in the sector. The project team has had to work closely with academic specialists, technical staff and stakeholders to translate highly specialised requirements into a buildable specification.

Quality is not what you claim at the end. It is what you prove through the process.

Cat B is where intent becomes real

Cat B fit out is sometimes treated as the point where a building is simply completed. In reality, it is where the original vision is tested most directly. This is where people start to experience whether the workplace will actually support the way they want to work, meet and collaborate.

Our BUPA HQ scheme demonstrated how much Cat B delivery relies on early clarity. The project created a full turnkey workplace, with reception, catering and amenity spaces, open-plan offices, collaboration areas and building services all needing to work together. It also placed wellbeing and flexible working at the centre of the design.

Those outcomes do not come from a late push for polish. They come from planning the fit out with the same seriousness as the shell and core, understanding how the space will function in practice, and choosing materials and systems that can stand up to daily use.

Public realm is part of the product

One of the clearest changes in recent years is the growing importance of external works on major commercial schemes. Public realm is no longer the leftover space around the building. It is part of the proposition.

Birkenhead is a strong example. The two Grade A office buildings were not delivered as isolated blocks. They formed part of a wider business and leisure quarter, connected by new outdoor public realm and open, adaptable spaces for occupiers, residents and visitors.

It is the same principle behind Blackpool Multiversity. The campus is not simply about creating education space; it is about bringing people into the town centre, supporting local economic activity and contributing to the wider transformation of the area around Talbot Gateway. For delivery teams, that means public realm, access, local communication and stakeholder confidence all matter.

Five things I've learned…

If I had to boil these projects down into five practical lessons, they would be these:

Flexibility must be designed in early. At BUPA HQ, adaptable workplace layouts, raised floors and durable specification choices showed that future-proofing comes from early decisions, not late adjustments.
Wellbeing only matters if it is delivered rigorously. The Spine proved that high-performance workplaces depend on constant checking, coordination and follow-through, not just aspiration.
Stakeholder engagement has to be proactive and transparent. On publicly-funded regeneration projects such as Blackpool Multiversity and Birkenhead, success depends on clear communication with local and national partners, end users, neighbours and the wider community.
Quality is about experience as much as finish. The University of Salford acoustics building shows that performance-led spaces need deep user engagement and technical discipline, while BUPA and The Spine show how daylight, comfort, usability and wellbeing shape everyday experience.
Buildings work harder when they give something back to place. Whether through Grade A workspace, better public realm, stronger civic connections or new routes into education and employment, the most successful HQs do more than house people.

That, for me, is the real measure of a modern headquarters. Not whether it looks impressive on completion day, but whether it continues to perform; for occupiers, users and the wider place around it.

Ben Wolstenhome

Contracts Manager
Morgan Sindall
Construction

North West

Contact Ben

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