Hospitality & Workspace Interior Design in the UK
Experiences that work
The best commercial environments do not happen by accident. They are designed around how people move, gather, work and spend.
We apply hospitality principles to commercial spaces, whether or not the space is a restaurant. That means designing for the guest first and the photograph second, from an independent café to a developer-led workspace.
Restaurants, cafés and bars
Covers multiplied by turns is most of your revenue, and both are decided by a drawing months before you open. We settle the seating mix, the service route and the position of the pass first, because those set your labour cost and your peak throughput. Acoustics come next, and they are what most schemes get wrong: the hard surfaces that photograph beautifully are the ones guests complain about in every review once the room is full.
Hospitality
Hotels and aparthotels are a repetition problem. A detail that is slightly wrong in one room is wrong in forty, and a specification that fails after two years fails across the whole floor at once. We design the room type as a product: durable to a commercial standard, quick for housekeeping to reset, and cheap to repair in parts rather than replace whole. The arrival sequence and the corridor matter more than they look, because they are the first and last thing a guest sees.
Co-working and creative spaces
Desk density and acoustic comfort pull directly against each other, and where you land sets your price per desk and your churn. We work out how many desks the floor can carry before it stops feeling like somewhere people want to be, then plan meeting rooms, call booths and quiet zones against how members actually use them rather than how the brochure says they will. The space also has to photograph well, because that is what people join from.
Three layers, every project
The physical environment
How the space is organised, zoned and designed.
The human interaction
How people perceive, interact with and move through it.
The operational performance
How circulation, functionality and service support performance.
When these work together, environments become more intuitive, more efficient and more valuable. When they do not, the room looks right and runs badly.
Discovery to handover
Take one stage or all seven. Projects are priced on the complexity of the work and the area involved, in square feet or square metres, rather than by the day or as a fixed package. Each stage is scoped separately, so you never commit to the whole project on a first meeting.
- Strategic discoveryAligning vision, business objectives, guest and opportunity.
- Experience strategyCustomer journeys, behavioural insight and experience design.
- Concept designExperience-led concepts that translate strategy into space.
- Design developmentArchitectural drawing set: layouts, elevations and the detail trades need.
- FF&E and specificationEvery selection of furniture, fixtures, equipment and materials, scheduled to a commercial standard.
- Procurement OptionalSourcing and coordinating approved items through to delivery.
- Implementation support OptionalStaying involved so what gets built is what was drawn.
What operators ask first
How is it priced?
On complexity and area. We look at the square feet or square metres involved and how demanding the work is, then quote the stage in front of you. You approve that before anything starts.
Do you carry out the fit-out?
No. We design, specify and coordinate, and your contractor builds. If you do not have one yet, we can introduce trusted partners we have worked with before.
Can you work with our architect and contractor?
Yes, and on most projects that is how it runs. We are used to being one part of a team and to designing around decisions made before we arrived.
Do you work across the UK?
Yes, remotely and on site, in London and beyond. Tell us where the premises are and we will confirm what on-site attendance is workable before anything is agreed.
Can you work around us staying open?
Often, and it is worth raising early. Phasing around trading changes sequencing, sometimes specification, and always the programme. It is a design constraint, not a scheduling detail.
What happens after we enquire?
We review what you have sent, then arrange a consultation to go through the premises and the brief. After that you receive a proposal for the first stage, with deliverables, timeline and fee set out.
Tell us about the project
Commercial enquiries come here rather than through the residential route. Use the form below, or book a call underneath it if you would rather talk.
Otherwise: commercial@studioakiva.com or 0203 950 4285. Studio Akiva, 71-75 Shelton Street, London WC2H 9JQ.
Five things that make the first reply useful
None are required. But an enquiry with these gets an answer with something in it, rather than an email asking five questions.
- What the premises are and where
- Roughly how large, and whether it is a shell, a refit or a refresh
- Whether an architect is appointed, and how far their drawings have got
- Whether you are trading through the works or closed for them
- The date you need to open, or the date the lease starts costing you
A floor plan, measured survey or architect's drawing is the most useful attachment you can send. A lease plan is better than nothing.
A call, then a proposal
You get a reply from a person within two working days. If a call makes sense we will suggest one, and it is a conversation about the project rather than a pitch.
After the call we send a written proposal: what we would do at the stage in front of you, what it costs, and what it does not include. Nothing starts until you have approved it.
Two things we will say honestly on that call: whether the project needs an architect before it needs us, and whether we are the right studio for it at all.
Not a commercial fit-out?
| A home | Residential enquiries go through the main contact page. |
| Suppliers and trade | Email us with what you make, where you ship and whether you hold trade accounts. |
| An existing project | Go directly to your designer. It will reach the right person considerably faster. |