Global Insurance Provider
For more than a decade, AIS has worked with this global insurance provider to create workplaces that reflect the changing needs of its people, business and brand. What began with its London headquarters has grown into an ongoing partnership spanning multiple projects and locations.
A decade of workplaces, designed to evolve.
Operating across international insurance markets, the business brings together specialist teams with diverse workplace needs, from focused and confidential work to collaboration, client hosting and hospitality. AIS has worked closely with its global real estate team to translate those requirements into workplaces that create a consistent experience while responding to the character and demands of each location.
The relationship began at The Leadenhall Building, where AIS helped establish a distinctive UK presence, before continuing with a 56,000 sq ft workplace in Maidenhead and, most recently, an eight-month phased transformation of the original London office while the business remained fully operational. Today, the partnership continues internationally, with AIS delivering the company’s new Melbourne workplace.
Across each project, workplace strategy, design, construction and furniture have worked together to respond to changing priorities. Design draws on the company’s industrial heritage and evolving global identity through considered materials, detailing and spatial experiences rather than overt brand application, while adaptable settings support different levels of focus, connection and collaboration.
Each workplace is different, but the approach remains consistent: building on what has come before while creating space for what the business needs next.
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Size
16,000 sq ft
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Completed
2025
The client’s first project with AIS created a new London headquarters within The Leadenhall Building, one of the City’s most recognisable landmarks.
The brief centred on employee experience and wellbeing, with a workplace designed to accommodate different workstyles while establishing a strong physical presence for the growing business in the UK.
AIS maximised access to the building’s windows, views and natural light, moving service areas away from the perimeter to create stronger visual connections between different work zones. Private pods and phone booths provided space for concentration and confidential conversations, while open collaboration tables and communal settings encouraged interaction between teams.
The material palette referenced the company’s industrial heritage in a refined way, bringing together concrete, steel and glass with softer finishes and a calm, understated colour palette. Professional and highly considered, but also warm and comfortable, the workplace established principles that would continue to evolve across future projects.
Wellbeing at a different scale
Following the success of the London headquarters, AIS was appointed again to deliver a significantly larger 56,000 sq ft workplace in Maidenhead.
Here, the challenge was different. The client wanted a more open and collaborative environment despite corporate standards requiring private offices for more than half of its people. Acoustic performance, access to natural light and stronger connections between teams therefore became central to the solution.
AIS organised the floorplate around three concentric rings extending from a light-filled central atrium, creating a clear relationship between collaborative areas, cellular offices and open-plan workspace. Self-sufficient neighbourhoods with their own tea points, meeting rooms and breakout spaces brought amenities closer to teams and created more opportunities for interaction.
Wellbeing extended beyond the work settings. A large restaurant with a commercial kitchen provides capacity for 200 lunch covers and opens onto landscaped outdoor seating, giving people greater access to nature and fresh air throughout the working day.
The design also developed the industrial language established in London, combining raw steel, exposed services and textured materials with stronger feature colours to give the larger workplace its own identity.
More than a decade after the original project, the client returned to AIS to rethink its London headquarters for a different era of the business.
This was more than a refresh. The workplace needed to respond to evolved ways of working and a refreshed global brand while providing greater privacy, flexibility and a significantly enhanced hospitality experience while the business remained operational.
Delivered through an eight-month phased refurbishment, the 16,000 sq ft transformation introduces highly tailored spaces for focus, collaboration, hosting and events. Meeting rooms give individuals control over temperature and lighting, while fully acoustic-panelled walls and double glazing provide enhanced privacy and sound separation.
A new breakout area, distinguished by a bold orange ceiling detail, quadruples the space previously available to employees. Lounge and dining settings support everyday use, while the area can transform into an additional event venue with full hospitality capability and panoramic views across London.
Bespoke detailing runs throughout, from glass treatments to a ceiling designed to create a floating effect. A hospitality-standard preparation kitchen supports a seamless guest experience, reflecting the premium standards expected across the wider workplace.
Taking the partnership international
The next chapter of the relationship is already underway, with AIS currently delivering the client’s new workplace in Melbourne.
The project takes more than a decade of shared knowledge into a new international market, providing an opportunity to build on the principles established across London and Maidenhead while responding to a different location, workforce and building.
Rather than replicating what has come before, Melbourne continues with an approach developed throughout the relationship: retaining the elements that define the client’s workplace experience while allowing each location to respond to its own context.
Designed for the long term
For more than a decade, the relationship between AIS and this global insurance provider has developed from individual workplace projects into an ongoing partnership shaped by trust, shared knowledge and continual evolution.
Each location tells a different story, from establishing a UK presence and supporting expansion to returning to transform the workplace where the relationship began. Now, with Melbourne underway, that experience is extending into a new international market.
What remains consistent is the approach: workplaces shaped around people and performance, delivered to exacting standards and designed to evolve alongside the business.
