Office · Raw Structural · Design study
The Long Table Office
Westlands, Nairobi
- Area
- 4,413 sq ft
- 410 m²
- Ceiling height
- 3.60 m exposed slab
- Key materials
- Board-marked concrete, Blackened steel, Cork
- Completion year
- 2026
- Design study
Act I
The brief & the constraint
A workplace for 40 organised around one 14-metre table.
A research consultancy moving into a shell floor in Westlands. Forty staff, half of them in the office on any day, used to working in small closed rooms.
They asked for a space that would make them collaborate more without taking away the ability to concentrate.
One floor, 410 m², a 3.6 m slab, and a landlord who would not allow anything fixed to the ceiling.
Act II
The framing decisions
Decision 01
One table instead of forty desks
A 14 m blackened-steel and cork table runs the length of the glazing. Power, data and task light rise from its spine, so nothing needs to hang from the slab.
Plan — the long table on the light Decision 02
Quiet comes from the floor, not the ceiling
Felt-lined booths stand free on the floor at 2.4 m, well below the slab. Each holds one or two people, and the felt absorbs the sound that the bare concrete reflects.
Section — free-standing booths at 2.4 m Decision 03
Storage as a wall of lockers
Forty lockers on a 450 mm module form the wall between the work zone and the core, so the team's belongings stay off the table.
Elevation — locker wall, 450 mm module
Act III
The lived result
Orbit video: added at handover photography.
“People sit at the table by choice now. The booths are always booked, which is how we know it works.”