Case Study: Blue Fin Building, Southwark

IPC Media, Time Warner’s London based magazine publishing operation, is now housed in a stunning building named after the 2,000 blue aluminium fins covering its façade.

IPC appointed Trench Farrow, in 2003, to help them select and purchase their new building and then organise the fit-out over 10 floors, including relocation of the 80 different magazines now published out of the building.

Trench Farrow, undertook all the project management involved in designing and fully equipping over 250,000 sq ft of space. Several major changes to the base building were also negotiated, including the installation of 3no 1350KVA generators and additional chillers to serve the data centre and conversion of an inaccessible area at the top of the atrium into a spectacular staff café.

The co-location of titles on single open-plan floor plates was a major cultural and business change. Trench Farrow assisted IPC in communicating these changes.

The Blue Fin building provides vibrant and uplifting office space for IPC Media’s staff, who chose the name themselves. The move was completed in May 2007.

Key Facts

The Blue Fin building won the British Council for Offices corporate workplace national/regional London (inside M25) award, 2008.

As well as open plan offices and boardrooms, IPC required a data centre, staff restaurant, conference suite, 80-seat auditorium, client dining facilities, a radio station, video production and photographic studios and extensive storage, post and reprographic facilities.