CW Studio, Manchester has designed the landscape for Moneypenny’s new £15m headquarters in Wrexham, which opens this month. The striking new building, designed by AEW Architects, is designed to accommodate over 1000 staff. Set in a ten-acre landscape, it has its own “village pub”, a tree house for meetings and dramatic views over meadows, orchard, woodland and the countryside beyond, all designed to create a happy, relaxing and inspirational setting for employees and visitors.
A contemporary blue Irish limestone walkway leads to the entrance through a landscape of tall swaying grasses, echoing the natural landscape of meadow beyond. Directional paths pre-empt desire lines towards the entrance and create spaces for seating within the planting. Hornbeam hedging gives structure and defines the space. A timber deck leads to a wetland filled with filtered surface water, while a wet meadow detention basin holds any overflow in severe weather. An orchard provides apples, damsons, plums and black cherries for the staff to enjoy. All species were chosen to provide fruit for the staff to enjoy throughout their working day.
Carolyn Willitts, Director of CW Studio said, “Moneypenny have been the perfect client and it is so wonderful to see the staff enjoying their new home. There are even picnic baskets and blankets so that people can sit in the meadow at lunchtime and eat apples from the trees”.
Ed Reeves, Moneypenny co-founder and director, said: “Since we founded Moneypenny we have strived to set the industry standard for ‘excellence’. Our new head office once again raises the bar in achieving this and offers employees the ultimate work environment, which in turn provides stunning service to our clients. CW Studio have exceeded our expectations with this project. Carolyn has been a joy to work with and has delivered something that we’re truly proud of.”
Hardscape supplied:
Main entrance walkway: Kilkenny Blue limestone. Diagonal crossing paths: Kobra granite flamed paving. Stone edging: Kobra granite bush-hammered. Stone benches: The bespoke Kobra granite benches feature the artscape greetings ‘Croeso’ and ‘Welcome’ in a vintage typewriter font with ink splatter as a playful nod to the work done within by Moneypenny. The text was sandblasted into the surface of the stone using laser-cut templates. The stone benches terminate the diagonal crossing paths and are enclosed by tall grasses.
Stone deck to the rear: Kobra granite ‘planks’ flamed paving. Stone seating circle: Split face Kobra granite blocks in a mown circle within the meadow.
