Sussex Innovation Centre Croydon is a business incubation network, supporting entrepreneurs, start-ups and scale-ups across the South East from No. 1 Croydon and their headquarters at the University of Sussex.

Croydon - the 'Silicon Valley of South London' - is now officially London’s fastest growing tech cluster, as well as being the site for massive regeneration.

The brief from Sussex Innovation Centre Croydon

In March 2019, Sussex Innovation Centre Croydon asked IRS to review the existing reception area of their offices in the iconic No 1 Croydon (the 50 pence building by East Croydon station), so that the existing furniture could be updated.

The new space

The newly refurbished space needed to offer a series of furniture items specific to tasks required by their clients. These were:

• High desks that could be used for hot desk working or occasional meetings
• Pods for four people that offered a degree of privacy
• Table-top workspace that could facilitate group meetings
• Single pods that would allow people to individually work or take private phone calls

The single pods are still quite new to the market. They are soundproofed and provide an excellent alternative workspace for quiet, focussed work for Sussex Innovation Croydon’s members.

With these new elements, as well as re-designing the layout for the existing bistro tables, we were able to create a new flexible, calm workspace that has been very well accepted by the Sussex Innovation Croydon members.