The Brief
When Prescient Investment Management committed to a new home for their team, they were not simply looking for office space. They were looking for a statement — one about how they operate, how they think, and the kind of organisation they intend to remain. Protunkey was appointed to translate that ambition into a complete tenant fit-out
Prescient’s requirements were clear from the outset. The new office needed to accommodate a growing team of staff across a range of functions, from portfolio management and research to client relations, compliance, and executive leadership. Each of these teams operates differently, and the space needed to reflect that without fragmenting the culture that makes Prescient who they are.
Critically, the client-facing elements of the brief carried significant weight. As an investment management firm, Prescient regularly hosts high-net-worth individuals, institutional partners, and regulatory stakeholders. The reception, boardroom, and client meeting suites needed to project the kind of trust and precision that Prescient’s work demands, without tipping into ostentation. The brief was, in that sense, a design challenge as much as a construction one. Protunkey was also tasked with completing the project within a fixed programme aligned to Prescient’s existing lease obligations, making delivery discipline as important as design quality from day one.
The Design Concept
The concept that emerged from Protunkey’s initial design process was built around a single organising idea: structured calm. Financial services environments can easily become either sterile and institutional or, at the other extreme, overly styled in ways that feel at odds with the serious work happening inside them. Prescient needed neither. Instead, the design draws on a restrained material palette, engineered timber flooring, brushed metal accents, acoustic wall panels in neutral textiles, and perimeter glazing that draws natural light deep into the floor plate. The colour scheme anchors itself in warm off-whites and charcoals, with considered moments of darker tone that add depth without drama.
Circulation was designed with intention. Moving through the office, a visitor — or a staff member arriving in the morning — experiences a gradual transition from the formal to the functional: a composed reception that gives way to collaborative zones, and then to quieter, focused work areas where the detail work of portfolio management takes place. The journey through the space is deliberate, and the design makes that deliberateness feel effortless.
“A financial services office should feel like the thinking that happens inside it — precise, considered, and completely in control.”
Each zone within the Prescient fit-out was designed to serve a distinct purpose, and to do so without visual noise. The result is a floor plan that reads as coherent from end to end, even as the character of each area shifts to meet its function.
Reception & Client Suite
The arrival experience sets the tone for everything that follows. A full-height reception feature wall in dark-stained timber, illuminated with integrated linear lighting, frames the Prescient identity with authority. The material selection here — stone-effect surfaces, brushed brass ironmongery, and deep upholstered seating, steps up meaningfully from the general office specification to signal the importance Prescient places on the client relationship.
Adjacent client meeting suites are engineered for the discretion that high-stakes financial conversations require. Full-height glazed partitions with manifestation, custom joinery credenzas, and acoustic performance well above the standard specification give these rooms a quality of finish that clients notice without being able to immediately identify why.
Boardroom
The main boardroom was designed as the signature space of the fit-out. A custom-profiled ceiling detail, integrated AV and presentation technology, and a material palette that steps up again from the client suites combine to create a room that functions as both a high-performance working environment and a genuine expression of the firm’s character. When the board is not in session, the room earns its cost, used constantly for senior presentations, client briefings, and management meetings.
Collaborative & Social Zones
A central breakout and café zone provides the informal counterpoint to the more structured areas of the floor. Flexible furniture, writable wall surfaces, and carefully positioned acoustic baffles allow this space to function as everything from a casual lunch setting to an impromptu project discussion. The quality of uptake from staff in the weeks following occupation was the clearest measure of whether this space had been designed well.
Workstations & Focus Areas
The primary workspace combines benched workstations with sufficient visual and acoustic separation for the focused, analytical work that defines Prescient’s day-to-day. A series of focus booths and phone pods positioned along the perimeter provide the quiet that open-plan offices so often fail to deliver, an oversight Protunkey addressed from the earliest stages of the design process, and one that Prescient’s team has since identified as among the most valued features of the new space.
Project Delivery
The fit-out was completed across a 2 month programme, with Protunkey’s in-house site team managing the full build. All principal trades, drylining, suspended ceilings, joinery, flooring, glazing partitions, and electrical and data installations — were coordinated under a single project management structure, ensuring clear accountability at every stage and eliminating the gaps that emerge when multiple contractors operate without unified oversight.
Weekly progress meetings kept Prescient’s operations team fully sighted on programme and budget throughout the build. Where minor scope variations arose, as they inevitably do on projects of this complexity, they were assessed, formally costed, and confirmed in writing before any additional work proceeded. This discipline protected both the timeline and the client’s confidence in the process.
Handover was completed on schedule. A comprehensive snagging walkthrough was conducted jointly with Prescient’s facilities team, and all items were closed out within 7 working days leaving the client with a fully operational workspace and the documentation to support its ongoing management.
The Outcome
The completed workspace gives Prescient Investment Management an office that is genuinely fit for the organisation they are, and the one they are becoming. Feedback from the Prescient team in the weeks following occupation has centred on two consistent themes: how effectively the space supports the focused, high-quality work their people do, and how confidently it represents the firm to the clients and partners who visit.
For Protunkey, this project is a clear example of what considered design and disciplined delivery can achieve when a client is willing to invest in getting both right. The brief asked for a space that would reflect Prescient’s character precisely, and that is exactly what was delivered.
Scope of Work
- Space Planning & Design
- Tenant Fit-Out
- Custom Joinery
- Acoustic Engineering
- AV Integration
- Project Management
- Handover & Snagging
