Bank of South Africa, Hyde Park Corner:

A private bank in one of the most prestigious locations in London, adjacent to Hyde Park Corner.

The interiors are finished in marble, exotic polished timbers and coffered fibrous plaster ceilings.

Gatwick Moat House, Longbridge Roundabout, Gatwick:

The original client, National Car park, asked Issy Spektor to investigate the possibility of obtaining planning permission for a hotel. The land was scrubland with an occasional roadside mobile cafe parked alongside. Planning permission was granted for 124 bedroom hotel with covered split-level parking much to the delight of the client! The building is fully air-conditioned and sound-proofed against aircraft noise from the adjacent airport.

Office Building in Chippenham:

A speculative new office building part of an office park outside Chippenham.

Office conversion, Kingston-on-Thames:

Conversion of an existing building into small lettable offices and light industrial units on two levels with roof-top parking. A barrel-vaulted roof-light is introduced to form a naturally lit central atrium. The units are finished to a high standard and are designed to give maximum flexibility in both layout and service facilities.

The Phillimore Club , Kensington, London SW1:

The building, Troy Court in Kensington High Street, a large apartment building was purchased by our client as an investment.

It was some time after the agreement to purchase the building that a large basement swimming pool was discovered.

The original building was designed by a well known eastern-European architect, practising in London in the 1930's. The pool had been redundant for many years.

Our client decided to refurbish the pool and ancillary spaces as a health club.

La Senza, Bluewater Shopping Centre :

A lingerie shop in Bluewater Shopping Centre, Kent. Bluewater is one of the largest shopping centres in Europe.

The centre is owned by an Australian company who required a very high standard of design.

All design details were submitted to their professional team for vetting prior to implementation.

Offices, Retail and Residential: Sheikh Ahmed Abdulatif Building, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia:

A high quality, mixed use development on the main road which includes basement carpark, two levels of retail space, six levels of offices and penthouses over. The structure is reinforced concrete frame on piled foundations. The exterior is marble clad with anodized aluminum windows with bronze tinted glass.

A purpose designed office headquarters and factory warehouse for Teltcher Brothers in the Isle of Dogs, London:

The client is a wine importer, the warehouse facility is for bulk storage and the offices and ancillary areas are on two floors. The warehouse is 5000 square meters and is a section 20 building. The office building is reinforced concrete framed on piled foundations. The building is clad in red facing bricks.

BBH Advertising Agency, London W1:

Advertising agencies are often considered a special case in office design. Unlike most office-based organizations, they value and understand the importance of environment in creating an identity and image for the company. But all too frequently, agencies opt for a flashy, ephemeral, fashionable image more appropriate to an advertisement with a viewing life of a few months than an interior that needs to last for several years. And the notorious pounding that agency interiors take from parties means that the ephemeral soon begins to look tatty as well.

Only too aware of these problems, London agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty have also had to cope with rapid growth. In 1982, BBH used Building Design Associates to design their original offices for 16 people. When they recently needed new offices to cope with around 100 staff, they turned again to BDA. The agency had decided on a typically anodyne '60s office building in Soho. John Hegarty, Bartle Bogle Hegarty's design director, set the tone for the brief by specifying a 'factory for working'. This has been interpreted loosely by the designers, who have opted for hard materials and industrial-looking surfaces.

The penchant for unusual juxtapositions of materials is evidenced in the reception. After being led through the 45 degree angle of the entrance, visitors find themselves on a maplewood path laid into a quarry slate floor. A raised reception desk, also in maple, stands at the far end of reception. A small seating area at the other end faces a videowall of nine monitors. The videowall, something of an ad agency cliche, has been enlivened by the monitors being placed in sprayed MDF boxes which are then cranked around at a variety of angles. One of quirky little design details are the newspaper holders in the reception's seating area. Rubber bicycle handlebar grips are fixed to the split wooden pole of the holder. The holder is then hung from a rack with bicycle trouser clips.

The seven-storey block presented us with a common space-planning problem: of medium depth, the building was not quite wide enough for an effective open plan, but nor was it small enough for solely cellular accommodation to suffice. Our solution was: cellular offices planned around the perimeter, while a small-scale open plan area is used in the centre. What distinguishes the design is the manner in which the central open plan area is given visual identity and life, rather than sinking into a light-starved, drab functionalism.

In effect, the open plan area is a bull pen for 'creatives' or secretaries (depending on the floor). It is defined by a corral of unfinished Kee Klamp, with MDF panels wrapped in rough hessian. A Structure space frame mounted on the ceiling carries Concord spotlights. As in reception, the effect is one of bright, clean areas emerging from dark surroundings. Circulation areas use one of the hardest flooring materials available: the fully vitrified Graniti tiles. Working areas use Milliken carpet tiles, which preferred to broadloom carpet because of cleaning problems.

Many of the design decisions were determined in part by the low floor-to-ceiling heights in the building. To remedy this, no suspended ceilings are used in the working areas; instead, the underside of the slab has been finished and sprayed. In the cellular offices, up lighters are used for lighting. The major problem of ventilation is solved through the use of discreet ceiling-mounted boxes to carry the ducting, rather than constructing a large bulkhead.

A visual order is preserved on all of the floors by a simple use of colour. Large columns, built around the four main structural columns, have been painted blue, green, yellow and red in sequence. Matching non-standard roses for the door furniture and light switches subtly reinforce the colour scheme. Although the effect is like colour-coding, the intent is purely visual.

The columns work best we believe in the less open environments of the fourth and fifth floors. The fourth floor, used for executive offices, is mostly cellular, with niches between offices for secretarial areas. Rough softwood board, which the designers selected individually, is used as wall cladding in the open parts of the floor. Dowels proud of the surface suggest a clever joinery fixing solution, but the boards are, in fact, screwed to the walls.

The fifth floor is the main client area, used for both presentations and entertaining. The corridor is dark, with a black suspended open grid ceiling and black glazed partitions. But the brilliant white light of low-voltage spotlights, the white ceramic tiles surrounding a path of carpet tiles, and the colour-coded columns marching down the corridor, draw visitors through the rather hard-edged space. Doors to the conference rooms are sprayed with Hammerite, a widely used finish throughout the offices: MDF panels in the corridors, fire separation panels in the stairs and ceiling-mounted ventilation boxes are all sprayed in the fashionable high-tech finish. The conference rooms are more low-key in design, to allow the agency presentations rather than the interior to dominate. Maple timber is used, as in reception, for both shelves and the sliding folding doors which subdivide the conference areas. Tables in the conference rooms were specially made by specialist joiners Dovetail, with MDF tops sprayed with a speckled paint.

All the conference rooms are air-conditioned, although the rest of the building uses a system of forced air.

Offices in Great Pulteny Street, London:

Office suite for BBH, the advertising company opposite their main office in London. A combination of steel glass and polished ash for this highly regarded, prize winning, advertising company.

Offices with Penthouse for Percy Bilton plc. Offices on three floors with two penthouses over. The structure is reinforced concrete framed on piled foundations with brick clad elevations.

Foxhills Golf and Country Club:

A leisure complex comprising two 18 hole championship golf courses, clubhouse, squash courts, swimming pool and tennis courts.

The converted listed manor house, originally designed by George Bessier in 1840, contains a restaurant, bar, snooker room, library and administration and storage facilities.

The new two storey golf clubhouse is constructed of load bearing brickwork with exposed laminated timber column and beam construction which is timber clad.

The pro shop, changing room and storage facilities are situated at ground floor with bar/restaurant and kitchen facilities at first floor. A continuous balcony overlooks the 18th greens to both golf courses.

Desalination Plant, Ras Abu Jarjur, Bahrain:

The plant, reverse osmosis, is the largest of its kind ever in the world with a production capacity of 46000 cubic metres of water per day. The overall scheme design and co-ordination includes plant, service lines and general sun-shading with ten independent control buildings.

The structures are steel framed, facing concrete blocks and plastic coated steel with curved eaves projected for sun protection. The scheme also included interior design and landscape design.

Betol Machinery, Luton, Bedfordshire: