Industrial estates. Business parks. Science parks. Commercial campuses. Whatever you call them, these are the places where much of Britain works. And yet for decades they’ve been characterised by their sameness: wide tarmac roads, big grey sheds, seas of parking and little else.
It’s the sort of landscape that wouldn’t feel out of place in Orwell’s 1984: functional, monotonous and distinctly hostile to anything resembling life outside the daily commute.
They’re not places for people.
Except, of course, they are.
Nearly than a fifth of the UK workforce is employed in logistics and manufacturing. Where do those jobs happen? Largely on estates and parks.
The average person will spend around 90,000 hours at work in their lifetime. That’s roughly a third of our waking lives. So, if we care about the quality of where people live, we must also care about the quality of where people work.
This shift in thinking is already in full flow across the office workspace: many office schemes now set aside ground floor spaces for leisure uses. We worked with Bruntwood on the transformation of Bloc, which boats a yoga studio, coffee shop, community space, cinema room, auditorium and flexible co-workspace within its four walls. There are even sleeping pods available for hire!
We’re now starting to see that trend translated on industrial parks, too.
Across the UK, estates are starting to reimagine themselves, not just as functional hubs for productivity, but as places people actively want to be.
Why now?
It comes down to attracting people. Workers are more committed than ever to maintaining a healthy work-life balance, and the competition for talent is fierce. Employers know they need more than a job description; they need an attractive environment that supports wellbeing.
That means moving beyond the sheds. It’s about the spaces between the buildings: the social areas, the natural features and the connections that make a working environment feel more like a community.
In other words: placemaking has finally arrived at the industrial estate.
We’re starting to see estates across the country experiment with features that would once have been unthinkable in such settin
A sense of arrival: clear gateways, signage and a central hub that feels welcoming
Spaces to connect: cafés, food vendors or flexible social areas, offering more (and better) options than the lone sandwich van.
Green infrastructure: woodland walks, nature trails, seating areas and landscaped courtyards where people can step away from their desk
Healthier, safer routes: pedestrian and cycle paths that make moving around the site pleasant, not precarious.
Identity and pride of place: a clear sense of design that reflects who’s there and what the estate stands for.
This is the language of the campus, not the shed.
Wayfinding can be the catalyst for this transformation:
We work with clients to look at estates as if they were campuses: we map different zones, user groups and destinations. A clear wayfinding strategy helps people move around with ease.
We design sign concepts that reflect the personality of a site, setting it apart from the masses. The concept at Konect62 took on an industrial look and feel, inspired by the site’s former life as a colliery.
If an estate is investing in woodland walks, cycle routes or nature corridors, wayfinding is what makes those assets usable.
It tells people where they can go and encourages them to explore a little further. It can also incorporate valuable interpretation information, educating people about the habitats they’re stood in.
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A toolkit for a brand or campus multiplies the benefits of wayfinding intervention. It’s a manual to guide the design of all future wayfinding and branding work, to bring consistency across a campus or across a brand’s numerous estates.
That consistency gives tenants and visitors confidence, while still allowing each estate to express its own character.
Industrial estates have long been defined by the buildings. But the future lies in the spaces between them.
Placemaking is no longer just for town centres, residential neighbourhoods or even office developments. It’s for the humble industrial estate, too, where millions of us spend our days. And wayfinding is a crucial piece of that puzzle: shaping the experience, encouraging connection and helping estates evolve into places that attract people, not just trucks.
If you’re creating a new kind of workplace and want to stand out from the crowd, we can help you take a new perspective through placemaking and wayfinding interventions. Get in touch to discuss it with us.
