As we continue celebrating ten years of GT3, we’re reflecting on the projects that have shaped our journey and helped define the principles that continue to guide our approach to People Architecture.

Completed in 2022, South Yorkshire Pensions Authority’s new workplace in Barnsley came at a significant moment for workplace design.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic had changed the relationship many people had with the office. After an extended period of working from home, organisations were beginning to question what their workplaces needed to offer and how they could better support the people using them.

For South Yorkshire Pensions Authority (SYPA), this period of worldwide change coincided with an opportunity to relocate its offices and find a new workplace that would support new ways of working while being adaptable enough to continue evolving alongside the organisation.

A key ambition was to create a home of its own that could support SYPA for the next decade, establishing a stronger sense of identity while giving employees greater choice in how they worked. GT3 was invited to develop both the workplace strategy and interior design, allowing the thinking behind the workplace and its physical environment to develop together.

From the outset, understanding SYPA as an organisation was an important part of the process. Rather than beginning with a predetermined idea of what the office should look like, GT3 used staff engagement and workshops to understand how people would use the space and what they needed from their working environment following such a significant shift in working patterns.

The corporate brief established a series of principles that would guide the project. The workplace needed to feel professional and inspiring while remaining adaptable to future change. It also needed to give SYPA a stronger sense of ownership, with community becoming an important part of how the new environment would work.

These ideas provided the foundations for the design and helped shape a workplace that could accommodate different ways of working.

Creating choice within the workplace

Spread across two floors, with 394 sqm on the ground floor and 408 sqm above, the new site provided a blank canvas.

Instead of approaching the space as a conventional office, the design introduced different environments that allowed employees to choose where they worked depending on what they needed to do.

Alongside workstations and meeting rooms, quieter areas offered space for focused work, including working pods and a multifunction library. Elsewhere, breakout areas and tea stations created more informal settings where colleagues could spend time together away from their desks.

This variety allowed the workplace to respond to different working styles while creating more opportunities for people to move around the building throughout the day.

Establishing a sense of identity

The identity of the workplace was equally important.

SYPA’s new home sits within an area surrounded by greenery, while Barnsley’s wider character reflects a strong relationship between its industrial past and the surrounding landscape.

The design drew directly from this context, with influences from nature and the area’s industrial and textile heritage carried through the interior. These references helped create an environment that felt connected to its location, rather than a workplace that could have existed anywhere.

The result was a space with an identity of its own, giving SYPA a workplace that felt established and recognisable while remaining comfortable for the people using it every day.

As Gillian Taberner, Director at South Yorkshire Pensions Authority, explains:

“The move gave us an opportunity to think carefully about what we needed from our workplace, not only at the time but also as an organisation looking towards the future.

“Working with GT3 helped us understand how the space could better support our people and the different ways they wanted to work. The engagement process was particularly valuable, ensuring that the workplace was shaped around the needs of our employees while also creating a stronger sense of identity for SYPA.

“The result is a flexible and welcoming environment that feels like a home for the organisation and gives our people greater choice in how and where they work.”

A consultancy-led approach

Looking back, the project also captured an important period in the evolution of GT3’s approach to workplace consultancy.

The pandemic accelerated conversations around flexibility, but it also prompted organisations to think more carefully about why people come together in the first place. For SYPA, understanding those behaviours before developing the design helped create a workplace based on the organisation’s needs, rather than assumptions about how an office should operate.

Carys Thomas-Osborne reflects on the project from a consultancy perspective:

“SYPA was an important project for us because it demonstrated the value of understanding how people actually use a workplace before beginning to design it.

“Coming out of the pandemic, there had been a real shift in what people expected from the office. Our role was to work closely with SYPA to understand how their needs had evolved and translate them into a clear workplace strategy, considering different working styles while also looking at how the workplace could strengthen people’s connection with the organisation.

“That process gave the design team a really strong foundation to work from. Rather than creating a workplace based on assumptions, the spaces grew out of what we had learned from working with SYPA about how the organisation and its people wanted to work. That people-first approach to consultancy is something we’ve continued to develop and carry into our work today.”

This consultancy-led approach meant the workplace strategy and interior design developed together. Insights gathered during the early stages of the project directly informed the spaces that followed, creating an environment shaped around the organisation rather than asking its people to adapt to a predetermined solution.

Continuing to influence our approach

Four years on, many of the questions explored through the project remain relevant.

The role of the office continues to change, and flexibility has become an established part of working life for many organisations. What SYPA demonstrated was the importance of looking beyond the physical workplace and understanding the people who will use it before deciding what that workplace needs to become.

The project helped reinforce the relationship between Consultancy and Interiors and showed how insight gathered at the beginning of a project could influence everything that followed.

As part of our GT3 Turns 10 series, South Yorkshire Pensions Authority represents another important chapter in our story. It helped develop our understanding of workplace strategy and reinforced an approach that continues to influence our work today.

Creating workplaces that begin with understanding people.

Another chapter in the story of People Architecture.