This Apparel Brand Created a Barn-Inspired Headquarters in Leicestershire

The Joules headquarters in Market Harborough, England, is one-of-a-kind. The new head office overlooking the British countryside is designed as a series of interlocking barn structures, which makes the 60,000-square-foot (5,574 square meters) building look like it evolved over time.

Which it did, because an existing building – the Compass House, an industrial unit totaling 30,000 square feet that looked like a barn – was integrated into the new plan, with an upgrade to the external envelope. The Compass House building was retained and reused, in part, to limit negative environmental impacts, but also to connect the design of the new facility to the company’s origins.

When Tom Joule, founder of the company, was first launching his brand, which focuses on producing apparel, accessories and home furnishings for adults and children, he worked out of a farmyard barn, and the barn at the new head office is a deliberate call back to those humble origins.

Prior to opening the new head office, Joules personnel operated out of five disparate and cramped rental locations. To ensure an optimal work environment in their new space, Joule and his team worked closely with Edge, a design agency and architectural practice based in London and Leeds that specializes in branding, interiors and architecture.

“We worked not only with the property side of the business, but also with their operations teams, so that we could develop a building that enhanced and echoed their working relationships,” said Mark O’Neill, managing director at Edge.

Edge connects the dots through their expertise in architecture, interiors and workplace strategy. “We are trying to create a place with a DNA, that reflects the building and how we’re going to use it,” O’Neill said about their work approach. Edge used materials and colours on the exterior of the building that correspond to the palette of materials found in farmsteads and that also echo the adjacent business park.

The Joules office complex is composed of independent yet interconnected structures: the Compass House refurbishment, the Large East Barn, the Small East Barn, the Small South Barn and the Large South Barn. Of those four buildings, only Compass House previously existed on the site.

Connecting all five structures, at the heart of the building on the ground floor, is a central atrium space, which is supported by a structural tree column.

The building layout is unique because it incorporates all of Joules’ operational processes from inspiration to product design to development. These activities are carefully situated throughout the building with welcome areas in the front, like the reception area and a meeting suite for visitors positioned near the entrance, and private workspaces located deeper in the structure.

The ground floor also houses the “mock-shop”, where products that are ready for sale are stored and displayed, the local café, Servery, and focus booths, among other elements. The first floor features creative studios and the open-plan design studio, while the second floor holds the human resources, finance, management and legal departments.

“It definitely doesn’t feel like an office, it feels more like a university campus,” O’Neill said. “And if you think about the philosophy for the head office of Joules, it was about bringing thoughts and ideas together, rather than separating them.”

With so many open plan areas, there was an emphasis on acoustic design, especially in open spaces. Acoustic regulation was accomplished by using furniture and screening.

“The nature of the open plan means that you can actually meet people so that sense of visual and physical connection is reinforced,” said Anna Motture, associate director at Edge. “You think that it would be all echoey, but it’s all buffered with the acoustics, it’s very clever.”

Even though the offices were being conceived prior to the pandemic, Joules always intended to take a hybrid approach to their work environment. With a requirement for three in-office days per week, they were able to reduce their number of workstations from 435 to 300. “We designed it in such a flexible way to be able to be used as a hybrid work environment,” Motture said. “It was like we predicted the future that we didn’t actually know in terms of the speed at which flexible, hybrid work was going to take over.”

During the pandemic, the density in the open plan areas changed, and about 20 to 30 offices were moved. Now, every employee has a personal space of 213 square feet (19.8 square meters). The workplace was designed in a “plug-in and go” approach, according to information provided by Edge.

Flexibility was a key criterion in the design of the building, as it was part of Joules’ five-year plan. “Work environments need the flexibility for headcount, and the reduced attendance means that it’s got about 10 to 20 years of expansion in it,” O’Neill said. The building was built with growth in mind. Joules predicted growth from 435 employees in mid-2019 to 527 by 2024.

Located on the last available parcel of land in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, the building is surrounded by open fields. Being in Market Harborough, a city with a population of just over 25,000, was a must for brand founder Tom Joule, since it is where he originally launched and developed his business.

Joules is a true community-based employer in the city, with 80% of its employees commuting just 15 minutes or less on average. “As the Joules company grew, it employed more and more local people in Market Harborough,” O’Neill said. “This has all been at the heart of what Tom Joule had as a philosophy for business.”

Connection to the outdoor environment was also an important factor in the design process. Edge was tasked with developing the landscape surrounding the building. Joules staff is encouraged to use outside areas and to walk or cycle to work, with a bike parking on site and shower rooms. “The site is deceptively large and there’s a meadow that we created,” O’Neill said. “People can actually run around the site if they want to and take a break.”

Open views of the surrounding countryside were highlighted by large glazed gables and full height windows looking over the extended campus. A bug hotel, a structure providing shelter or winter hibernation habitat for crawling or flying insects, was also added to reflect a philosophy of countryside, environment and sustainability, according to Edge.

“We’ve got probably the largest bug hotel attached to the façade of a building in the UK,” O’Neill said. “Joules wanted, over time, for it to have an interaction with the local community and bring small children to see it.”

Although the Joules headquarters’ costs weren’t disclosed, O’Neill said that the cost per square foot is very competitive given the geographic location. “They’ve got a high cost of value for a relatively low cost of delivery,” he said.

The finished building has been lauded by both the industry and the client. “I can’t believe it’s so faithful to the concept. It’s taken Joules back to our roots and given us a platform for the future,” said Tom Joule about the new headquarters.

The design of the property has also been recognized by the architectural community. The building won a British Council for Offices’ (BCO) Regional Awards for best Corporate Workplace and is currently shortlisted for the 2023 RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) East Midlands Awards.