The UK’s financial heart land is built on the site of the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs. At the start of the last century the area was one of the busiest shipping ports in the world. The docks were eventually closed in the early 1980s as the shipping industry in East London declined. Construction of the first office buildings on the site started in 1988 and were completed in 1991.

Canary Wharf is home to three of the tallest sky scrapers in the UK; One Canada Square, the Citigroup Centre, and Twenty-Five Canada Square.

Photo by David Iliff from Wikipedia.

Today, this voluminous office space inhabited by major banks, law firms and tabloid newspapers. Over 100,000 people work at Canary Wharf (imagine the queues for the vending machines!) Thankfully all these people are accommodated by a shopping centre and various bars and restaurants.

As well has hosting some of the countries most recognisable work places, Canary Wharf is also home to a large group of residential buildings which contain very expensive and glamorous flats and pent houses. Most of these residential developments are filled with high earning bankers and top media executives.

Photo by David Iliff, from Wikipedia.

Due to the huge numbers of people that need to travel to the area each day, Canary Wharf has excellent transport links with the rest of London via the Docklands Light Railway. A new tube station is also underway, which is expected to be completed in 2017.

Canary Wharf also has an air link provided by City Airport. The one run way airport is primarily used by business people who work for the major financial institutions. It’s safe to say that many bankers would have been very grateful to City Airport in the last 18 months for allowing them to make quick getaways!

We were slightly biased in our choice for office of the month this April as we actually have meeting rooms available in the Canary Wharf area!

If you are interested in working among some of the most stunning and inspirational offices situated in the UK, or the world for that matter; have a look at our serviced office solutions.

At the Serviced Office Company HQ in London, the weather has finally started to warm up as it seems summer has finally accepted the seasonal baton from spring. That’s the good news; the bad news however, is many of you will have to tolerate working in stuffy offices, without air conditioning; compounded by the rising temperatures and pollen count.

Sadly, many readers of our blog aren’t fortunate enough to work in offices with air conditioning. So for all you stressed out and sweaty people, we have put together these five handy tips for staying cool at work during the warmer months ahead.

1. Close the blinds

Keeping the blinds in your office closed during the hottest parts of the day will help you stay cool. Using aluminised blinds will help reflect the heat of the sun; however, covering your blinds in tin foil will also help reflect the sun light; keeping you and your colleagues cooler.

2. Wear light clothes

Try to wear light, loose fitting clothes. Turning up to an important meeting wearing a thick, dark, heavy suit dripping in sweat will not help you make a good first impression. Wearing light clothes made from natural fibbers, such as cotton and linen, will keep you cool. Avoid wearing clothes made from nylon as they have the opposite effect. If you have to take trips out of the office, try to take only the bare essentials with you; running around carrying a heavy brief case will not help.

3. Turn off unused equipment

Turning off any unused electrical equipment will lower the temperature in your office. Leaving fax machines, computers and printers turned on when they are not being used will only make the office hotter as they all produce large amounts of excess heat. Turning off unused equipment will also reduce your electricity bills. If it’s possible, you should change any non-energy efficient light bulbs to energy saving bulbs. A traditional light bulb’s energy output is 10% light and 90% heat, whereas energy saving bulbs produce 90% light and only 10% heat.

4. Change your hours

Rearranging your work schedule by starting earlier and finishing earlier will mean you can be out of the office during some of the hotter parts of the day. Of course not everyone is able to do this, but if your employer is flexible it will make you more productive and less stressed.

5. Use fans

If you aren’t lucky enough to have air conditioning, try to make use of other cooling ‘technologies’ such as fans. Electric fans are fairly inexpensive and can be purchased from most electrical retailers. If you feel like being a bit different, why not try a USB powered fan. These little fans can also be used outside the office; on a sweaty commuter train for example; but don’t say we didn’t warn you if you suddenly find half a carriage of stressed out commuters crowding around your fan attempting to get one tiny gust of cool air!

Our serviced offices and meeting rooms are all fitted with air conditioning ensuring everyone working there stays cool and relaxed during the hot summer months.

This month we have updated the converted prize for a special surprise nomination: the largest lift in the world!

We were amazed to see that Mitsubishi have installed five massive elevators in the 41 story Umeda Hankyu Building in Osaka, Japan. The huge lifts can carry up to 80 passengers or 11,574lbs. The dimensions of the lift are massive: 3.4m wide, 2.8m long and 2.6m tall!

Image credit.

The lifts have been designed to take people from the shopping floors at the bottom of the Umeda Hankyu building, to the offices on the higher floors. To keep the passengers entertained, windows have been installed providing one of the best views of the city.

Sadly the lifts at our serviced offices aren’t quite as big as Mitsubishi’s, but we do provide our clients with air conditioning, modern furniture, as well as future proof IT and telecoms systems.

1) The Street Mouse
Whether you’re the boy or girl racer in the office, the Street Mouse means you can speed around your mouse mat as you surf the internet. This flashy desktop accessory comes with alloy wheels and LED headlights, as well as a variety of exterior colours. Who said using your work computer wasn’t fun?

2) Bendi Board pink computer keyboard
Bring some life to your desktop with an ultra cool, flexible, silicon keyboard. Not only will you look great using one, but its versatility means it’s coffee and tea-proof and can be easily rolled up and carried in your bag. There is a white option too.

3) Finger Print Lock
The fingerprint lock is the ultimate security gadget entry system for the budding James Bond! Great for the home too, you’ll never worry about being locked out again or the busy office with staff working all hours. Configured to hold up to 25 different finger prints in its memory.

4) Stationary Kit
This ingenious little stationary kit would please a CEO or student due to its pragmatic simplicity. Whether you work at home or in the office, you know that this kit will keep your administrative life in order!

5) Autobin
None of us particularly enjoy emptying a smelly that is riddled with germs and your colleagues left over curry remnants! The beautifully engineered AutoBin, with its non touch opening lid, is the ideal way to maintain hygiene in the office.

All of our serviced offices are unbranded space, a blank canvas if you like, which means that your business can really make our managed offices your own – especially with our cool Christmas office gift ideas. A big Merry Christmas from the Serviced Office Company team!

For more cool office stocking filler ideas visit www.urbanjunkie.co.uk

As well as walls painted like skies and a gorgeous open-plan cafeteria, the Pixar offices are nothing short of inspirational. With cool pumpkin fairy lights giving the shed-cubicals a Disney feel of their own, it’s no wonder this creative company comes up with such fun ideas.

According to Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the guys responsible for this masterpiece, the building was retained by Pixar’s CEO, Steve Jobs, to design a new headquarters campus for 600 employees on a fifteen acre site in Emeryville, California. The facility is master planned to house more than 1,000 employees in the future.

As well as slides and a beautiful roof terrace, employers of Red Bull get to cruise around a fantastically modern office space and play table tennis at lunch! To inspire the creativity needed to work for the brand, and to possibly burn off all that extra energy they have from sampling the energy drink, this office is more like a playground than a place to work.

How do you get to your meetings? According to the adverts, Red Bull gives you wings – and the employees of Red Bull certainly do fly into their meetings – on slides!

Here at Serviced Office Company, we offer a home away from home type experience where comfort and inspiration is paramount to our clients, but we thought that the Red Bull offices deserved a mention in our office of the month for going above and beyond creating an exciting and energetic work space!

Staff area: table tennis anyone?

Chow China have released this little office gem.

I know what our new office gadget is going to be! Say goodbye to cold coffee and tea.

“In my previous life as an Account Director for a marketing agency, we frequently had freelancers in a variety of roles, but the one aspect that never changed was whenever a freelancer was due in, they were invariably allocated the worst chair in the entire office.

No matter how bad the chair is, it is always worth having a bit of a play around to see if there are any adjustments that you can alter to improve your sitting position to promote good posture.

Here is Posture People’s quick run down of how to improve your office chair:

1. To be at the right height for sitting at the desk, your arms need to be at a comfortable right angle – so, see if you can alter the office chair to get to the right height.
2. When your arms are at the right height, your feet also need to be on the floor or a footrest
3. When you are sitting on the office chair always sit at the very back of the chair, supported by the backrest (unless it’s broken – then it’s worth having a bit of a moan).

Here’s a few if’s and but’s:

• If you find that the office chair doesn’t come up high enough it’s worth looking at a cushion to sit on or invest in a sitting wedge (an angled cushion that will help promote a better sitting posture).

• If when you are sitting at the right height your feet aren’t firmly on the floor, then you need a footrest, if they don’t have one in the office grab a couple of telephone directories and ‘blue peter’ yourself one.
• You always need to be able to get three flat fingers between the back of your knees and the start of the seat.  If the chair comes right up to your knees, you need to put a cushion on the back of the chair or get a separate back support cushion that you can put on the chair.”

Of course at Serviced Office Company we ensure that all our chairs are comfortable and good for your posture because as a freelancer, if you can’t work because you’ve backache then it will cost you money. However, if you suffer from back pains it may even be worth investing in a portable kit that you can take around with you -   more advice can be found on http://www.posturepeople.co.uk/ .

We found Askul, who make sleek designs that are simple and stylish. They produce everything from clocks to USB sticks and they promise: ‘To deliver every order, from a pencil to a desk, the very next day.’ Naturally, this has made them one of Japan’s fastest growing companies.

Not only are these objects practical necessities in the work place, but they are beautifully designed and add real personality to any work space.

They are extremely functional, high quality as well as affordable. The cups are brilliantly simplistic and the USB sticks are colorful and cool!

There loads of ways to spice up your working like but Askul is definitely in our top ten!