Palace of Westminster
Portcullis House: Hopkins and Partners
Moses Room: Opus Magnum
Creating clean, elegant backdrops for all manner of proceedings inside the Palace of Westminster — so your only distraction is your opposition.
Our appointment
The Palace of Westminster needs no introduction. To be tasked with transforming various spaces within the Houses of Parliament — firstly, the select committee rooms in Portcullis House, and secondly, the Moses Room next to the House of Lords chamber — was to furnish rooms fit to command the confidence of the House. Challenge accepted.
Our statement of intent
To be fit for parliamentary meetings, the design needed to exude elegance and grandeur while remaining clean and timeless — an understated backdrop in which the only distraction is your opposition.
And as the place where committee proceedings must be recorded and broadcast seamlessly for all the world to see, there had to be the tech to match. How to please both parties? Recharge tradition.
The clauses
The inaugural Bill: 68 tables with a design life of 150 years plus other furniture. And so, we proceeded to examine, discuss, and amend — until we settled on the foundations of solid European oak. Timeless design to stand the test of time — check. Now, to make tradition work for today.
The logistics of recording and broadcasting committee proceedings is immensely complex — but this can’t be public knowledge. To cast the bespoke aluminium legs, we linked the central voids to a specially designed multi-pin plug in the foot which connects directly into sockets in the floor.
The Successor
The second Bill: removable furniture while all media capabilities remain intact. We were then asked to refit the magnificent Moses Room next to the House of Lords chamber followed by a further 12 committee rooms — from design and manufacture to installation.
As the hall would be used for both committee hearings and functions, our design ethos remained the same: stylish elegance that can accommodate an array of parties — in all senses of the word.
We opted for light, flip-top tables crafted from oak braced by a concealed aluminium frame. Solid but moveable.
Next, those steel floor boxes. When closed, the surface is flush: a clean-lined, elegant backdrop for all manner of proceedings. Open it, and a double pivot raises a stop locking each table swiftly into place — and the cabling seamlessly plugs in. From party to business in no time.
The Bill becomes the Law
Twenty-three years on, the four chambers — set to stand the test of time — are bearing up. Hear, hear!
