FABRIC at The Shard October
A day of great excitement for the iOtSpace team as it was our second #FABRICatTheShard event!
At around 5 o’clock in the afternoon some would have spotted a small group of people walking rather purposely towards the iconic tower overlooking London Bridge Station (and the whole of London to be completely accurate). These were the organisers on their way to kick of probably one off the most exciting networking events in London.
FABRIC at The Shard October
Slowed down slightly by the security access we finally were walking out of the lift doors on to level 24. Usually this space, owned by The Office Group or TOG for short, is used for meetings and working. However, thanks to a very flexible system of folding walls and furniture on wheels all this can be cleared to create a large and networking friendly environment.
The ice bucket was filled, and the beers were chilled. The sound system was checked, and we made sure the events team knew the schedule. At this point, all the organisers were all together in the one room.
We partnered with the following companies:
1. Stansons Group provide intelligent shading solutions and anything to do with natural light to help optimise the natural light within a building.
2. As usual our Portsmouth residing Glaswegian, Bill Moulsdale from Giant Leap Video was right on-time so he didn’t miss anything from the event, unlike our photographer who ignored our sound advice to avoid a certain unnamed airline and as a result missed the first hour and a half of the event…
3. Selo help architects, developers and contractors simplify interior door design and functionality by providing design-led solutions for sliding, riser and concealed-frame applications.
FABRIC is a great chance for us to meet consultants, architects, designers and construction professionals and converse with them over beer, prosecco and canapes.
Kicking off at around half past 5, evening is starting to fall over London and hundreds of thousands of lights can be seen winking in the gathering dusk. What a view! London stretches out as far as the eye can see in a rather awesome and busy panorama. Sights straight ahead include HMS Belfast, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, The Gherkin, Cheese grater, the Walkie Talkie Building and more cranes and construction scenes than you can count. Over to the left you can see St Pauls Cathedral and in the distance, to the right, you can see the cluster of tall buildings that is known as Canary Wharf, dominating the Eastern skyline.
London in all its grandeur!
As usual, the view is the topic of conversation for quite some time. Proud project managers and designers are story capping on who has had the most exciting project in the most prestigious building.
The spirit lifts even more when the man who is responsible for this whole FABRIC at The Shard idea, Guy Stanley, picks up the mic and introduces the networkers to us, Selo and our wonderful guest speaker, Georgia Elliott-Smith – who is the head of wellbeing and wellness at The Fourfront Group.
Georgia then took over and we listened to a very insightful 10-15 minutes on how simple creating human orientated and ‘well’ spaces are and the importance of having the drive from the top level in organisations to ensure that our workplaces are designed, and the culture is adjusted in order to make people the uppermost consideration in our organisations.
Two hearty applauses later the noise levels started to rise again – time to network, talk and laugh. The connections gained at FABRIC are great, especially for a new company like us as we have become better known in the industry as a result.
