Office relocation and strip-out over one weekend for a London AI company

An AI company in London was moving to a new office. Their old space had 45 desks, meeting rooms with screens and conferencing kit, a breakout kitchen, and the servers and IT their work depends on.

The old office had to be stripped out and left empty, the equipment they were keeping had to arrive at the new office, and everything else had to be dealt with properly. All of it had to happen over one weekend.

A move of this size over two days only works if the planning is done first. Before the weekend we prepared detailed risk assessments and method statements (RAMS) covering the strip-out, the IT and server work, the AV removal and the move itself.

We also worked to the access procedures for the new property, so loading, lift use and entry times were agreed with the building in advance and the team could get straight to work on arrival.

The work was carried out with 12 men and 6 vans working across both sites over the weekend.

Moves like this often involve separate contractors for removals, IT, AV and waste. Here we handled all of it, so the client had one point of contact and one plan, and nothing fell between two suppliers.

The servers were the most sensitive part of the move. We took them down, moved them and relocated them to the new office, alongside the rest of the IT from the desks. See how we handle server and data centre moves.

IT that was not needed was split three ways: some was reused in the client's new office, some was given to charity, and the rest we bought ourselves, which recovered value for the client. Read more about our IT asset clearances and IT asset disposal in London.

The meeting rooms had wall-mounted screens and conferencing equipment. We took these down and removed them along with the rest of the AV. As with the IT, AV that was not needed was reused in the new office, given to charity, or bought by us.

Once the equipment was out, we stripped out the office: desks, chairs, the breakout kitchen furniture and the rest of the fit-out contents. We bought the surplus furniture ourselves and will resell it, which recovered value for the client and keeps it in use. What could not be reused was taken away as waste and disposed of, and the floors were left empty.

The equipment the client was keeping went to their new office over the same weekend, with the servers relocated there too.