Enigma Square Amenity Spaces
Interior design practice 74 has designed the amenity spaces for Grainger plc’s Enigma Square in Milton Keynes, which incorporates various features such as a reception area, a resident’s TV lounge, an on-site gym and outdoor space, and is designed to address common misconceptions.
Interior design practice 74 has harmonised three different inspirational strands in its designs for the new amenity spaces at Grainger plc’s Enigma Square in Milton Keynes. Enigma Square is a new, £63m, BTR residential scheme from Grainger, the UK’s largest listed residential landlord, and encompasses 261 purpose-designed rental homes in a central Milton Keynes development on a site that once housed a YMCA.
As part of the practice’s thorough background research at the outset, 74’s site analysis noted a number of common misconceptions about Milton Keynes, often perceived as a concrete jungle, dominated by buildings and roads and lacking in green space.
The amenity design incorporates a 1,680 sq ft ground floor reception and concierge area, plus back-of-house management and team facilities and post and parcel boxes for residents and waiting/seating areas. A full array of amenities is located on the 4,070 sq ft first floor mezzanine level, including a residents’ TV lounge, a social games lounge, an on-site 24-hour gym – including cardio, weights and a fitness studio – a private dining room, which can also serve as a meeting room, and a co-working space with integrated meeting booths and toilet facilities. The co-working space offers residents superfast free broadband and wireless charging points. The development also features 6,000 sq ft of outdoor space, including a courtyard and terrace, for which 74 created the external amenity design.
The development’s name references nearby Bletchley Park, the English country house and estate that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. Here, British codebreakers, including Alan Turing, broke the German Enigma messaging code in January 1940, a feat the Germans believed impossible, given its secret coding system offered 103 sextillion possible settings. Enigma intelligence and messaging traffic continued to be broken routinely at Bletchley Park for the remainder of the war, giving the Allies a firm advantage in wartime intelligence.
Design: 74
Identity Design: Philosophy
Basebuild Contractor: Bowmer and Kirkland
Amenity Fit-out Contractor: Gariff Construction
Photography: Gunner Gu
