A Design Practice Gets IT-Ready for What’s Next

This London-based architectural practice has long been admired for its thoughtful design and collaborative approach. Known for shaping public and commercial spaces that blend creativity with functionality, the studio is home to over 100 employees who rely on digital workflows, cloud collaboration, and real-time communication to deliver projects at scale.

As the team prepared to modernise their systems and future proof their operations, they knew their IT setup would need to evolve: but first, they had to understand what was already in place.

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Industry: Architecture and Design

Organisation Size: 100+ staff

Service Areas: Professional Services, Infrastructure Audit, Compliance

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While the firm had plenty of design vision, their IT setup told a different story. No one had a full picture of the infrastructure: hardware lifecycles were undocumented, patching routines varied between teams, and backup policies lacked consistency.

Leadership suspected that parts of the system were ageing out of support or misconfigured, but without visibility, it was impossible to know where the risks lay, or how serious they were. They couldn’t confidently plan for upgrades, prove compliance, or benchmark their environment against best practices.

Before making any big moves, they needed a clear, unbiased assessment of where things stood.

To cut through the uncertainty, the firm opted for a full Infrastructure Minimum Requirements Audit: a structured, end-to-end review of their entire IT estate.

Rather than relying on assumptions, this audit evaluated over 150 key data points, providing a practical roadmap for both risk mitigation and future planning.

Areas of focus included:

• Hardware lifecycle and performance: Identifying systems approaching end-of-life or running out-of-date specs.
• Patch and update posture: Analysing OS and software update levels across all devices.
• Network and firewall configuration: Ensuring connectivity and perimeter security were aligned with current standards.
• Backup and security policies: Reviewing how critical data was being protected (or not).
• Compliance readiness: Benchmarking against best practices to flag any gaps before they became problems.

Crucially, the findings were delivered in a clear, prioritised report with actionable recommendations and risk scores mapped to business impact.

The infrastructure audit gave the leadership team exactly what they’d been missing: clarity. Instead of vague concerns or reactive fixes, they now had a clear, prioritised roadmap that outlined what needed attention, when, and why.

A number of outdated systems were flagged and scheduled for phased upgrades, while patching gaps and security risks were addressed quickly with minimal disruption. Budget planning became far more strategic: leaders could now make decisions based on actual need, not guesswork or vendor pressure.

Perhaps most importantly, the business finally had a baseline: a clear understanding of its current position, risks, and readiness for growth. From future cloud migrations to upcoming compliance audits, they were no longer starting from a place of uncertainty. They were in control.