Office pod or build the room?

What building a room actually involves

The quote you get from a contractor covers the build. The project covers rather more than that: a design, landlord consent, any statutory approval, a contractor booked into your building's access rules, partitioning, a door, glazing, electrical work, lighting, and almost always ventilation, because an enclosed room carved out of an open floor will not have its own air supply unless someone pays to extend the system.

Then there is the part nobody quotes: your floor is a building site for a while. People move desks, work around noise and dust, and the room arrives weeks after the problem that prompted it.

The consent and the lease are where the cost hides

New interior partitioning can require building consent depending on the scope and what it affects, particularly where it touches fire separation, egress or services. Your lease will also usually require the landlord's consent to alterations and reinstatement at the end of the term.

That combination means a built room is a project with a consent timeline attached, and a cost at the far end to take it out again. Worth checking both your lease and the consent position before you price a fit-out.

A FocusPod is freestanding and not fixed to the structure or the slab. Nothing to consent, nothing to reinstate, and it moves with you when the lease ends.

Time, which is usually the deciding factor

A pod is made to your approved configuration in around four weeks, delivered, and assembled in a morning by two people. Nobody moves desk, nothing is drilled, and the floor works the same day.

A built room, counted honestly from the decision to the first meeting held in it, is normally months rather than weeks once design, consent, contractor availability and building access rules are in it. If you have a date to hit, that gap is usually the whole argument.

Where building the room is genuinely the better answer

There are real cases, and we would rather name them than pretend otherwise.

You own the building. No consent, no reinstatement, no lease to leave. A built room is a permanent improvement to an asset you keep, and the calculation changes entirely.

You need a large room. Our biggest model seats six. If you need to seat twelve, a pod is not the answer and no amount of argument changes that.

You need acoustic isolation beyond speech privacy. A pod makes conversation unintelligible outside it, which covers confidentiality. If you need a properly isolated room for recording, testing, or clinical use, that is construction, and it is a different specification.

The space must be permanent and serviced. If the room needs plumbing, specialist power, or to be part of the building's fire and ventilation strategy, build it.

If none of those describe you, the rest of this page applies.

Put your own numbers in

We will not publish an invented figure for what a contractor would charge you, because build costs vary too much by city, building and scope for that to be honest. Enter your own quote in the calculator below and it will show you the difference against a real pod project total.

Prices are for the pod in the configuration you choose. Finishes, furniture and compatible extras are listed separately as you build. Delivery, destination costs and any applicable tax are confirmed on your order summary, so the total you approve is the total you pay.

What is included as standard

Every FocusPod arrives with laminated glass front and rear, layered acoustic insulation, adjustable ventilation, dimmable LED lighting with adjustable colour temperature, power and an occupancy light. Speech level reduction is laboratory tested at 30.5–30.8 dB under ISO 23351-1, the international standard written specifically for pods. Every pod is covered by our five-year structural and electrical warranty.

There is no separate charge for the black or white exterior or for the standard interior palette. Other exterior colours use the displayed upgrade price, and a custom interior colour is priced per pod. All of it is listed separately as you build, so nothing arrives as a surprise on your order.

See it properly before you decide

Take a look inside. The film below walks through the Solo, the most compact model in the range, and the 3D configurator lets you turn any model around, change the finishes and try the furniture layouts. If you would rather be walked through it, we will do a live video walkthrough of the pod you are considering and answer questions as we go.

Common questions

Start with the room you actually need

Measure the space, count the people, and decide whether it is calls, focused work or meetings. Then build the configuration and compare it against whatever your contractor has quoted.