Original subtitles

PHONE RINGS

Interior Design Masters Headquarters, Alan speaking.

It's offices this week.

Ten aspiring designers are putting their lives on hold

in search of a dream...

Yes, I am talented and it's a great opportunity for me

to showcase my talent.

..to break into the competitive world

of professional interior design.

You only live once and what I absolutely love is being creative.

With interiors guru Michelle Ogundehin at the helm...

Everyone with a passion for design

thinks they can be an interior designer,

but I'm looking for someone who has authentic talent

and sees this as a real opportunity to learn.

..they'll need to impress some of the biggest names in the industry.

Hello, '80s. I've missed you!

This feels like an idea that should have been instantly put aside.

I am scraping the barrel for criticism

because I do love this room.

This is what we're looking for - fearless decorating.

Each week, the designers will be challenged to transform

a commercial space...

Open the door, I'm coming in.

RINGS BELL

I thought you were going to squidge my head then.

..to test their creative flair...

That looks gorgeous now.

..and state-of-the-art design skills.

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Whoa!

CLATTERING

Sometimes when you're trying to do too much at once, accidents happen.

I think you've sabotaged me! You've ruined that beautiful carpet.

It's harder than it looks!

They'll be pushed to their limits...

I think the only thing holding me back is probably myself.

..as they compete to win a major career-defining contract

with a luxury hotel in the Lakes.

That would definitely be my absolute dream.

Welcome to Interior Design Masters.

It's week two.

The designers are starting to arrive at Michelle's studio.

I'm really excited. I just want to get going.

Because I was in the bottom two teams last week,

I don't want to be there again.

Cannot be on that couch again. I just can't do it.

After a challenging start transforming show homes,

the nine remaining designers have another chance

to show what they're made of.

Hello, everyone. Hello! Hi!

Oh, and the relief!

LAUGHTER

How you all feeling? Good.

Did you think it was going to be this intense? No. Not at all. No.

Cos the standard was really high. Did you agree?

Yeah. Intimidatingly so.

Hello, Michelle. Hello, everyone.

Onwards and upwards then. Challenge two -

you're going to be designing offices, but this time,

you're going to be working in teams of three

and each space must have three clear zones.

There's a meeting zone, a work space and a more relaxed area.

You'll have one zone each and be judged

on your individual designs.

But as always, I'll be looking at how you work as a team.

The strongest team will be safe,

but the rest of you will have Michelle to answer to

and one of you will be going home.

Go for it, then. I cannot wait to see what you do.

Good luck.

ALL: Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Situated in west London, the open-plan, mid-century offices

are a blank canvas. The designers will need to come up

with innovative ways to divide the space into three zones.

So, Michelle, not one room, not two rooms, three rooms in an office.

How difficult is that?

Super difficult, because we're asking three people to kind

of show us what they can do individually.

But actually, you've got to make it look like one office.

How will they divide up one big, open-plan space?

I mean, there's so many different ways you could approach it.

Do you make it, literally, a wall?

Yeah. Do you make it book shelves?

Do you make it something you interact with?

It's all going to be about how they divide up that space.

And to add to all that, these offices are going to be used

by three different companies.

Exactly. One team is designing for a beauty brand,

one for a tech company, one for a media company,

so the office itself and its contemporary nature will dictate

a certain amount of the design,

but the rest of it is about building a brand around the company

that they're supposed to be designing for.

Show me that you really thought about, how do I make a contemporary

office space for the 21st century?

Ooh, God, the pressure's on, isn't it?

With each designer having had access to the brief in advance,

first to share their ideas, Team Media.

So that's the floor plan.

Yeah. I want to split the space by creating a white curtain

right the way across here.

So the idea was to separate it

because that's such a big space. If you just put one table in it,

you can only have one meeting. OK.

If we were to separate it,

you've got a multifunctional space.

The danger is it's not a huge office,

and if we introduce too many partitions, it might end up feeling

a little bit... Broke up. ..rabbit warren-y. Yeah.

OK. Do you want something completely different? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Eek!

So I want it to be playful and I wanted

to do something that elevated the space.

So I'm really excited about the idea of doing some tiered seating.

I think my style is bold, it's playful,

I like there to be an element of fun in every room that I create.

My main motivation for taking part in this process was my children.

I felt it was really important to do something to make them proud

and to inspire them to push themselves

out of their comfort zone.

For me, it's really important not to follow trends.

I will always make my decisions based on my heart.

And I'd really like a couple of swings either side

of the sofa seating area. Yeah.

I work in an office, so I know what an office needs.

Sometimes people put in fun things to do,

and whilst it's nice on paper, it doesn't necessarily work.

I was going quite industrial.

I do like the idea of using wood and natural materials.

If your tiered sitting was in a plywood, you know, materials can

tie things together really well. Absolutely.

If you have the bright yellow, it's a media PR company

and it's bringing energy to the work space. Yeah.

Next door, transforming the tech office,

Barbara, Paul and Siobhan.

What I've done is I've mocked up

our office space in a 3D model,

so it might be a bit helpful for us to just look at the space together

and then get a better idea of how it could be mapped out.

I got a degree in architecture and I think the thing that needs

to work in a room is the layout.

Any time that I'm working on a project, I'll always just use

one of my 3D modelling computer programmes so that you can get

a really good idea of the space and be able to see

what it's like to move around a room.

I love to hear other people's ideas, but if I have an idea that I think

is right, I would definitely fight my corner for it.

I think one thing we need to establish is how would

a tech company function?

I don't think we should do anything too soft or subtle here.

What I didn't want is basically just a load of desks.

I wanted these pods.

So if you wanted to take a call privately, you could do that.

If you're a client, you're entering directly into a work space.

I think there could be an opportunity to create

some sort of mini reception area.

We've got to think about the partitions. I 100% agree that

there's no walls there,

so it's up to us to decide.

Yeah. And in the meeting space,

I really like when you walk into the room,

you spot the wallpaper.

I want it to fit in with the mid-century vibe.

It's in a mid-century building, so maybe bringing the mid-century in

with the colour palette. Pops of colour. Yeah.

To be honest, I think this is going to be a challenge.

I've never personally worked with anyone before,

like, I've always just worked by myself.

Our designs are kind of working together, but there is literally

so much to think about with this scheme.

The final team's office will be for a sustainable beauty brand.

So mine is taking

more of a gender neutral approach to beauty

and drawing more on the sustainable elements,

so using a lot of natural features of wood, quite soft materials.

Obviously, we thought that beauty needed to be softer,

with kind of an alpine spa kind of feel.

The main feature is going to be the desks

and the configuration.

Because of sustainability, I want to use some of those materials,

something like reclaimed boards and make them into a big, long table.

A bit like this,

but then I wanted to paint some sort of like botanical mural.

Cool.

So I kind of wanted to use paint effects on the wall, create

like a little pod for more intimate, simple meetings.

Then I also wanted to use open shelving as partitions

between the spaces, so you can kind of see through them,

but... Between our spaces? ..between all the spaces,

yeah. Right, OK. And also, the co-working table,

I was thinking you could also use it as a ping-pong table,

so if you really want to have fun.

The only thing that I'm a little bit worried about is noise.

We can't have noise coming through if they're playing table tennis.

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Sound can travel quite quickly in offices

and when you're playing ping pong in the breakout area,

and you're having a meeting with an external client,

you don't really want to be able to hear that.

It's really exciting to do an office, but it's a little bit

of a challenge because I've never, I've never even worked

in an office before. When you work for the NHS,

you don't actually get a dedicated working space,

so this is going to be an interesting challenge.

Oh, it looks amazing! It looks so nice.

West London.

Awaiting the teams inside a 13-storey office block...

Huge! Is this us here, yeah? Yeah!

..three open-plan offices.

Ooh!

Nice.

It does feel smaller, doesn't it? It does.

It's just narrow that way.

In just two days and with a budget of £1,500 each...

GIGGLING

Girls, hurry up.

..the teams must turn these conventional offices

into three individual yet cohesive work spaces.

Hi. We've got company. Hiya.

And to help turn their concepts into reality,

the designers have been given two decorators

and two builders per team.

Look at that for a tool kit. Wow.

So we've got a really quite ambitious scheme.

Kicking things off for Team Media, Amy.

We're building Wembley Stadium about here.

OK. My intention is to build a small stadium in this space.

Having seen it on paper and thought I knew exactly what it looked like,

turns out I wasn't that right after all.

Everything just seems bigger or smaller or higher

or shorter than I thought it was.

So, I mean, that aside, it's great. I can't wait.

So we do have some plans.

Barbara's going to have a chat with you guys in a bit of detail

about the 3D model.

Over in Team Tech, time to explain their complex vision.

There's basically five partitions

that we're going to be having built.

We've got one, two and then the third divider's a diagonal divider,

which is going to cut from the edge of this window here

to this column.

Team Tech's ambitious wooden dividers will be multi-functional

and distinguish each area.

Paul's meeting zone will incorporate whiteboard partitions.

Siobhan's work zone will be split in two by diagonal, open shelving.

And Barbara's single divider in her breakout zone will provide seating.

And we're building the two whiteboard dividers on top

of these units over here and here.

But no standing about today, right?

LAUGHTER

Crack that whip.

Last week, I got criticised for being ambitious and putting a lot

into the design, but I definitely like pushing myself.

If you ask my husband, he would say that I am a control freak.

It's not the light one. It's the mid one.

But I like to keep things as controlled as possible.

I think that's the only way that you can make

a big project like this work.

I'm basically taking responsibility for all the dividers

in the space and all the paintwork is in the right spots as well.

Team Tech's colour palette and artistic shapes are centred

around Paul's bold choice of geometric wallpaper.

Obviously, it's a brave choice to have such a bold pattern

with so many shades going through it,

but I think because we have so many blocks of plain colours,

it needs a bit of depth

and I think that's what that wall's going to do.

For the paper, when you see just a sample... Yeah.

..you can't tell, can you?

Until it's really like, kind of, up on the wall.

Unless you're a wallpaper king like me.

Yeah, unless you're a wallpaper king, yeah.

For cohesion, Barbara and Siobhan

paint their dividers in keeping with Paul's wallpaper scheme.

My choice of paper has influenced the rest of the room.

There's a lot of risk on me because if Michelle doesn't like this,

it could be all down to me.

Each of Team Tech's partitions need to be built from scratch.

How are you feeling about it so far?

It's starting to take a bit of shape.

I am worried about the workload.

Yes. Yeah, I am. There's an awful lot of carpentry to do,

which has then got to be painted and that's the problem.

And this stuff is horrible to paint.

You know, at the end of the day, it might be worth a chat

about prioritising things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.

I knew there was a lot to be done.

He's not sure whether we'll be able to get all of these dividers built,

that's the main worry at the moment

and these, each of the individual dividers are really important

because they create specific spaces that function in different ways.

So I'm trying to plan what we could lose.

I don't actually know what the answer is yet.

It goes from the floor all the way up to the ceiling and around.

Over in Team Beauty,

in her meeting room, surface pattern designer Charlotte

is painting her statement piece, a bespoke mural.

We had a sustainable beauty brand, so I looked at images of botanicals

that are used in skin care and beauty, and I've kind of used

some of those shapes to make an abstract design whilst mixing it

with my own design style as well.

My feedback from Michelle was to think more 3D than 2D,

so I've tried to do that by zoning the space

and going up onto the ceiling.

Charlotte's skin tone colour palette will be reflected throughout

the entire office.

Team Beauty will divide their three working zones

using curtain partitions and fabric screens to create a soft

and relaxed feel.

Over in the breakout zone,

Peter is mindful of their target audience.

We wanted it to have this very soft but very gender-fluid

and very gender-neutral space, so it doesn't alienate anyone.

And that's why we've gone for lots of skin tone colours,

because that's kind of the diversity element that we wanted to bring

into our beauty brand.

I was born in Malta.

I'd been working as a doctor in the UK, but I gave that up

a year ago because I really wanted to follow my passion,

which is interior design.

I can deal with pressure quite well,

because I used to deal with life and death on a daily basis.

Failure is a really big thing.

I've never failed an exam, so having a scheme

which is unsuccessful, it does scare me because it's not something

that I know how to deal with very well.

So, could you attach these to the wall?

Down in her work zone,

Micaela's vision to include soft textures is under way.

Some of the other guys have a lot more experience in interior design

than I do, so...

Last week was the first room I've ever done

that wasn't in my own house.

Michelle told me to think about the bigger picture,

so I really want to make sure that she knows I've thought more,

away from the upholstery and about the walls

and all of the different things that are going on,

so I've got something to prove this week.

Before I started my upholstery business, I actually used to work

in travel. I travelled around Europe, looking at boutique hotels.

That really got me into the world of interiors and design.

Normally, I focus just on a few pieces in the room -

the chairs, the headboards -

so I'm really excited to put my stamp on the whole room.

Ample seating is required for the work zone, so Micaela

is incorporating a window bench.

I think the biggest risk I've taken in the work space

is actually getting rid of a lot of the desks,

so I needed to add back in usable seating

and I think the window bench is a much more team-friendly environment.

It's mid-morning on day one, and in Amy, Jon and Lynsey's Media Office,

they're going big and bold.

I really wanted to go as high as the ceiling height would allow

and the idea is just to create a bit of elevated drama, I guess,

and really break up the space.

But also, it has the added advantage of giving Jon's meeting room

a really good, private partition wall.

I've never done this before, which is part of the reason

for doing it, because I wanted to push myself.

Amy's tiered seating installation and Lynsey's dual-purpose shelving

will act as the dividers between all their spaces.

For cohesion, plywood will be used to make furniture as well

as wall art and coloured shapes will appear from the break out

into the meeting area.

I'm just nervous.

It's embarrassing if I get it really, really wrong.

The pressure is on.

There's a lot to do.

If I pull it off, it's going to look insane.

If I don't, I don't and I'll be going home.

# I'm making a stadium. #

What are we doing on top of it again? I forgot.

Dancing? Dancing.

LAUGHTER

In the meeting zone,

Jon's statement colour is up.

This colour is bold

and the good thing is that the brief asked for bold and sophisticated.

So, yeah, bold and sophisticated is the way.

Jon's use of colour will be reflected throughout his furniture.

This is my ceiling panel that goes above my conference table.

I wanted to try and bring some colour into the concrete.

The four in the middle are yellow, and then the rest of it is black.

This is a bumblebee I'm painting here, ain't it?

A sophisticated bumblebee. No!

HE LAUGHS

In the last challenge, I was really inspired by how much people

were making and thought, "Right, I'm going to challenge myself."

I've never made any item of furniture before in my life.

So I'm making the conference table from scratch,

making the ceiling panel from scratch,

I'm making some cube seating from scratch,

I'm upholstering chairs, which I've never done before,

and I'm upholstering the cubes that I'm making.

Across in the work zone, architect Lynsey is measuring and cutting

individual pieces of plywood to form her 3D feature wall.

It's a functional space, so you can't throw fabrics in there,

you can't have cushions all over the place.

I didn't want to just paint a wall blank,

so I'm using angular shapes that Amy's going to pick up

in her painting on the wall and Jon's picked up in some

of the fabrics he's using.

Basically, we've got the four boards in here

that are the green and the pink,

and what we need is two more boards over in this direction

that are just pink. This other one's also going to be pink and green.

Over in Team Tech,

Barbara's in control.

Siobhan. They all need to be flipped.

Sage on the other side, yep. Exactly. I can do that.

Barbara is on it.

Right, this is just fully pink. Get pink on that, yeah, yeah, yeah.

She has kind of like given herself that leadership role, which I'm fine

about, you know, because I'm just like, we need to just, you know,

do what we need to do. I'm happy painting all day

if that's, you know, if that's what it takes.

We've been really ambitious. There's five or six dividers in the room

in total. We don't want to not have one, so I think it's important that

we get as much prep work as we can.

Oh, my God, I could watch you doing that all day,

but I won't, I'll crack on with what I'm doing. Please don't. Carry on.

Why don't I just hold it and you can do the loop?

But Barbara also needs to focus on her own space.

She's mirroring shapes from Paul's wallpaper.

To get the arches drawn,

we're using a technique of string, pencil.

Perfect. Just stop.

We tie the centre spot and then hold that in place

and we basically can draw the arch,

like this. It's quite a kind of simple, easy way of doing it.

Yeah.

The thing about this design is I know all the measurements

inside out and that is why I've taken on this sort

of overarching role today.

It's nerve-racking, but it's just rewarding.

I've never done anything like this before, so I just wanted

to try and throw as much at it as possible.

Where the hell am I?

Where did she say?

It's halfway through the first day.

Open the door, I'm coming in.

Time to see how the designers are getting on.

You OK?

All done. Phew!

Well done, mate.

So good. Woohoo!

First up, Team Media and Jon's meeting room.

Hello, Jon. Hello, you.

Another day, another pair of skimpy shorts, I see.

Lovely! Get a bit of ventilation up there. That's the one.

So tell us about the colour, because it's very satsuma-y

for a meeting room.

HE GASPS

Have I said something wrong?

I feel offended.

I like satsumas.

Yes, satsumas are good for you. If you're in a meeting for two, three

hours, there's nothing worse than looking at a plain,

blank, boring wall.

But I'm really pleased that we've actually gone with that colour.

Kind of the same colour as my Post-it notes bizarrely.

And also Paul. Yes. Yes, absolutely.

He's actually in the room. You just can't see him.

He's... He's in the corner.

ALAN GIGGLES

You can come out now, Paul. I'm... I'm joking.

We can all have a laugh in the workplace.

No, I get it. It's bright, it's good... I like it.

Yeah. OK, I'll leave you to it, Jon. Thank you. Thank you.

The trouble with the colour orange, it's very divisive.

When some people think of orange, they think zesty and fresh.

But to other people, they think budget airlines and fake tan.

Team Beauty, aspiring to create a tranquil space, remain an oasis

of calm in the process.

Micaela! Hello.How are you? Good. How you doing?

What the hell is going on? It's like living in a skip.

We've got so much furniture, there's just stuff everywhere.

So, what's this then? It doesn't look very office.

It looks like the kind of thing my nan has in her house.

Well, it is from a charity shop,

so it could have could have been from your nan's house.

Could be my nan's. She's had a clear out.

I thought it was nice to have something a bit softer,

a bit mid-century. Bit homelier as well. Yeah.

What colours are you going to have? Cos you've got lots of chairs.

I've got to have lots of chairs as an upholsterer.But you don't want

it to look like an old people's home, do you?

We're going for skin tone. So it is a lot of brown, actually.

Oh, OK. Well, don't have little bowls

of Werther's Originals everywhere.

I hope no-one walks in there and thinks it's an old people's home,

but it does make you think about things and think, oh, God.

Michelle's going to come in and you know, what's she's going to say?

What's she going to think of this?

Over on Team Tech, Siobhan's upcycling cable bobbins

to turn into stools.

It's all a bit chaotic up there, so I've come to a nice

little spot so that I can get everything sprayed - my letters

and some cable bobbins.

I've listened to Michelle and I'm not trying to, basically, you know,

just bring a load of pink and fluffiness in,

but, actually, it really goes with that whole, like, mid-century

colours and everything.

There you go. Go on. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine.

This way. My side? Your side, yeah.

With an hour to go on day one,

Barbara and Paul are constructing the whiteboard divider

that will sit between the work and meeting zone.

Paul? Yeah. Can we just have a quick chat about this?

Put it on here.

We know we're really pushed for time. Yeah.

In terms of what needs to be done

and I know we had these two extra panels running down here.

Do you think we still need them?

I'm thinking in the interest of time.

No. I think what we do is just eliminate them

and get on with what we really need to get done.

We are going to lose these two panelled sections.

We're going to just get the whiteboard in place

and then that section is complete.

Phew!How are you coping?

It's not easy, but I think we're getting there.Who's coming up

with most of the ideas?

I probably put forward most of the ideas.

The good thing is, is I've got this, like, 3D model that everyone

can look at so that they can sort of make changes in front of them.

But, you know, you do need to concentrate on yourself.

You ended up on the sofa last week.

You don't want to be there for a second week.

There is a bit of a risk there.

I mean, it could go either way. If Michelle thinks we've fulfilled

the brief, then it's great because I've been such an integral

part of all the decisions.

But if she doesn't think that we've fulfilled the brief and we do

end up on the couch, then loads of responsibility's on my shoulders.

Good luck, Barbara. Bye!

You can't fault Barbara's ambition.

She just wants to be over everything but there is this risk

that you could overstretch yourself.

I just hope she can pull it off.

Over on Team Media...

I finished it! Finally.

..Lynsey's 3D wall art is ready to be installed.

This is one of three that are going on that wall.

I can't wait to get them up there,

I think it'll be really high-impact.

We've cut all your timbers.

That looks amazing. That's how I imagined it.

And Amy's turned her attention to a smaller form of seating.

So I bought some cheap chairs,

but they're not in the best condition,

so I'm going to do a combination of some painting of the fabric

and some re-upholstery of just the seat cushion.

This is the first time I have done this and basically I'm just using

the emulsion that we're putting on the walls

and I've mixed it 50/50 with water,

dampened the surface and then slap it on.

Yeah, it looks good. Thanks. Glad you approve.

With day one drawing to a close, team-mate Jon has had a hiccup.

I've cut the fabric too short.

And it doesn't matter where I move it to, it doesn't fit.

And I measured it. That just won't work.

No. Just redo it. It's another knock in the time

that I've got left, cos I now need to recut this and make sure it fits.

I'm hoping Michelle likes it and she can see that I am looking

at the bigger picture, but the closer we get to the end,

the more my confidence starts to wane.

It's not quite there yet.

It's the end of the day and I'm not where I needed to be.

So tomorrow morning, I need to rethink what I'm going to do

to bring myself back on track.

There's a little bit of sick rising just about here.

Oh! I just feel, like, relief seeing that now.

This just means so much to me because I'm doing this for myself.

I'm learning so much and I love it, but I'm trying to do it

for my family, my boys, my husband,

so that we can all have a better life.

So, it's important to me.

It's the second and final day.

I think what we need to do is just get paint on this fast. Yeah.

It's brushes at the ready for Team Tech.

We've just got so much to do.

We just need to kind of get as much paint on, especially this,

cos it's a bit tricky.

This acts as a divider... And Barbara's divider

for her breakout space still needs to be built.

I've got a row of lights going across here. Yep.

Sooner we can get on with this one, that's priority.

In Team Media, Jon is starting where he left off -

upholstering furniture,

but this time he has a plan.

I need to remember which is the front of the chair

and which is the back,

so I've just put an arrow on the table and a T

so I remember that's the top because, you know, I have a problem

with cutting the wrong size of fabric.

Meanwhile, team-mate Lynsey is taking on another wooden

installation for her work zone.

I haven't done this technique before, so I'm kind of winging it.

I want to show all the layers of the plywood and just create a bit

of a sculptural piece.

And I've cut out a hole in it, which is going

to have the company logo.

So when the visitors come to the company,

it'll be really prominent in the window.

And Amy's tiered seating is now constructed.

Welcome to the stadium.

ALAN LAUGHS

Give me an A! Give me a M! Give me a Y!

So, talk me through it, because it looks quite big.

It is quite big, yeah.

I wanted to make a statement, wanted a bit of drama in here.

Figured it's a media PR company, so I figured that the kind of people

that might come in here might be being trendy, sitting, hanging out,

looking cool, but also for product launches

and team meetings,

this could be a spill out from the meeting area next-door.

Also, I wanted to create a nice partition wall for Jon.

Amy's stadium seating is a bit too big for my liking.

When you want to sit down, you want to just relax

and flop yourself down.

You'd need a fireman's lift to get on those seats,

they're so high up.

I understand you get kind of a bit obsessed with your own design,

but I really do think that the tiered seating stadium area

is clever, is multifunctional.

It could be used for a variety of reasons.

So, mural update is that I'm nearly there.

I've done it a bit quicker than I anticipated,

but which is always a good thing, I think.

Down in Charlotte's meeting zone,

her vision to create a more 3D room is taking shape.

Just to create a bit of texture on the wall, other than just putting

some wallpaper there, so the shapes that have been cut out

kind of mimic what's going on with the mural,

and then they're going to be painted in the same colour.

And it'll be quite cool.

Today's the crucial day to bring it all together,

but so far, no dramas.

But, when everything's done and everyone pulls it together,

with their amazing styling,

it does normally send me into a bit of a spin

and I start doubting myself,

but I'm just doing my best.

Ah, Peter. Yeah. Oh, God.

There you go. Looks great. Awesome.

So, that's ready to be painted now, isn't it? Yes.

Team-mate Peter is aiming to inject some fun

into his breakout space.

I'm creating a really relaxed space

where people are going to have informal meetings.

Here there's going to be a ping pong table

that can also come up and be a coworking standing desk.

I want the judges to feel like this is the dream office

that they would always want to be in, so, yeah...

I do so want to win this, because it would be a great opportunity

to do a great commercial project.

OK, can you get in there? Why don't you hold the cable?

In the tech space,

Paul's making foliage a feature in his meeting room.

I think, Babs, I need to leave one grid space in between.

You just show me where you're happy with it and I'll get it up.

So much going on, isn't there? OK, that's it.

What do you think about your light? I love that.

Hello!

Hello, Alan.It's me. Hiya.

Paul. Alan.

And Barbara in the back. Hello, love.

You all right?Great.

Now, tell me about this. What does this mean?

I mean, listen, I've woken up under a bush after a night out

but I've never had a meeting under one.

LAUGHTER

Everything, from my view is quite concrete, very hard.Yeah.

It was just to kind of give a bit of the outdoors in.

Does it scream "tech" to you, though? I think it does.

You know, tech can be so many different things, but, yeah,

I can see this working.I like it.

It's halfway through the second day.

This has to be the most boring thing I've ever done.

Babs, I think you're going to have to come over and show us

your 3D model again.

All of the offices are radically transforming...

Yeah, that looks great.

..into work spaces for the 21st century.

This piece of muslin, so you can see through it,

and it also prevents anyone who's sat down on the ping pong table

being hit in the head by a ping pong!

Peter, love. Hi, how are you?

Hello. How are you? I'm good, thanks.

Now, what's this? Is this one of the partitions?

Yes, so we wanted something quite soft,

so that's why we went for something with texture and textiles.

Because I didn't know if you were using this as an homage

because you're a doctor and I go behind it and...

Oh!..maybe I take my trousers off and pop them over.

I'm ready to see you now!

No, you say that, don't you? It's not that kind of office.

Oh.

But is this partition going to be big enough, though?

That's all I'm saying.

I mean, it's an open-plan office,

so unless you're doing something super structural

that is more permanent.

We specifically wanted it to be flexible.Yeah, yeah.

The clock is ticking and, for Jon, the pressure is mounting.

I'm really concerned about my room.

My room looks no different from how we started this morning,

so I'm desperate to get the curtains up so that you can see

that I've actually done something in the room.

Jon's chosen drapes to help zone his space.

It just gives an option to have a multi-meeting space

because of how generous the proportions of the room are.

Two nines are 18, aren't they?

Two, four, six, eight, nine.

I have lost a hook.

For me, it just felt like a bit of a waste if I was just going

to put one large room.

I hope Michelle will appreciate that

I've thought about the use of the space,

the actual functionality of the room.

We have curtains, ladies! Perfection.

Over in Team Beauty, Charlotte is almost finished...

Spin it around!

..and Peter's breakout space is also on track.

So this is my collaborative work pod. The curtains create a bit

of privacy so you can have a phone call in here.

Obviously not super private, but it's private enough.

Bit higher than that, if you don't mind.

With Barbara's breakout divider constructed,

she's beginning to see the light.

Get that at that height, is that OK?

Finally getting some lights in place.

I don't think we go any lower, that's probably fine.

Progress is being made.

I think it just literally goes there.

Across the office in the work zone,

Siobhan's fixing tech words to her walls

using cables and oversized lettering.

Love it! Yes.

OK, I think higher.

Yeah, it's definitely just come together,

just as we imagined on Barbara's 3D model.

She can hear me in background!

Sorry, pal. Get it in, babe, get it in.

I'm not really taking the mickey, honest!

Oh, my God, it's just such a roller-coaster of emotions.

I mean, I cannot tell you, but I feel a little bit more confident

now that we will get there, that we will reach the finish line.

I'm swinging!

With less than an hour to go, it's a race to the finish.

Whee!

It's quite good, isn't it?

That's going to be slightly in and to the back,

so one there, one on the other side like that.

On Team Beauty, Micaela's left an important job until last.

I am a bit worried about how I'm going to configure them.

Just need to check I've got enough space around each desk.

Guys, 20 minutes.

Joining Michelle to judge this week,

award-winning interior designer and former design director

of Soho House, Linda Boronkay.

I think this is such a brilliant challenge because the whole world

of work has completely changed in the last year or so.

I mean, this is now about kind of seduction.

What is a designer going to offer

to seduce me out of my home and back into an office?

Yes, I 100% agree. Office design doesn't have to be boring.

I'm also looking for something that is unique and maybe something

is very inspiring for us as well.

These spaces will have to represent the brand,

the brand values.

And if I can see his or her stamp throughout the space,

that is quite interesting as well.

First office space to be judged, Team Beauty.

Yeah, thank you.

I'm going to run out of time.

Oh, my God, that was a mad rush.

My God, I need to go to sleep.

I didn't manage to get my desks and chairs into the space quick enough

to play around with the layout,

so I have a little niggle in the back of my mind that my desks

are blocking the entrance to the rest of the office.

I hope I've done enough, but I ran out of time.

So this is our sustainable beauty brand.

Micaela's forte is upholstery, detail, colours, textures,

which I can definitely see,

but the last challenge I felt she needed to get a sense of the room

as a whole. I really don't like all the desks stacked up like this.

I mean, I feel like I'm about to take an exam.

It feels very rigid.

And also these spaces should encourage collaborative working.

And I wouldn't feel comfortable sitting at a desk like this.

I would always feel like somebody's watching over my shoulder. Yeah.

Maybe that's the area where you try the products of the beauty brand.

Yes, probably with the... Make-up mirror. ..ring flash and everything.

So that's good, that's really diving into the detail of beauty.

And nice that they haven't fallen into that

"let's make it all pink and feminine,

"because that's beauty, isn't it?"

It is just missing kind of reception.

Things are facing the wrong way.

Exactly, you don't have a sense of arrival.

I think my breakout space looks exactly how I imagined it.

For me to go home now, I feel it would be a bit premature.

I love the fact that they used the round shape for the curtains.

Just feels a lot more organic. Yeah.

And it breaks up the rigidity of the layout.

How do you feel about a ping pong table?

I'm feeling this is almost veering us into cliche territory, isn't it?

It's one too many ideas in a small space.

Adding the benches, I want to just read it as a desk.

Yeah. And think, oh, how clever,

but the way he's set it up with the bats and the ball,

I'm just thinking it's going to be so annoying for the person

trying to read their book and have a bit of quiet time

here with ping pong, ping pong! "Oh, can you get my ball, please?"

But I love this screen adding another layer of texture and colour.

You see, I just thought that was to stop you getting hit

by a ping pong ball.

Well, it's double function, I guess.

I'm really happy with my space.

I'd like them to notice my attention to detail and the ways

I've used my background in surface pattern

to make interesting 3D elements on the wall.

And hopefully they're things they haven't seen before as well.

That would be really nice.

Charlotte's speciality is textile design, and last challenge

I felt she was a bit lazy, so I definitely get the sense

that that message got heard. Definitely.

I love a feature wall.

A feature ceiling as well, though! A feature ceiling, beautiful.

And you can really feel the handmade nature of it, the brush strokes.

I love this textured wall as well.

Again, using the same patterns, but in a 3D way.

This is an office for one brand,

but there's little things that kind of grate with me,

so I'm taking an exam over here.

You have a ping pong table that doesn't quite fit.

I think Charlotte's area feels very successful, though.

Next to face the judges, Team Media.

Elbow bump. It's like the Power Rangers.

I'm really pleased with the wall art and the woodwork,

I think they both came out as I wanted them to.

I was really pleased with the overall aesthetic.

Wow.

You can immediately see a very clever use of materials.

I love the ply on the walls, on the desks.

One thing about hot desking is I think it denies people

the ability to personalise their space.

Just by putting this little triangle,

I've got somewhere to put my Post-its.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

And I do love a good Post-it.

And they have storage for each desk,

which is very practical.

The only thing I'm a little worried about

is that this is completely unfinished.

That's going to kind of mark.

I agree, another coat of lacquer or something on it.

Just to make it a bit more durable. Yeah.

Obviously, I really want Michelle to love the space,

and I don't want to be having to answer to her if she doesn't.

However, I am so proud of what I've achieved

that I feel like I've won anyway.

I'm trying to envisage how people would use this space.

This is clearly her big statement. Yeah, the big moment.

But I just wonder about the comfort of sitting up there.

Am I really going to clamber up there and brainstorm away?

Because I think I'd be pretty uncomfortable

within about five seconds. Do you want to try?

No, I don't!

It's an awful lot of space that it takes up as well

when you see the depth of it.

All of that space back there is not going to get sat on, is it?

Yes, but I like the fact that it's also a division

from the meeting spaces. The big idea was kind of there,

but not thought through in the detail of

how am I actually going to use this?

I don't think there's anything in my space that doesn't meet the brief,

and if I'm being supercritical on myself, the things that I wished

had gone better are the volume of curtains that I've got

because it doesn't have the impact of what I was hoping.

So this is the other side of the amphitheatre.

Immediately a bit of a lost opportunity to make

all that access for storage here.

Exactly, if you had doors here, you would have ample storage.

And then we've got hard meeting, soft meeting kind of areas.

I think it's quite nice using the fabrics to separate them

because it just makes it a bit softer.

Yeah. I guess it also means you could pull that all back

and really have a big meeting here if you needed to.

I'm not sure the sheers do enough for a meeting room.

They won't create enough privacy, I don't think.

There's just not enough acoustic separation between the rooms.

If they'd been maybe thicker, less translucent.

Overall, I feel like they've done a really, really good job.

I mean, you can really see the communication

from one end of the room to the other.

And, look, they have the same fabric.

Oh, that's nice, so actually Jon has pushed himself a little

and done some upholstery, which is always nice to see.

You want to see these designers learning something

and growing every single challenge. Absolutely.

Guys, we're done.

Oh! We smashed it.

I just want to go and have a glass of wine.

Just relieved, so relieved that we managed to complete it.

Oh, my God, this feels so different.

Finally, the judges inspect the tech office.

same brief, same budget,

same time and same trade - different result.

I didn't expect it to all come together just as well as it did,

and it was very ambitious of us, but I think we nailed it.

Paul loves wallpapers, but here at least he's contained it to one wall

and just using it in a way that is really expressive and fun.

That wallpaper must have been the starting point of their scheme.

All the colours come back in other spaces

and they recreated the same pattern.

But it doesn't feel too laboured, does it?

It feels actually just quite organic that it sort of happened

quite naturally. It's not tried too hard.

They have built dividers

and yet it doesn't feel that I've blocked off huge bits of the office

and you still get the sense that we're all one team.

This does feel kind of like the future of office.

Yeah, and it doesn't fall into cliches. No. At all.

There's lots of things that I've learned this week.

There's loads more that I need to learn,

but I think it has given me a little bit of confidence

just looking around the room thinking, wow, I did that.

So this is their work space.

Yes. It works.

The layout is fundamentally right.

You've got your team desking here and then you've got the option

of solo desking as well.

But with enough space around both of them.

I rather love the wall art.

The colours are tying in, there is an extraordinary attention

to small details. Yeah.

So Barbara has a more architectural way of thinking.

But the last challenge, she just went a bit Bauhaus style mad,

but you can tell her influence.

I think she really drove the kind of partitioning details.

I can just imagine people working there, doing their smaller tasks

and having an impromptu meeting here

or a more organised one there with the whiteboard.

It's really clever to have incorporated the whiteboards,

isn't it? Both sides. Because you need space like that in an office.

This is a whole... It looks like if it was fitted out professionally.

Completely. And they all used their own strengths

to make this space so successful.

The essence of teamwork, no less.

Oh, yeah.

Before the teams return to the design studio,

a moment to eye up their competition.

Is it safe? I hope so.

I mean, imagine if it fell out with my big bum.

It feels still quite spacious in here considering she's built this,

which is huge. Yes.

Massive, yeah. So these are curtains, so obviously you can

move them and open and close the space.

I prefer the way we've thought about how people would use our space.

I've just never seen anything like this before.

Not in an office. Would you actually go in there and close the curtains?

I guess it depends what you were doing in there.

THEY LAUGH

Is this necessary?

Would anyone actually use this?

I don't think they would. Oh, wow.

Look at the mural. It goes right up.

Look at the skill involved in that, though.

What are we thinking then, are we worried?

Or are we still thinking that we're... Team win.

Oh... They're lovely partitions.

I thought we'd made a lot...

I mean, we have still made a lot of wood, but they created

cubbyholes and areas.

I really, really like how they separated all the spaces.

So we're not scared, but we're suitably impressed,

I think it's fair to say.

I think we've both hit the brief.

Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing else we can do. Let's go.

It's results day and the designers are back at Michelle's studio.

This morning, feeling a little bit anxious,

a little bit nervous,

because any one of us could be on the sofa today,

so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed.

Hi! They're back!

I'm quietly confident today that I will stand by my design

and I'm happy with what I've achieved.

Hi! Hello! Hi, guys!

I'm just really nervous about the level of competition,

but inside in that studio, I will be feeling quite queasy.

Uh-oh.Hello! Hiya!

I can smell fear!

Yeah!

Don't you all look nice in your glad rags? Get you!

Well, I can tell you, Michelle and Linda were absolutely wowed

by the level of design they saw.

So let's hear their verdict.

There was one team they felt went above and beyond

what they expected to see.

They both said it looked like it had been designed by professionals

and they would be happy to work there.

Paul, Siobhan, Barbara, you're through to next week, well done.

Well done!

Oh, that's really good.

Off you go. Well done.

Relax. Well deserved, guys.

I know how it felt last week. It was horrible being on the sofa,

so this just feels like all the hard work has paid off.

So for the remaining teams, Beauty and Media PR,

the judges thought two designers also did enough

to avoid elimination.

And those two are...

..Lynsey

and Charlotte.

You can go.

Thank you.

Well done.

Bye, guys. Good luck.

And for the rest of you, the judges would like to talk to you

to find out which one of you will be going home.

Good luck.

Thank you.

Well...

..here we are. Here we are.

Feeling really mixed emotions right now.

I feel really happy that I'm through,

but really gutted for Amy and Jon

because we were a team, and it kind of brings it home,

it's an individual competition.

Now, the office spaces were so impressive.

How did you whittle it down to these four?

It was really, really hard.

We had to judge them individually,

and yet we saw three really coherent office schemes.

So who should we start with?

Let's talk about Amy first.

That was a bold move.

It was like a plywood Stonehenge.

I felt like you should pray to it or sacrifice someone on it.

It was so huge.

There's a fine line, really, isn't there, between having a big idea...

Yeah. It worked really well to zone the space,

but I think there's always a point where you get into that space

and you have to be able to go,

"I think I need to change it a bit because it's just too much."Yes.

And I just worry with her that she doesn't do that.

Can we talk about Jon's meeting room? Functionality wise,

it wasn't very successful.No.

Even though the idea of curtains was really lovely,

the execution and the fact that they were sheers,

that just didn't quite make it for a successful meeting room.

Now, where do you both stand on Peter's ping pong table?

I'm not a fan of ping pong,

especially not in a small office like that

where it can be so loud and so distracting.

He could have been cleverer.

We could have had the language of ping pong without it literally

being a ping pong table, which is fun for five minutes

and then intensely annoying.

Let's talk about Micaela's space.

That room really wasn't working, layout wise.

Because I was thinking, "Oh, God, I've got to take an exam!"

Oh, yes! Because all the desks were lined up like that,

but also the whole lot facing away from the door.

Just visualise the customer journey because you are going to enter

into this space and who is going to greet you?

It's just this ability to stand back and read the whole space

that I think she just missed.

But we have actually got so many questions we want to ask them.

I don't envy you, it's going to be so tough, isn't it?

Yes.

Hi. Hi there.

I have to tell you, you are already making this incredibly hard for me

to call it between any of you.

You have to know that the standard

that you are hitting is just extraordinary.

Nevertheless, one person will go home today,

so this chat is about me really understanding

your individual designs.

Jon. Yes.

I'm going to start with you. OK.

This was a chance to reinvent the office for the 21st century.

Do you think you did that?

Erm, in terms of a reinvention, probably not.

And certainly when we were given the brief to start with,

I did go into office mode of this is what should be in these places.

On the flip side of it, my other big idea was to show how much

I've grown from the last challenge

and try and be forward thinking in terms of the brief.

So I don't work in an office that has curtains

and I thought actually to soften that area, being able to shift

that away so you could use the space in four ways.

The one thing I thought - if the curtains

would have been a little bit thicker,

a little bit more soundproofing.

Yeah, if I'm fortunate enough to carry on,

that's a great thing to take away.

Amy, you put a very big idea into your space.

When it was built, was it how you imagined?

I probably should admit at this stage,

it was originally going to be twice that size!

So I'm very glad that I took it down.

How could that have been twice as big?

Where would it all have gone?

It was originally going to come a little bit further towards

Lynsey's area, so it was just a sort of longer L-shape.

The point of it was to create drama.

I wanted to kind of create a space that felt fun,

but still had that sort of sophistication.

Do you think people would really use it, though?

It obviously is a grown-up space.

It's not a playground.

No, it was about trying to be bold, I guess,

answering that part of the brief.

It seemed like you've seen this picture somewhere

and you really liked the idea, but you perhaps didn't consider

the constraints of the space with the ceiling height

and the fact that you have a fairly small space to fill. OK.

I was just wondering if you guys have ever discussed

how it could be utilised further, perhaps for storage space?

Yeah, that's something that I need to consider for next time.

I feel it could have worked a lot harder and it was way too big. OK.

Micaela, you have got to stand back and look at your room as a whole,

because I felt I was on detention.

Oh! Because I'm sitting there, I've got someone behind me,

I've got someone in front of me, I'm not facing the door.

I thought, it's nicer to be looking towards the window than

staring immediately at a colleague all the time.

That was my preference.

That doesn't encourage collaborative working.

Also, if anyone ever visits this office,

how would they feel about entering the space?

Who would greet them or what would their journey look like?

I hoped that when you entered, you wouldn't feel like,

you know, I don't know, you felt awkward.

But in an ideal world, I don't think I would have put

any of the desks back in.

I would have had something more fluid and curved.

What do you mean by in an ideal world? This was your brief.

That's one of the biggest learning curves, I think, of being a designer

that you get in there and it's the ability to go,

"I've made a mistake. I need to change this."

Sometimes it's about the thing you take off.

Ready? Sure, why not?

The ping pong table. OK.

Why? It's a clip-on, so it can come down really quickly.

I upholstered the benches.

You could fit six people working collaboratively

and also it's on trestle legs that can come up so you can work

standing around it as well.

The ping pong side was just because the brief did mention

having fun in the space.

When you start to think about, oh, actually someone

is going to have a ping pong match here, how am I going to be able

to work next door or have a meeting in the other room?

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

I think maybe there could have been a cleverer way to do it, then.

If you really were taking the concept of the fun idea

but actually its primary function was to be a standing desk

or a work table. Yeah.

I just didn't read that.

It's been a really tough decision this week.

In the end, in design, I think it comes down to this balance

between originality, ambition and also execution.

Does it all work at the end of the day?

So this week...

..the person that's going to go home...

..I'm sorry, Amy, it's you.

Amy, it's only the beginning, love.

I'm really sorry, Amy. I am,

because you showed me ambition, you showed me a big idea.

Just on the balance of things, it needed more adaptation.

Well done, guys.

For someone of her skill to go in week two,

but she'll have an amazing career.

I'm feeling ridiculously emotional,

but, yeah, just gutted.

I had lots more tricks up my sleeve and stuff I wanted to showcase,

but I'll do that, just somewhere else.

Amy gave me the big idea that I was asking for,

but you have to be able to take your concept and adapt it

and flex it to the space that you're given

and I just didn't feel that she did that.

It's like Beauty and the Beast.

The designers take on hotel bedrooms...

My room is going to be a slap in the face.

..in an historic Sussex wedding venue.

Very Romeo and Juliet.

This is game on for me now.

There's an awful, awful lot to do.

This is a bridal suite, you're doing a Punch and Judy show?

Yes, I'm going to try.

I definitely need to be done by the end of the day.

This is going to go down to the wire.