Reception counters and desks in Aldgate

Yes. Aldgate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC3N, EC3A. It is worked on our City of London run, along with the rest of the Square Mile. Building management is often the real gate rather than the bay itself, since the barrier, the shutter and the lift each need someone with a fob. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. A height barrier rules out the tail lift before it rules out anything else. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

Handover kitchens are fitted with the cheapest carcass the specification allowed, and cam-lock chipboard boxes are what a stone top has to sit on. The lobby was finished by the developer, so the counter is scribed to stone, terrazzo or a boarded wall somebody else laid, and that face is measured rather than assumed square. The knee recess is argued over hardest where the floor is shallowest. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. What a counter is scribed to is the joiner's carcass rather than the plaster, which is why it is templated after the carcass is fixed and never before. The counter is scribed to the carcass, and the carcass to the floor.

Where a basement car park is the only way up from the parking level the carry starts below ground, and two lifts in one building rarely share the same internal dimensions. The lower transaction shelf is short and easily handled; it is the upper counter that has to be walked in on edge and turned at every corner. The counter waits on the van until there is somewhere to stand it. Time-limited bays are camera-enforced across a lot of managed estates, so the unload runs to the clock and the van moves off afterwards. The upper counter is the longest piece on the van, so the tail lift needs the full swing radius clear on the pavement. Service yards want a name and a time, given a week out.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. Buyers upgrading before handover work to a choices deadline set by the sales office rather than by the build programme. Counters are nearly always one-offs, so the saving that comes from repeating a specification is not usually on the table here. A desk somebody sits at all day is specified for wear. Developer-fitted kitchens come with thin cam-lock carcasses, which are fine under laminate and want bracing before stone goes on them. Where an operator is fitting out several receptions, the counters come off one slab run so the desks read as a set rather than as neighbours. Card reader positions come from the operator, not the architect.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. A counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. A back-of-counter return is a separate piece with its own edges. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. A counter standing proud of the wall has nothing to hide behind. Send the lift car internal dimensions and the loading bay rules with the carcass dimensions, and have the operator mark where the payment terminal and cable grommets really go. One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. Where a managing agent has to approve the work, the drawing goes out in a form they can sign without ever standing in the lobby. The serving height comes from the standard, not from the landlord.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. A reception fit is often booked outside opening hours precisely because that is when the kerb in front of the building is free. The counter is unwrapped inside the building, never at the kerb.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. Standing a three-metre length on end takes more headroom outside the car than inside it, and a low lobby ceiling is what actually stops it. A lobby is one of the few places a piece can be staged, so the counter comes in early and stands on trestles until the carcass is ready for it. Two heights means two carries, and the low one is not the difficult one.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. The return between the high counter and the low shelf never nests neatly, and it is what decides how much slab the desk swallows. Every change of plane is a join waiting to be placed well.

Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Underfloor heating in the screed means nothing is fixed into the floor, so an island is anchored to the carcasses alone. A neighbourhood of new blocks means concierge desks: a managed lobby with a counter working as a post point and a security position at the same time. Protected finishes decide the fixings before the drawing is finished.