Scene
It sounds unlikely at first, but in a city where clubs are closing and office buildings are sitting half-empty, maybe it isn’t so far-fetched.
A new report from London-based creative studio Bompas & Parr (“a studio with a zeitgeist mindset”) proposes a bold idea: repurposing unused office spaces into late-night party venues. Think DJ booths in lobbies, dancefloors in glass towers, and rooftops that light up the skyline. The concept is aimed at giving new life to business districts that have lost their purpose in the wake of remote work.
Since the pandemic, many parts of London’s financial core – especially areas like the City and Canary Wharf – have struggled to bounce back. People are still working, just not always from the office. Fridays are especially quiet and large commercial buildings remain mostly empty after hours.
At the same time, nightlife in the UK is shrinking fast. Over half of the country’s nightclubs have shut down in the last decade. Licensing restrictions, high rents, and gentrification have made it hard for venues to survive and for young people to find spaces where culture happens.
This is where the idea of “nightlife zoning” comes in: opening up commercial areas that are already built, already connected to public transport, and crucially have fewer residents, which means fewer complaints about noise.
The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), which has long warned about the collapse of the club sector, supports the proposal. According to them, Britain’s nightlife could disappear entirely by 2029 if nothing changes.
And while the report comes out of London, similar thinking is already emerging elsewhere. In Zagreb, One Drop Music recently teamed up with creative agency Bruketa&Žinić&Grey to throw a one-night-only party inside the agency’s actual office. No VIP area, no overproduction – just good sound, strong visuals, and a crowd that came for the music. What was usually a workspace became a dancefloor, if only for a few hours – proof that the concept is not only possible, but already happening on a small scale.
The idea might sound like a PR stunt, but it touches on deeper questions facing cities everywhere, including Zagreb, Split, and beyond. How do we reuse spaces that no longer serve their original purpose? How do we keep urban centers alive after dark? And how do we support culture when the economics of nightlife no longer make sense?
Turning offices into venues isn’t a perfect solution. Some say those buildings should become housing instead. But converting office blocks into livable flats is technically and financially complicated. Nightlife, on the other hand, requires less permanent transformation and has the potential to inject life (and jobs) into dead zones.
It’s also a reminder that club culture is more than just fun… It’s community, identity, and economy. And in cities that increasingly feel exclusive and unaffordable, reclaiming space for shared experience is no small gesture.
To make it work, city councils would have to rethink how zoning, licensing, and real estate are managed. It would take creativity, political will, and a willingness to treat culture as more than an afterthought.
Still, the vision is compelling. Turning monuments of capitalism into spaces of collective joy might just be the kind of imaginative shift cities need right now.
Read the full report here.
