The opportunity to redesign a building that was over 100 years old into new offices for Germinal presented a project that was beyond exciting in so many ways. The client was exceptional and understood the design processes becoming involved at every opportunity. The brief was to take a building that required a complete strip and put back together to provide modern offices over four floors. The building was over 100 years old and sits proudly in the Linen Quarter of Belfast namely Bedford Street. It appeared at first glance that bomb damages from the trouble years had called for intervention in the upper floor. The building had suffered many fit outs and each had left their mark. The brief asked for ground floor eating areas and a generous facility for the users of the building. The entrance to Clarence street was remodelled to give a generous space linking other parts of the building visually. Upper floors were to provide generous open plan spaces and dedicated offices. The challenge was to remove an existing secondary fire route which ran along the boundary wall and exited on Bedford Street. We employed BB7 fire engineers to remove the stair which ultimately opened up the layout possibilities.
