Refurbishment and reconfiguration of 1300sqm of high-end commercial office space at 50 Ringsend Rd Dublin 4 for Arup Consulting Engineers. Reception and front of house meeting facilities were completely replanned and refurbished. The project also included a new staff café, and refurbished conferencing facilities on the upper ground floor. On level 1, a new staff breakout and flexible working area was created with meeting booths, coffee dock, phonebooths, shared workspaces and a Virtual Reality Room was created. These meeting booths, informal meeting and break out areas, huddle rooms and phone booth pods all contribute to provide a variety of types of working spaces for a variety of ways of working, from formal Client facing meetings, to internal team meeting, peer to peer review or private conversations. The project was implemented over a multi-phased construction programme maintaining Client functionality on the site during the entire process.
Reception
The front of house reception facilities, located at ground level in the original curved wall art deco building were replanned and refurbished, facilitating a more functional circulation flow. Dark grey painted timber wall lining with integrated led strip lighting feature was implemented to emphasise the original art deco curved layout and to address the scale of the double height space. A bespoke reception desk was added with integrated lighting and signage while the existing bulkhead ceiling was removed, and a new bespoke designed suspended acoustic feature was added.
Café
The project included a new staff café and refurbished conferencing facilities on the upper ground floor. Poor lighting, poor acoustics and a mixed material and colour palette were the main issues with the existing canteen area. The space was reimagined as a Café rather than a canteen, redesigned with a variety of seating areas for staff to eat, to have a coffee or to have informal meetings and connect. The new café also benefits from a replanned and more streamlined servery layout. Suspended ceiling baffles were added to manage the acoustics of the area. A sophisticated lighting design and a colour palette were developed to add vibrancy brighten up the space.
Breakout Area
On level 1, a new staff breakout and flexible working area was created with meeting booths, coffee dock, phonebooths, shared workspaces and Virtual reality Room. These meeting booths, informal meeting and breakout areas, huddle rooms and phonebooth pods all contribute to provide a variety of ways of working, from formal client facing meetings, to informal internal team meeting, peer to peer review or private conversations and video conferencing. The colour palette for this area was designed to be consistent with the café and reception on the floor below. The bespoke blue coffee dock matches the café counter on the ground floor, while the green pendant lights, and the white tile worktops are also a similar finish. The area was treated with ceiling baffles, felt wall lining and vinyl floors to manage the acoustics for the neighbouring office floor.
