United States
IPUT
IPUT is Ireland’s premier commercial real estate fund, with over 5Msf of real estate under management, and the largest owner of prime commercial property in Dublin’s city centre. Following several years of growth, the company had doubled in size and needed a new office to accommodate that growth and reflect the level of quality occupiers can expect from an IPUT building.
The 6,500sqft new offices include all the features and amenities of a modern workplace, from an open, bright layout to a multitude of options for formal or informal collaboration in meeting rooms, private spaces, a kitchen, and cafeteria or the 25-meter balcony overlooking the green. The office’s state-of-the-art technology has also been a “game-changer” for the team, says Niall Gaffney – Chief Executive IPUT. “Our meeting rooms have interactive touchscreens, which is something we didn’t have before,” he says. “The level of collaboration that has afforded us has been a real bonus.”
IPUT’s new office is also leading the way when it comes to employee wellness, on track to become Dublin’s first WELL-certified building. Aiming for WELL Gold status, the office includes such features as a lighting system designed in line with circadian rhythms, abundant natural light, optimised indoor air quality, fabric-wrapped panels, and acoustic dividing screens to help decrease noise, flexible, ergonomic furniture, and other amenities that, as a whole, were designed with the employee in mind.
Because the IPUT space was one of the first in Dublin to pursue WELL, the project team had to quickly familiarize themselves with the standard and what implications it has on design and construction.
“It did take some early coordination to make sure we all understood what we were looking to achieve,” says Derek Slattery, Structure Tone project manager. “But for the most part it just meant working with some new systems and understanding the stringent controls around certain elements.”
Also helping the cause was Structure Tone’s WELL experience in the States. The firm’s New York office had recently achieved WELL certification, and the company was already working on several WELL projects in the US.
“It’s a lot like when LEED was new. We were able to leverage our global experience to apply lessons learned to new projects,” says James Reidy, Structure Tone managing director in Dublin. “We did the same thing in this case, using our US colleagues as a resource and bringing some of that understanding to bear if we ran into questions.”
Donal Murphy Photography®
Architect
MCA Architects
Client
IPUT
Address
47/49 St. Stephens Green
Location
Dublin 2
SF
6,500sf
Architect
MCA Architects
Owner’s Rep
KSN
Project Engineer
Horman O’Brien
Project QS
KSN
Contract Type
CM