Doherty Architects

Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich is the Irish language cultural centre founded in 1991 and located in this refurbished Presbyterian Church. The centre is named after Robert ‘Shipboy’ McAdam, a Presbyterian Gaelic revivalist from the mid 19th century and Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, another gaelic scholar. The building is a red brick church built in a gothic style and was the Broadway Presbyterian Church in Belfast from its construction in 1882 up until 1982. It became vacant in the mid 1980’s and was renovated around that time to make workshop and educational space though conversion and insertion of two floors with fire exits into the building. In that process the internal sense of the church was lost and the basic structure of the layout was defined.

Architects Office Kinnaird Street is a short Victorian terraced street in North Belfast. It was originally an affluent part-of-town: a street on an east-west axis that led from the Antrim Road into the former Girdwood Park. In the transformed urban landscape, particularly in North Belfast, the street lost its affluent families, then became mixed-use – residences and offices – and has long since reduced to its current sad state of partial dereliction.

Creative Industries Office Building Weavers Court is a campus style business park adjacent to Belfast city centre and the major transport hub of Great Victoria Street Bus and Rail. Our client approached us with a requirement for the provision of flexible Grade A office space to be later adapted to the needs of specific tenants, with an eye to the technology sector to add to the overall business park. The location of a dilapidated nineteenth century red brick office/warehouse building was identified for the development by the client on the edge of the business park, on an industrial site that goes back to the early days of the city of Belfast. The existing building was in a poor state of repair with spalling brickwork, leaking roof and rotten windows; and was initially a clear candidate for demolition and replacement. The building though, clearly had a lot of history and character and so we set about the challenge of seeing if any of the existing facility could be successfully adapted to contribute to a successful scheme.