 |
Belfast's Mark of Design DistinctionTo mark Architecture Week, each day this week The Magazine will look at one of five notable new buildings to have opened in Britain in the past 12 months and ask what the excitement is about.
Like Birmingham's new landmark Selfridges department store - featured in this column on Wednesday - the Batik Building is dedicated to selling elegant designer goods in a clean, modern environment.
That's where the parallels end. While Brum's vaunted new retail magnet is a huge, brassy statement against the city's cluttered skyline, Batik, on the fringes of Belfast centre, is low-rise, modestly sized and quietly understated.
Nevertheless, it is a distinguished new building for the city, where urban regeneration is one of the most tangible effects of the "peace dividend".
The building recently won an annual award from the Royal Institution of British Architects.
Built on part of the old Ormeau Road gas works, the building combines mostly showroom with some office space for Batik Interiors, a contemporary design and furniture shop.
The challenge for local architects Twenty Two Over Seven was to design a modern, linear building which respected the industrial forms which used to occupy the site, and some of which still do.
In response, it came up with a building suggestive of a simple, steel shed on legs, with large,
more: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magaz... (174)
bookmark: 
25/6/2004 | Viewed 6,342 time(s)
|
|
