The Paper Exchange

The Paper Exchange is a large, 11-storey Grade A commercial office development situated in the heart of Belfast on Chichester Street designed by Todd Architects and brought to life by main contractor Heron Brothers on behalf of developer Chichester Street Properties. The building, constructed on the site of the former Oxford & Gloucester House, was named in testament to Belfast’s history of papermaking and is surrounded by a multitude of food, commercial and cultural destinations. Standing at 155,133 sq ft of world-class space, this impressive and contemporary building will set the standard for state-of-the-art developments across the country.

We worked closely with the Design team in Todds from January 2019 to create a bespoke specification for this project to incorporate high grade ironmongery, electric locking, door automation and riser door systems across all 11 floors of the building. The brief from the design team was to create a high-end, luxurious finish throughout and this followed through to every single detail and component specified on the project. We utilised the KCC grade 316 stainless steel modus range of operating ironmongery in a satin brass finish to offering functionality and durability for building users whilst still achieving a modern and stylish aesthetic. The satin brass finish against the darker wooden doorsets throughout the building creates a unique aesthetic not typically seen in standard commercial developments and makes a ‘feature’ out of the operating ironmongery rather than trying to let it disappear into the background. We used a combination of high-quality return-to-door levers and extra long off-set pull handles throughout. Similarly, even the push plates are brass and excessively long, again creating a feature out of the typically ‘mundane’, functional additions to a doorset, and offering a beautiful contrast against the dark wood. The sense of luxury and class in this project carries through even into the bathroom with each cubicle enclosed with a full height doorset, featuring eye-catching brass finish pull handles, locks, indicators and hinges.  We provided swing door automation on the exterior glazed doorsets which again utilise gold accents against black frames. We were able to colour match the automatic operators to work with the gold and black colour palette and position the slim black sensor to almost blend into the door profile. We provided a full concealed riser door package to the project to perfectly conceal typically ugly riser doors with a seemingly smooth and continuous wall, with only a minimal shadow gap on view. In other areas we utilised an overclad riser door system, to allow the service cupboards to be hidden behind a dark, bespoke plastered feature wall which fits perfectly with the theme of feature walls seen throughout the building utilising materials such as timber cladding, metal mesh, raw concrete and specialist plastering, bringing interest and texture to different areas of the property and creating a beautiful contrast against the more minimalist white walls seen in the open office spaces on each floor.  We also provided a series of high security external steel doorsets with a combination of louvred overpanels and integrated louvred panels and emergency escape hardware linked into the building management system.