Renovated Office Space Reinforces Collaboration and Community Integration

Irish Titan chose HDR to design a space for them to effectively reflect their brand identity. At that time, the company was located in a small, cramped office space south of Minneapolis. One of their primary goals was to attract a dynamic, skilled workforce. Realizing their current space would not help them achieve that goal; they decided to relocate to a centrally located downtown space that would be closer to their clients. Irish Titan employs digital strategists, creative designers and developers who provide ecommerce services to their business partners, including creating company websites and developing their clients’ internal ecommerce infrastructures, encompassing everything from billing to marketing services.

The company selected and leased a space within a building that had once been an industrial food production facility for Nestlé, with 20-foot ceilings and extremely high clerestory windows, in process of being converted to office space. Our design solution for Titan’s space involved cutting openings into the ceiling’s exterior concrete masonry unit (CMU) façade to allow the option to open overhead garage doors  and flood the space with natural sunlight, on any of the many beautiful summer days in the Twin Cities. Adding splashes of bright, bold and vibrant orange and green throughout to reflect the company's Irish theme, the colors are incorporated into walls and the light-colored furniture, down to the smallest details, serving to balance the industrial feel.

About eight months later, after the first phase was completed, we were again approached to continue the renovation, this time to cut a hole in the two-foot-thick concrete floor to extend their offices to the floor below. We continued with the bold themes we established in the first phase, adding an industrial-style stair and a conference room on the lower level, both connected by a “bat pole.” Determined to fulfill the dream of the owner to include the pole, we worked closely with city code officials to envision how we could make this happen. Our efforts were successful and the owner celebrated by inaugurating the fire-station-style pole dressed like Batman. Employees are now able to slide down on the pole from the second floor down to the floor below.

The design team was able to transform the space into an appealing, modern and dynamic open work environment. Since Irish Titan has been in the new space, they’ve won several awards for 'cool office space' and they continually rank as one of the ‘best places to work’ in the Twin Cities.