Swansea's Urban Village honoured with Swansea Council Building Excellence Award

A PROPERTY conversion at Swansea's £25 million Urban Village development has picked up awards just months after completion.

A £1.6 million project, which forms part of the Urban Village's Creative Hub, has been honoured with the Large Commercial Office Fit Out category as part of Swansea Council's Building Excellence Awards.

winning ways Steven Griffiths, head of development at Coastal Housing, Rod Gregory, Coastal Housing's facilities management co-ordinator and Andy Graham, executive chairman of Bbi.

Brecon-based facilities support specialist Beacons Business Interiors (Bbi) was hired by Coastal Housing to complete a fit-out of the 3,000 sq metre property in High Street, turning it into a modern, energy saving office facility, suitable for businesses in the creative industries.

Bbi worked closely with the Coastal team to develop an indoor, countryside theme, designed to create a sense of calm and open space in a busy working environment complete with a tree, grassy areas and even a sheep.

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The company also designed, created and fully fitted out a 250 sq metre, 80 cover contemporary cafe, Mosaic, on the Urban Village site.

Bbi will now go forward to the South Wales regional Building Excellence Awards next month where it will compete against projects from 12 other local authorities.

Andy Graham, group executive chairman at Bbi, said: "Swansea's Urban Village is a fantastic concept that embraces modern thinking when it comes to sustainable living and working. We worked closely with the Coastal team, whose innovative collaboration in the design gave us license to really be creative and design a working environment that was highly practical and at the same time suitably stimulating, as befits a creative culture.

"The development of an indoor countryside theme, complete with artificial grass, trees and flower beds, added a light-hearted touch, while the installation of a heat recovery system and LED lighting helped us to meet our energy saving requirements.

"This award is recognition of a job well done for everyone who worked on the project and we are now looking forward to taking part in the south Wales regional awards."

The Urban Village's Creative Hub will be the first office environment in Wales to be created specifically for commercial creative businesses.

Rod Gregory, Coastal Housing's facilities management co-ordinator for the Urban Village, said: "More than 100 staff members moved into our new offices at the Urban Village last year.

"The process was made as smooth as possible by allowing us to have a say in the décor and furnishing of the office and the open plan design is now enabling us to work more effectively as a team.

"We were recently named the 13th best not-for-profit company to work for in the UK in the Sunday Times Best Companies list, and I'm sure our exciting new working environ- ment had a hand in that."