Fit out firm behind Belfast Easons wins award

It was no surprise to learn last night that Dublin-based Jennings Design Studio, the company behind the fit out of the new Easons Donnegal Place branch – the old WH Smith store – had picked up the top award at the Irish 2012 Fit Out Awards.

Bookshops and newsagents rarely have a sense of style that goes anywhere beyond library chic. But with curved book cases, colourful slabs of perspex hanging from the ceiling, a wooden tree, low seats in the children’s zone and a bright atmosphere in a windowless cave, Jennings did well to make the shop attractive and fresh.

Dead trees can still be award-winning!

Of course, it is not to everyone’s taste. East Belfast blogger Lord Belmont found it to be ‘spartan’.

The ceiling on the ground floor appears unfinished: Bare concrete; ugly pipes, ducts, ventilators and wiring can be seen. Is this their idea of a state-of-the-art shop? A sales floor without a ceiling?

I haven’t yet been into the newly refitted Lisburn Easons to see if it has received the full Pompidou treatment!