PF+A – Enriching lives through excellent design
PF+A are passionate about enriching lives through excellent design. A belief that design has far reaching consequences on how occupants of a building feel influences every design decision. They back this up by carefully considering all the details of construction, budgets and even building maintenance to ensure your build goes as smoothly as possible.
With a dependable and resourceful team of architectural designers, technologists, technicians and construction administrators, Channel Island firm PF+A Architecture are perfectly positioned to provide clients with an integrated service from start to finish.
PF+A has built its reputation on consistently producing outstanding projects – including recently completed schemes such as the Octopus Restaurant in St Peter Port and an office building for Pula Investments in St Martin’s Village.
With a stunningly transformed aesthetic, the brand new Octopus Restaurant overlooking Havelet Bay in La Vallette, St. Peter Port, boasts a stylish new bar, dining area and commercial kitchen, toilets, staff areas and an ice cream kiosk.
Originally the Halfmoon cafe, the interior was completely stripped out to the floor slab and original walls, with a large new zinc roofed glazed extension providing additional space.
The project was carried out by Infinity Construction, who were praised for their work.
Tom Bourgaize of PF+A said: “The real highlight of the 110 cover venue is its outstanding location and spectacular views, including Castle Cornet and the sea which is about four metres away, the project has been very much designed around this.
“For this reason we built the glazed extension and positioned the dining hall to take maximum advantage of this view – unlike the original cafe which had very small windows.”
Interior design features include handmade floor tiles, wooden cladding, a contemporary style bar constructed of rough sawn colour washed wood, fixed seating, tiled walls and a woven rope ceiling adding a nautical touch.
Externally Larch timber cladding has been added all around the building.
Another key consideration was the buildings close proximity to the sea, which can be extremely rough in Guernsey and could have resulted in structural damage – particularly the main glazed elevation.
Tom Bourgaize said: “With all that water around we had to make sure that the building was truly watertight and we also had to install storm netting to protect against rocks which may be washed up by rough seas. This was quite a challenge, which we did however manage to successfully overcome.
“The venue has so far attracted very good feedback from customers, the clients are very happy with it and Infinity Construction did a very good job.”
Another recent highly successful project for PF+A was the creation of new offices for Pula in the exclusive St Martin’s Village parish, with the works being carried out by main contractors Ravenscroft Construction, who were commended for their work.
PF+A Director Alex Whitmore takes up the story: “The project involved the refurbishment of a former NatWest Bank building to provide offices for the company.
“The two storey building looked more like an old granite farmhouse than a bank and had a number of dated and unsightly extensions, as well as a ‘rabbit warren’ like layout of accommodation which comprised small, dark rooms.
“We were required by planning restrictions to retain the main facade of the building, and agreed that was appropriate, but wanted to come up with a design to provide a modern, bright and airy interior flooded with natural light within the traditional shell of the building.
“We removed the unsightly extensions to the rear and cut a large two storey opening into the rear facade, onto which we constructed a glazed extension, as well as adding glazing within the roof space to maximise light into the building.”
Internally, the original partitions and floors were removed creating a vaulted reception space, new open plan office layout, two glazed meeting rooms, a kitchenette, and staff toilets.
“We also commissioned a really beautiful new staircase in curved steel and glass which worked very well.
“As well as the contrasting materials of existing stone and new glass elevations, we used some copper cladding on a second new, smaller entrance lobby extension, and on a new feature to an existing extension, and I think this fusion of materials has worked very well.”
An existing flat which was on the first floor of the building was retained, and relocated to another part of the site.
“The clients are very pleased with the new light, bright and spacious interior and the main contractor did a good job and were great to deal with,” said Alex Whitmore.
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