PROJECT BRIEF
Creating a space for
Saol Assurance to call their own.
Saol Assurance had outgrown a shared arrangement with limited access to their own meeting rooms and common areas. Iconic Offices worked with Saol Assurance and their agent, Savills Ireland, to design a self-contained, fully branded headquarters at Hume Street House - built around collaboration, flexibility and staff wellbeing.
18 Workstations
Phone Booths
2 Meeting Rooms
Tea Stations & Kitchen
Collaboration Zone
Gym Access
PROJECT REQUIREMENTS
The Client's Goals
01.
Flexible by Design
Create a compact permanent workspace that could scale beyond its core footprint to accommodate up to 130 staff, with a booking system for ad-hoc use.
02.
Security & Connectivity
Provide seamless network security and connectivity, reflecting the sensitivity of Saol Assurance's business.
03.
Brand Identity
Create a space where staff felt at home, with the Saol Assurance brand recognisable throughout the workspace.
04.
City-centre Location
Give the team access to a well-connected workspace in one of the most sought-after business addresses in Dublin on St Stephen’s Green.
THE CHALLENGE
A brief that needed
far more than desks.
The initial brief could have been approached as a traditional office requirement: a set number of desks, meeting rooms and supporting facilities.
After an initial consultation with the Iconic Offices Project Lead, it was revealed that Saol Assurance's needs were different. The team needed a permanent base, but not a permanent desk for every employee. They also needed space for collaboration, external teams, larger meetings and company-wide events.
The challenge was to create a dedicated headquarters that could support a much larger workforce without building the entire space around a fixed desk count.
"Saol Assurance came to Iconic Offices needing a new headquarters that prioritised flexibility, modernity and staff wellbeing. Our detailed fact-finding process uncovered a brief that went well beyond the original scope: not a fixed floor of desks, but a genuine collaboration hub - meaning hackable spaces, meeting rooms, and room for external teams to work from, all built around a core of just 18 permanent workstations."
Eoin Joy - Chief Property Officer, Iconic Offices
THE SOLUTION
A custom-fit built around real working patterns, not desk counts.
Iconic Offices' property team developed an initial test-fit for the space at Hume Street House, centred around 18 permanent workstations, two meeting rooms, a dedicated collaboration zone and additional breakout space.
From there, the floor plan was refined alongside Saol Assurance and Savills Ireland, with each iteration shaped by the team's real working patterns and requirements.
Rather than designing for a fixed desk count, the solution created a compact permanent footprint that could scale across the wider building. Shared amenities and flexible spaces allow Saol Assurance to accommodate larger groups when required, including company-wide days for up to 130 staff.
A large conference room provides a dedicated setting for town halls and larger meetings, while Iconic's front-of-house team can support the logistics, set-up and catering required for these events.
BRINGING THE BRAND IN
Early collaboration with Saol Assurance's brand team.
Iconic Offices engaged Saol Assurance's brand team from the earliest design stages, building a collaborative deck to visualise touchpoints across the entrance, feature walls and value boards. Custom furniture and signage were woven through the fit-out, so every team member walking in recognised the Saol Assurance identity within a shared building.
THE RESULT
A headquarters
built to evolve with the business.
Saol Assurance’s headquarters is centred around 18 permanent workstations, with access to the wider building when the team needs to scale. From focused work and smaller meetings to collaboration and company-wide events, the space flexes around different ways of working.
With Iconic’s front-of-house team supporting larger events and the move-in managed seamlessly, Saol Assurance gained a flexible headquarters designed around how their business actually operates.
18
Permanent Workstations
130
Staff at monthly hangout days
02
Bookable Meeting Rooms
100%
Brand identity carried through
WHAT MADE THE PROJECT DIFFERENT
Designing for the business, not the desk count
The traditional office model is built around fixed desk numbers. Saol Assurance took a different approach.
By looking beyond the conventional workplace model and understanding how their team actually uses space, the brief evolved from a requirement for desks into a more considered headquarters strategy.
The result is a space that uses its footprint efficiently, adapts to different ways of working and gives Saol Assurance the flexibility to grow and change without having to rethink its workplace every few years.
Hume Street has worked really well for us. It's modern, bright, and it's genuinely flexible - we can flex across the whole building depending on what a day needs, from focused desk time to the monthly hangouts we run for the wider team.
The front-of-house team at Iconic made the move seamless, and the space has made a real difference to how our people feel about coming into the office.
Paul Ryan, Chief of Staff, Saol Assurance
Hear from Saol Assurance
PROJECT LEAD &
CHIEF PROPERTY OFFICER
Eoin Joy
Iconic Offices
PROJECT MANAGER
& FACILITIES MANAGER
Evo Delchev
Iconic Offices
![Evo headshot[81].jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5af527_b46ea035675f43f0a43c7d2f41677b89~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_500,h_500,al_c,q_80,enc_avif,quality_auto/Evo%20headshot%5B81%5D.jpg)
COMMUNITY MANAGER
AT HUME STREET HOUSE
Ciara O'Donoghue
Iconic Offices
OFFICE AGENCY
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
Kim Hogan
Workthere by Savills
Trusted by industry-leading brands
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