This final year project focused on the Cleeve’s Condensed Milk Factory Building, an iconic landmark of Limerick city and a key element of the city’s collective memory. After remaining vacant since 2011, the site offers a compelling opportunity for readaptation while honouring its industrial past. The design proposal focuses on transforming this historically significant structure into a music production facility and live music venue alongside a record store and café, breathing new life into the building through a creative and culturally relevant program.

The conceptual foundation of the project centres on the experience of music and the ways in which spatial qualities can shape, enhance, and even transform that experience. The desire was to encapsulate the feeling of sound becoming space in the project to create a truly immersive design. By drawing inspiration from the emotional, physical, and sensory dimensions of music, the design aims to blur the boundaries between auditory and architectural experiences. The name, Out Of Office, is a nod to the roots of club culture, which created spaces built for openness, self-expression, and freedom. It is a signal that, here, you can let go and express who you are without restraint.

The ambition of this project was to craft an environment where the architectural language of the former factory merges with contemporary acoustic design, creating a space that not only supports music production and performance but also deepens the audience’s connection to sound itself.