The Creative Space: Ronan Holohan, Founder and MD of Millimetre Design
Our International Special continues with another Creative Space from the Founder and MD of Ireland’s leading design firm, Millimetre Design.
Millimetre Design are active across a broad spectrum of industries including food, retail, hospitality, leisure, office, education and health. They have a loyal client base, which proves that their work is recognised as highly functional and visually stunning.
Ronan Holohan is one of Ireland’s leading designers with over 18 years in the business, he is a founding member of the Interiors Association of Ireland and also a member of the Institute of Designers in Ireland. We asked ex-international basketball player Ronan about his ‘Creative Space’.
So Ronan, What space has recently inspired you and how?
I regularly find inspiration for our projects from the building’s environment. An example of this would be the office interiors project we completed for the Digital Hub Development Agency, located in the Grainstore building, in Dublin City Centre.
The Grainstore, a Victorian building, was a store for grain used in whiskey production by Roe’s Distillery. In the late 1800’s, the Roe Distillery had the highest output of any distillery in the world.
The Grainstore building played a huge role in the design concept development, from the aspect of lending character due to the age and history of the building. The building itself had a variety of delicate and interesting details that could not be ignored. It was decided at an early stage of concept development that these features would play an important role in developing the overall vision for the spaces that needed to be celebrated. 
The decision to introduce a light and vibrant design was driven by the true nature of the building with one central atrium roof light and rear atrium roof light that flooded down four floors to introduce natural light into the spaces in the absence of perimeter wall windows.
Attention to detail in the design played a very important role as the building exuded enormous character and a conscious decision was made to compliment these features and expose them. Some of these features included exposed vaulted concrete ceiling, exposed cast-iron columns and beams with the most impressive exposed angled metal roof trusses on the third floor. The decision to form all surface mounted services routes to the profile of these structures assisted in preserving the true nature of the building yet providing all modern amenities that was necessary to make the building work in today’s world. 