Belfast designer: Titanic building 'my swan song'

An award-winning Belfast designer has retired on a high after watching his idea come to life on the walls of the Titanic building.

Alan Grimason was the man who turned concept into reality to create the already famous shiny cladding that cloaks the multi-million euro visitor attraction.

“It was my swan song,” he said.

“I am delighted with it, absolutely delighted.

“It’s a great statement compared to any other project I’ve seen around the world and any other thing I’ve been involved with.”

Mr Grimason was the design director at Spanwall – the Carryduff company that beat off international competition to secure the contract to manufacture the cladding.

But he thinks not enough has been made of the local input to the eye-catching facade.

“It’s a shame that in all the things that have gone on and all the things about being ’made in Belfast’ there hasn’t been one mention about the wall cladding being designed and manufactured in Belfast,” he said.

The specialist designer has worked on projects around the world, including the Kensington Oval cricket ground in Barbados, Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium and British Airways buildings at Heathrow.

But he said Titanic Belfast was the contract he wanted most.

“Being in Belfast made it special,” he said.

“We put an enormous amount of effort into it initially, we wanted to be involved in it being in Belfast and we’re a Belfast company.”

Mr Grimason said the most challenging aspect of the project was turning the conceptual idea of architect Eric Kuhne into something that could be achieved practically and within budget.

Originally it was envisaged that different shaped panels would be fixed to the walls in a sort of complicated jigsaw.

The Belfast-based designer felt this could be achieved in a much simpler way.

So he proposed a grid system where aluminium panels could be attached in straight lines running perpendicularly across the walls.

The panels themselves were of six distinctive shapes so the random configuration the architect wanted could still be produced by attaching them to the grid in different ways.

“It was very complicated at the start,” said Mr Grimason.

“They basically didn’t know how to achieve what they wanted to do. What they wanted would have cost enormous sums of money to make individual panels, and a number of individual panels, and try to erect them on a very convoluted jigsaw pattern that they wanted.

“The secret of everything was making something that complex and convoluted - the design that was initially there – trying to make that simple and yet achieve what they wanted.”

He added: “There was a complex design at the start by the concept – I tried to make it workable design-wise, manufacturing-wise, installing-wise and achieve the overall effect he wanted initially.

“To achieve all that was very challenging but very satisfying too.”

Mr Grimason hailed the contributions of Todd Architects in Belfast, project contractor Harcourt and German installation firm Metallbau Frueh in helping make his design a reality.

Now retired, he has swapped his pen for a paintbrush.

“I was always keen on drawing and watercolours and painting,” he said.

“I’ve a fascination with horses and landscapes.”

But having spent the last three years looking at pictures and drawing sketches of Titanic Belfast, he made clear he does not intend to paint his iconic dockside creation.

“I don’t think I’ll bother with that one,” he joked.