Bell Polo Park

Not long after finishing the new Virgin Mobile store in Polo Park, we were invited back to work on the new Polo Park location for Bell, Virgin Mobile’s parent company.

This is our second Bell location, so we were already well versed in their design standards and target market: a mature look and feel for the business crowd, focusing on a minimalist space that shows off the brand. The design is centred around their deep blue brand colour, and features tons of beautiful curved walls and glass.

Scope-wise, this was a typical build for us, including general contracting and construction, project management, organizing and coordinating owners’ vendors and suppliers (millwork and furniture), full supervision and team building. It took 9 weeks start to finish.

As with most minimal designs, this was a lot of work! This location has a very cool ceiling that, to our knowledge, has never been done before here in Winnipeg. The ceiling is essentially a perforated pattern in a grid style, and the challenge was to get the pot lights to pop in perfectly to fit the pattern. The only way to do this was to have the electrician right behind us adding pot lights after each section. Usually ceilings/lighting is a one person at a time type of job, but this was unique.

At the end of the day, we’re incredibly proud of how smoothly the project went. It all came together at the end and it looks amazing. The details are neat and clean, and it looks pro. Best of all, the client is very happy and they will definitely remain a repeat customer.

Challenge

The ceiling made for tricky electrical and fixture installation.

Solution

Our main goal was to get the ceiling done as efficiently as possible, and the good news is that we knew about the ceiling challenge from the start. It took a lot of brainpower to figure how to work it all out – especially when it came to the electrical being installed alongside the ceiling. To make things even trickier, typically a building inspector won’t even inspect the lights unless they are all roughed in which wasn’t possible in this situation. Through collaboration, communication and a whole lot of planning, we got it all done and it looks great.