No. 199 Falls Road in Belfast was built at the threshold of the 19th century and was for many years a post office with living accommodation over.  The building, was and still is, the only brick building in the middle of a rendered terrace. It makes the 'jump' from the Victorian ornate plasterwork of the 'Beehive' bar building to the smaller, lower and much narrower frontages of the late Victorian buildings in the lower half of the terrace. The building always stood apart from its neighbours. It has a wider frontage (7.5m) than most of the terraced properties on the Falls Road.

It was our intention to acknowledge and accept the diversity of the terrace.

Our programme, informed by an economic imperative, was to build to the full dimensions of the plot on each floor (15m x 7.5m) and to create a rear light-well that would draw light into the depth of the plan, at each of the three levels, and also provide the necessary measure of cross ventilation. In the detailed programme of the building, and in its internal planning, the ground floor and first floor have a similar open, full plan depth, of 15m and the second floor is divided into a front office and a rear office.

The elevation of the building attempts to solve a number of issues.

The ground floor treatment accepts the existing pattern with a rendered base and a large shop front window lighting the full depth of the 15m plan. Similarly the first floor window is sized to light the depth of the plan but acknowledges the width of the triptych bay window of the adjacent building.  The studied asymmetry of the elevation creates its own balance and harmony of composition.

The building has a plan depth of 15m and is surrounded on the two sides and rear by party wall conditions. The rear light well complements the natural light conditions in the depth of the plan.

The decision to build a 'flat' roof behind a parapet relates to the cornice of the 'Beehive' building and 'stops' or contains the simple pitched roof mass of the lower buildings, particularly when viewed on the approach from the Falls Road via Beechmount.  The lower roof of No. 201 abuts our new gable, expressing a simple triangle of masonry, not unlike the present gable between Nos. 199 and 197.