Belfast WoW Centre

Improvements were made to facilities on the southern shore of Belfast Lough. An enlarged gallery was created with a panoramic view of birds and other wildlife visiting the nature reserve within the Port of Belfast.

Belfast Window on Wildlife is a single-storey, steel-framed, low-profile building with extensive glass frontage. Facilities include a community room and toilets.

A high-level tower with ninety nesting boxes was designed to attract swifts. It was manufactured off-site and secured to a piled foundation established in a generally inaccessible area of soft ground. A lower structure, an artificial sandbank, was developed to encourage the nesting of sand martins.

Construction was completed on a tight programme that respected nesting habits, and behind a temporary scaffolding and netting screen to minimise intrusion to the ecosystem.

With no drainage on the site, a Klargester settlement tank was installed to treat effluent to a high level prior to discharge. Storm drainage is direct to the lagoon.