‘To win this award for our work on an iconic building in our home city of Hull is extra special’
The glazing at the Hull office has won a top award(Image: EYG Group)
A prime Hull building which was transformed in a multimillion-pound makeover has been judged to be ‘best in glass’ at a major awards event. The former Europa House office in Hull city centre lay empty for years before it was taken over by new owners Allenby Commercial.
The developers carried out a dramatic transformation, turning the property into a stunning, modern workspace which opened last summer, 50 years on from the time it first welcomed tenants. It is also home to Daze, an uber-cool coffee house on the ground floor.
Home to a number of businesses, the eye-catching building at the junction of Anlaby Road and Ferensway is now called Monocle, its name taken inspiration from its curved facade. Now the company responsible for its stunning windows has been hailed for completing the ‘UK’s best installation on a commercial single building’ at the 2026 Glass & Glazing Products Installer Awards.
Hull-based glazing specialist EYG Group took the top award after the installation on the Monocle was described as a ‘brilliant transformation’ by the judging panel, who chose the project as the winner over six other finalists. The judges said the project was “a very impressive update to an existing building, giving a nod to how it was originally. The way heavy glazing units were lifted up to each floor with ease makes this a brilliant transformation.”
The Glass & Glazing Products Installer Awards celebrate and recognise UK excellence, covering projects and products from home extensions to heritage installations and commercial developments. EYG Group has now been successful at the awards in three of the last four years.
To find all the planning applications, traffic diversions, road layout changes, alcohol licence applications and more, visit the Public Notices Portal .
The firm was previously named winners of the same award in 2024 for the Tree Tops development, at Hesslewood Business Park, in East Yorkshire for Brooklands Property Holdings, a collection of woodland pods nestled among the trees in the scenic parklands to house commercial and retail businesses.
In 2023 the company was named winner of the ‘Best Conservatory or Orangery Installation under £35,000’ category for what judges called an ‘outstanding’ conservatory at a customers’ home.
For the installation at the Monocle, a curtain walling system was used from suppliers AluK to create the impressive facade. Single glazing was replaced with 400 1m x2.6m high-performance double-glazed units, laminated in a neutral solar control finish to provide excellent solar protection, while reducing the need for artificial light inside.
Each unit had to be lifted by crane to the required floor, and was passed by a specialist glazing robot outside and fitted, as the curtain walling sections were too small to fit the units conventionally from the inside. In total, more than 66,000kg of glass was installed, all complying to regulations to ensure the safety of all using the building.
Nick Ward, managing director of EYG, said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to have won this award again, and we are proud of our track record of success in recent years, winning recognition for both our commercial and domestic installations. It is never easy to be shortlisted for these awards given the many stunning glazing installations across the country, so to win three times in four years is testimony to the quality of our products, our manufacturing standards, our skilled installation teams, and the partners and suppliers we work with.
“To win this award for our work on an iconic building in our home city of Hull is also of course extra special. It was a complex job which we were entrusted to do by Allenby Commercial, and we are delighted that everybody has been so pleased with the outcome.”
Did you know you can make Hull Live a preferred source of Hull news in Google, which will mean you get more of our breaking news, exclusives, and must-read stories straight away? Here’s more information about what this means and how to do it – you can also do it straight away by clicking here .