Criminal Courts of Justice voted Ireland's favourite new building
Published: Monday, June 21, 2010
New court building wins Public Choice Award at Irish Architecture Awards
The Criminal Courts of Justice, designed by Henry J Lyons, has been voted Ireland’s favourite new building. The new court building was the People’s Choice in this year’s RIAI Irish Architecture Awards 2010, which were announced today at the RIAI Annual Awards ceremony at Farmleigh. A total of fourteen projects received awards. Full details and images of all the winning projects are available on www.irisharchitectureawards.ie.
The People’s Choice Award is designed to raise awareness of architecture in Ireland. Since the shortlist of 55 projects was announced two weeks ago, the RIAI has received over 9,000 votes, 20% of which went to the Criminal Courts of Justice. Other projects which came close to clinching the prestigious award were Sandford Park Multi-Purpose Hall, Ranelagh in Dublin, and 1 Strawberry Hill, Sundays Well, Cork.
The Engineering and Informatics Building, Athlone Institute of Technology, won the award for Best Educational Building while St. Patrick’s Place, a mixed-use development in Cork, won for Best Sustainable Project. The Criminal Courts of Justice also won the Best Accessible Project Award.
This year, a new category was added to reflect the extensive high quality work that Irish architects are doing internationally. Brady Mallalieu is the first recipient of this new award for their London project, 4 Mastermaker Road. The project contains 199 homes contained in two towers and five low rise buildings as well as a coffee shop and retail space, a community centre with allotments and a rooftop sports pitch.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, John Graby, Director, RIAI, said, “At a time of immense challenge for the architectural profession, it is heartening to see such excellence in architectural design. It is also gratifying that as the quality of the buildings produced every year continues to increase, so does public interest in good design, as we can see from the strong response to the Public Choice Award. “
Eddie Conroy, Chairperson of the Judging Panel, said, “The jury were pleased with the broad range of submissions that were received this year despite the economic downturn. Domestic work, where the Architect-Client relationship is closest, was the most vigorous and innovative. Larger schemes were improved by a growing understanding of the benefits of urban design. Procurement regimes seemed to have a deadening effect on Public projects particularly in the Health and Education sectors.”
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