RIAI Public Choice Award 2023

This project provides 18 apartment units within a terrace of three Georgian townhouses. The original buildings date from c.1835 and are fine examples of late Dublin Georgian Architecture. Architectural devices such as the wainscotting to the upper ground floor rooms and freestanding ‘pods’ at first floor level contain services such as bathrooms and kitchens, so the original spatial quality and the architectural details of the rooms are preserved. 

The COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to an unprecedented barricading of individuals into their homes, with only daily walks and gardens offering any relief. Social connection moved online, or to the hyper-local, with chats over garden walls, claps on doorsteps, and neighbours looking out for each other. For many living in terraces, this led them out into alleys beyond their houses to find more outdoor recreational space and opportunities for socially distanced interaction with others. These spaces can offer more than just an extension of a back garden; they can increase permeability and connection on a city-wide scale. Over the last two years, 9ft in Common has been investigating Belfast’s alleys, walking and mapping these liminal spaces in the city and exploring their potential. 

150 years since the foundation of the school, and 50 years since it moved from the city to the suburbs, Alexandra College is securing its future as a premier educator, dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in all areas of education through the implementation of its 2017 Masterplan. The Hermione is the first step in the phased transformation of the college over the next decade. The project provides a new dormitory building which accommodates 200+ students and reinstates the college campus as a fully functioning village, creating exciting new social and academic possibilities. In addition to providing a home for students with the attendant facilities for sleeping, dining, and relaxing, along with laundry and storage areas, the Hermione provides new IT- enabled senior and junior study halls and music practice rooms.

A vernacular cottage is restored and extended to create a unique and characterful home. The journey through old and new provides a delightful collation of spatial and sensory experiences. The cottage is rooted and protective. The new contemporary addition nestles within the land, moving, floating, turning down to provide shelter. One is immersed in the landscape. Materials are raw and natural. Light penetrates and plays throughout in the most beautiful ways. 

The project is a residential redevelopment of a small, urban infill site, situated within an Architectural Conservation Area in Georgian Dublin. The site is prominent, sitting within the terrace at Percy Place at the perpendicular Grand Canal bridge junction leading to Mount Street Crescent and St Stephens Church, colloquially known as ‘The Pepper Canister Church’. Pre-existing on site was a two-storey mid-century detached dwelling, formerly owned by Waterways Ireland and in disrepair. The redevelopment infilled and joined the adjacent four-storey terraces with a new apartment building containing eight new apartments. 

The ambulance base sits amongst the mature trees on the northern edge of St. Joesph’s campus. Approached by a curved access roadway and elevated by two meters, the building is clad in Iroko Teak and offers pleasant views through a recessed window plane to the historic landscape. The staff often witness harrowing scenes and the intention has been to promote staff wellbeing and the opportunity for reflection. 

Ballyshannon Historic Towns Initiative is a heritage-led strategy for the regeneration of a historic town, involving targeted repairs to sixteen separately-owned properties. Working in partnership with the local authority and the community, the scheme developed skills, awareness, and capacity for future actions. The individual projects demonstrated the value of the historic town centre for community and tourism and raised awareness of appropriate and responsible methods of repair, proving that much-loved old buildings could be viable again. 

The Béal na Bláth ambush site is one of the most significant and emotive sites in Irish history. As part of the national commemorations marking the centenary of Michael Collins’ death, the Béal na Bláth memorial was upgraded to provide a new public space aimed at enhancing the visitor experience and reinstating the authenticity of the memorial landscape. Part of the project objective is to reclaim the original ground of a historic event from a modern vehicle roadway and to recognise and conserve the wider historical landscape of the valley. 

Avondale House in Co. Wicklow, built in 1775, has recently opened ‘Beyond the Trees’, an entirely new visitor experience within its grounds, featuring the longest tree-top walk in Ireland, a climbing tower with a 90m slide, orientation space, café, shop, exhibition space and a pavilion which tells the story of Coillte’s work in innovative forestry and climate action. 

The redevelopment of Avondale House and Forest Park has provided a new world-class visitor destination in Ireland’s Ancient East. This unique project, situated on a historic and environmentally-sensitive site, involved the restoration of historic buildings and the construction of a new building using sustainable, Irish-grown timber interventions. The Treetop Walk and Viewing Tower visitor experience is 100% accessible and the new visitor centre has been designed to ensure universal access for all age groups and abilities.

The bus plaza, located in the newly redeveloped carpark at Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, is the first plaza to be completed as part of the BusConnects programme which is currently being rolled out across the city. The plaza caters for greater access to public transport with the provision of bus stands and a fully accessible set down area. Buses use the plaza for set down and pick up, with park-up facilities located to the rear of the Centre. 

The four-storey linear building is home to 59 apartments providing social and cost rental housing in North Dublin. It is shaped ‘amidst’ the existing historic Holm Oak trees. The design maximises comfort, health and wellbeing to residents through an excellent relationship with natural light, exterior walkways and all outdoor space. The external walkways are designed to allow for incidental conversation and children’s play at each level, promoting inclusiveness for all residents. 

Central Plaza is the reinvention of the former Central Bank on Dame Street. Carefully designed to respect the legacy of Sam Stephenson’s 1970’s iconic building, Central Plaza modernises the city block for the 21st century. With shops, restaurants, offices and rooftop hospitality, all accessed via a newly regenerated and universally accessible plaza, the public is invited to engage with the building from street to roof level and the city beyond. 

The development comprises the demolition of a former dwelling on Charleston Road and the construction of 4 four-storey townhouses. These reinterpret the traditional Victorian townhouse, each house having a strong architectural form, characterised by a large curved brick bay with a deeply recessed window and a setback roof terrace. The internal arrangement of the houses has been carefully considered to benefit from natural daylight and external amenity. A mid-19th century dwelling to the rear has been reconfigured and refurbished as part of the development, providing a striking backdrop to each house. 

This project explores the potential to transform inner-city one bed cottages into A-rated family homes with spaces for working and playing with biodiverse green roofs and gardens. The solution is a ship-in-a-bottle puzzle; by dropping the floor at the back, an extra storey was squeezed in without compromising outdoor space. The garden and the surrounding context are key to the character of the house. Living spaces wrap around the garden with full height windows contrasting with the overgrowth and brick walls, emphasising the sense of a secret garden, buried in the heart of the city block. 

Clones Renewal Scheme demonstrates the integration of social housing into the dense urban fabric of an Irish town. The project reinvigorates the centre of Clones, Co. Monaghan by transforming derelict sites and bringing the land back into use for housing. The project resulted in the renewal or replacement of eleven dilapidated buildings across six sites. In total the scheme stitches 24 units, of varying types and tenures, into the heart of the town. 

Dartmouth Road is a new home built on an infill site within the curtilage of a Victorian House in the Dartmouth Square ACA. The project is an assembly of experiential spaces and a direct response to the context, regulations and client programme required. The building form and materials are shaped by the retained stone and concrete walls on the ground floor and the adjacent red brick properties on the first floor. 

Dominick Hall in the North inner city represents the first phase of the long-term ambition for the social, economic and environmental regeneration of the former flats complex and acts as an exemplar for future developments in the area. The mixed-use development delivers high-quality, energy-efficient and accessible homes, as well as commercial and community spaces to promote a balanced and inclusive community and sustainable neighbourhood. 

The 17th-century Elizabeth Fort in Cork City has been transformed into a new outdoor venue designed to host a variety of outdoor cultural events. The project has revitalised this important heritage asset and public amenity, via the sensitive insertion of an outdoor timber framed stage with removable covering, resurfaced ‘parade ground’, and retrofitted seating. Improvements to backstage and technical facilities, along with upgrades to the on-site infrastructure, will accommodate large audiences. 

This project involves the refurbishment and material alteration of two 19th century red brick structures, originally developed by Dublin Corporation in c. 1885-8 as part of a wider social housing development along Benburb Street. Together, the four-storey apartment building and two-storey terraced housing block provide a total of 19 apartments and three housing units, ranging from one bed to three bed accommodation. 

Clare County Council and Ennistymon Town Team came together to develop a plan-led path for the future of the town, by commissioning an Enhancement Strategy for Ennistymon. The strategy comprises of three strands – enhancement of the streetscape and public realm, feasibility study in relation to the future use of the iconic Blakes and Linnanes (Protected Structures), and identification of opportunity sites in the town. 

Located at the centre of the Dublin’s Georgian Mile, this modern office building sits comfortably amongst the restrained elegance of the surrounding Georgian context. The interlocking interior and exterior spaces, multiple level pathways, sunken gardens and a café-restaurant are intended to encourage interaction, where ESB employees and the public can meet. The design is entwined with a sustainable agenda to deliver a healthy and energy efficient design for its occupants, where a high-quality work environment is provided, delivering flexible and adaptable floor plates and naturally ventilated spaces within a building made with high-quality robust materials and workmanship that knits into the city fabric and will stand the test of time.

Gardenmore Green is a contemporary social housing development providing 14 new homes for the local community of West Belfast. The sloped topography of the site, combined with the variety of pitched roof structures, creates an interesting ‘stepped’ streetscape experience that sensitively integrates with the surrounding residential context. The homes are carefully arranged internally to provide high-quality living spaces that are bright, spacious and capable of responding to the demands of everyday family life. 

Glensavage is a development of eight houses and two apartment buildings on an irregular, linear site in Blackrock, Co. Dublin. Narrow at its northern entrance, the site opens out in the centre, before narrowing again to a point at its southern end. Enclosed by granite rubble walls, the site is heavily landscaped with tall stands of existing mature trees interspersed throughout. The scheme is planned with three single-storey ‘gate lodge’ houses at the entrance, five larger two-storey houses clustered at the centre and two three-storey apartment buildings to the south, in a loose arrangement, stepping back and forward in plan following the irregularities of the site and existing treescape. 

Originally built for the Royal Navy’s need to supply its Atlantic fleet with supplies, this storehouse was converted to high quality accommodation for 70, serving Irish Naval Service personnel, as part of a series of renovation projects commissed by the Defence Forces. Classical but utilitarian, they are constructed of local limestone, three-storeys and an attic with parapets and a mansard slated roof. 

The existing building, located at a focal point on the corner of Hollymount's Main Street, was once a busy general store and family home. Having laid dormant for a number of years, the potential has been realised and the property has been now refurbished to serve as two family homes - removing the presence of dilapidation from the Main Street, whilst retaining character and connection to the existing context. 

The International Rugby Experience celebrates the worldwide game of rugby through its architecture and visitor experience. As a new destination in the heart of Limerick, it will help revitalise the city centre with social, economic and cultural benefits. The brick building speaks to its Georgian townhouse neighbours and as a contemporary take on tall, historic civic buildings, it successfully bridges the gap between Limerick’s commercial core and sensitive Georgian Quarter. 

This project looks to find an alternative to the familiar arrangement of low-density housing organised around an un-programmed central ‘green’. Referencing familiar residential areas such as Dublin’s Portobello, density was maximised  for what is a majority own-door access scheme by reducing back-to-back distances between units. Terraced houses, book-ended by apartments arranged within an orthogonal matrix, maintain ‘the street’ as the focus for communal and social life. 

The house is situated in place of a pre-existing garage in a Dalkey garden. The narrow site contains two interconnected brick volumes, interconnected by a double height space which allows light into the depth of the plan and section. The interior is characterised by a limited palette of materials: birch plywood, polished concrete floors, exposed concrete frames and painted plaster. The house is designed to achieve a BER rating of A2; an air-to-water heat pump services underfloor heating at ground floor level with low temperature aluminium radiators at first floor level. The house is detailed to be airtight and benefits from a heat recovery ventilation system. 

Inclusion, sociability and flexibility are the core principles of this design. The project includes two new ASD classrooms, sensory support spaces and a mainstream classroom. Seamlessly integrating, the new accommodation was achieved by making a new whole school entrance and converting a centrally located classroom into a central activities space which is used by all pupils. A sensory garden opens from the classroom spaces. 

This project involved updating former officer accommodation from 1888 from an abandoned state and areas of collapse into a modern accommodation facility, restoring and conserving the original fabric in the process. The conservation focus of the project also included the craftspeople, re‐establishing lost traditions and skills which were once common in the city. 

The Merrion Road Development replaces the Tara Towers Hotel and features an 8-storey hotel pavilion facing Dublin Bay, while the residential block meanders around it, stepping from six to four storeys. A terrace of five townhouses with a smaller apartment building and landscaped gardens complete the development on the former carpark site. The development provides a high-quality architectural design that is responsive to its context, while positively contributing to the city’s urban fabric. 

Dublin is a brick city, however knowledge relating to the historical manufacture, production, and skillset of this fundamental material is in danger of being lost. This project takes the first step in the conservation and re-establishing of these critical skills and supporting the craftspeople who will pass them to the next generation. 

The new school campus for 1000 pupils is planned in four elements – two wings of teaching accommodation, a multi-use hall and a SEN Unit, all pivoted around a central shared GP hub which forms the heart of the school. The concourses broaden out to accommodate social and informal learning areas and a variety of open stairs and tiered steps facilitates the flow of pupils and light through the school. 

This four-storey laboratory, connected to the existing building via a glazed link, delivers an optimised pathology department and National Centre of Excellence for Screening Services. The narrow building plan comprises double aspect, bright spaces that optimise working conditions for staff. A series of vertical fins deliver a striking aesthetic, providing both privacy and solar shading, with perception of the building changing depending on viewpoint, time of day and light conditions. 

Designing North King Street Housing as a regeneration project involved consideration of urban design, streetscape, density, and creating a sustainable community for living in the Markets Area of Dublin. The six-storey project comprises of 30 apartments. Sustainable design solutions were prepared by a highly skilled professional team at each project stage, including low embodied carbon and low operational carbon. The project has exceeded targets by achieving A1 building energy ratings. 

This first phase of the regeneration of the former O’Devaney Gardens Estate seeks to create a sustainable, integrated community. This 56-unit scheme comprises a mix of houses, apartments and duplex units. The scale of the scheme modulates in response to existing and future contexts with blocks ranging in height from two to four storeys. Despite 65% of the dwellings having own-door access direct from the street, the scheme achieves a plot density of 77 units per hectare. 

Passage House, a collaboration between architects and a woodworking master’s studio, is an experimental structure, a demonstration of local skills, constructed by craftspeople in locally sourced materials - stone, timber and thatch. Research questions included investigating, by means of a built experiment, how contemporary design and traditional materials could be combined to make something meaningful and innovative; exploring, in the crossover between craft and design, how non-skilled and highly skilled craftspeople could collaborate together in a working experiment, all of us learning by doing; and demonstrating, in an outdoor pavilion, how something new and engaging could be made from natural materials and traditional technologies. 

The Primark Belfast – The Bank Buildings flagship store reopened four years after a devastating fire in August 2018. While the fire resulted in the collapse of the original internal cast iron and timber frame structure, the historic sandstone, granite and brick façade was left standing, although in a precarious state. Primark’s passion for bricks-and-mortar retailing is evident in their determination to painstakingly restore this B1 listed historic and iconic building.

Printing House Square, off Pearse Street, is the first new square to be built in Trinity for 200 years, making a new gateway between the college and city. The courtyard form provides 250 student bedrooms in clusters of six to eight with living, kitchen and dining spaces; College Health Centre, Disability Services and Sports Centre. The building form has an undulating granite roof, reflecting both distant mountains and groupings of Georgian roofs. The stone roof is folded down, creating an intimate context around the 18th century Printing House. 

This project provides renewed high quality external space and accommodation for a new department of engineering for King’s College London while negotiating complex heritage and site constraints. Constructed entirely through a 3.6m wide archway on The Embankment whilst maintaining a live campus environment, the building was constructed in 1948, following the destruction of the original building by WWII bombing. With a only a third of the embodied carbon of exemplar new builds and delivering a 70% CO2 emissions improvement, this project is an exemplar of sustainable retrofit. 

Reactivate 12th Lock is a masterplan for the adaptive reuse of abandoned spaces along the Grand Canal between the new residential areas of Clonburris and Adamstown and the Grange Castle Business Park. The area contains over a dozen derelict buildings of different scales and character and in varied states of disrepair. The challenge of the brief was to identify proposed land uses to bring these structures back to life, populating the 12th Lock area with active uses and providing safe and joyful public spaces, harnessing the area’s natural beauty. 

The extension and refurbishment of this modest end-of-terrace cottage in Sandycove was a study in how to extend and make a much bigger family home without losing the charm and scale of the original cottage. The new extension fits comfortably into its context and adds a distinct new character, full of light and variety of view revealed as you move through from the original house to the new. 

This project involves the provision of flushing toilets, smokeless kitchens, bored wells, rain water harvesting and substantial vegetable gardens to five schools with over 6000 learners in Lesotho, Southern Africa. These schools had appalling sanitation with a high risk of disease and no dignity for learners. They buildings are universally designed and make a strong design statement within the community, albeit quite simple in scale and palette. 

This house was designed to Passivhaus Standards with a warmth and elegance created by natural timber cladding on the walls and roof. A simple, clean form was created, resulting in a house that sits confortably in the landscape. The oversized windows highlight the stunning views of the mountains and create a transparency, constantly connecting its occupants to the views. Structurally, thermally and clad using timber, this house is surpassing 2030 environmental goals. 

A new five-storey building on a previously vacant city centre site provides new music facilities, an urban farm, general classrooms, rehearsal room and greater connectivity to O’Reilly Theatre for Belvedere College. A natural palette of exposed and polished concrete, brick and timber creates a serene learning environment. A dramatic central stairs and atrium bring light into the building, linking the school’s inner courtyard to the street. 

EXO is the tallest office building in Ireland. A unique engineering concept, it features an exoskeleton structure, referencing the iconic blue gantries of the Dublin docklands. Both a tower and an elevated beam of accommodation, it responds directly to its unique location on Point Square adjacent to the 3Arena venue, simultaneously marking this new public space and extending the public realm at ground level. It is a highly sustainable LEED V3 Platinum certified development.

The Lower House was an ambitious conservation and adaptive reuse project to reimagine the former ‘Richmond Lunatic Asylum’ as an educational hub for Technological University Dublin at Grangegorman. The project faced the challenges of adapting a nineteenth century protected structure in a perilous condition without a roof, into a contemporary university building that considers universal design and allows for future flexibility, while retaining its inherent character. The project forms a memory to the building’s institutional past while celebrating modern design. 

The Old Schoolhouse was originally built as a doctor's house in the 1820's and subsequently extended and changed into a convent school and artist’s studio. Previously impossible to heat, this house was renovated using light touch removals and improvements to make the house and new garden comfortable and useful as a live-work space throughout the year. Main living spaces are to the rear, close to the garden and sun. The street-facing rooms are for work and guests, with a winter sitting room. 

Located on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, directly south of the Samuel Beckett Bridge, the riverfront context presented a unique opportunity to create an enduring architectural-set piece. The resulting design is a composition of three distinct interconnecting building elements: the restored and converted 1890s warehouse protected structure, a new lightweight cantilevered structure oversailing the warehouse building, and a new seven-storey office building. 

The project has created a new vibrant pedestrian area and focal point for Tramore town centre. Challenging topography is worked into stepped seating; paving cascades like waves down to the street. This is one part of a bigger picture to improve connections between Tramore and its surrounding areas. There has been a positive reaction from the local community and for the first time ever there has been a request from the local business community not to reopen this street to traffic. 

This new building for An Garda Síochána boasts a civic presence, befitting the community and their State role, while reflecting their vision for a modern police force. It is mindful of their specialist operational needs and security requirements.The building is arranged as three blocks around a central atrium over two-levels of basement. Its form reinforces the historic curve of Military Road. The building is energy-efficient and sustainable with universal access for all. 

This suburban semi-detached house in South Dublin benefitted from a large south-facing side garden. The existing kitchen was extended with a dining and living room contained within a hall-like space with a ceiling extending upwards to enjoy the views to the Dublin mountains. A new bedroom and bathroom hangs over the kitchen, providing shade. A utility opens to the original rear garden. The extension divides the garden into three smaller gardens with terraces placed to catch the sun. A Douglas fir structural frame is infilled with timber studwork and insulated externally with woodfibre clad with plywood stained with red pine tar. Plasterboard and Douglas fir plywood line the interior.

This project arose in lockdown, to make a space for a novelist to write in solitude in his garden. With the site inaccessible to builders behind an existing terrace of houses, the room was designed so that it could be constructed off site and craned into position. This aspect governed the design in order for its weight to work with the capacity of the crane. The form was also shaped by these limits; the room was made with an exoskeleton which allowed it to be hung when in motion and to sit on its foundations once in position. With these contingencies, a space for a rich internal world was found, lined in red-stained beech and mirror. It provides a desk to work from, and a daybed to rest. Placed in a corner of the garden, the room seeks to capture a series of spaces between itself and the surrounding planting. Recognising that repose is as important as production the room reaches beyond the site also, providing a distant view to the sea from the daybed via its mirrored ceiling.