RIAI Public Choice Award 2024

A simple, modest façade belies the intricate, fragile and rare interiors of this early-Georgian home steeped in character and rich in history. Quietly nestled among the bustling Dublin streetscape, the established typology of living over the shop has a renewed sense of quality at 14 Clarendon Street. The success of this project has been greatly influenced by the careful process of repair informed by specialist craftsmen, tradespersons, and intricate bespoke detailing.

In 1953 Nevill Johnson photographed 24-25 Fenian Street as a fully-functioning tenement. Pre-dating Merrion Square, by 2017 it was the last surviving early 18thc house on the street, retaining most of its features. The house was conserved, with a brick tower added to the yard facing Denzille Lane. Accessible walkways and a new staircase link both structures across a brick courtyard, making a small hotel, retaining the materiality of the early building.

Situated on a dense, low-rise Victorian street (73 dwellings/ha in long plots), this project explores how to adapt this familiar narrow typology without compromising on quality of life, to offer a model for high-density contemporary homes. Affording a sense of spaciousness and well-being, the sustainable hybrid construction (concrete frame ground floor and timber frame first floor) ensures longevity and flexibility while remaining accessible to the small-scale, domestic builder market.

In 2019, the European Commission adopted a Communication on the European Green Deal, in which the renovation of both public and private buildings was singled out as a key initiative to drive energy efficiency in the sector and deliver on climate objectives. Following this, the European Commission published ‘A Renovation Wave for Europe’ which aims to at least double annual energy renovation rates in the next ten years and to foster deeper renovations. Our existing buildings are at the front line of carbon reduction strategies. This includes our heritage buildings, all ages and types. This research sets out evidence-based approaches to guide appropriate interventions to improve their energy efficiency and thus aid carbon reduction.

The project called for an innovative design to preserve the historic significance of the clachan. A typical approach would be to demolish, renovate or merge the existing within the new dwelling design. However, the clients were adamant on keeping the original ruins largely untouched, safeguarding the emotions and memories of the past. Creating a dwelling, that becomes part of an original Irish clachan, and tells an ever-immerging story.

This project involves the conservation and adaption of two gate lodges, framing the entrance to Hope Castle Estate, creating a public library and community spaces, and an extension containing a children’s library. Buildings that once formed a barrier between town and estate lands are now transformed into public amenity spaces. The design of the extension is composed to convey openness and activity, whilst framing views of the lakes and landscape beyond.

A core objective of Cornamona Court was to create opportunities for older tenants of council-owned houses to be rehoused into purpose-designed apartments within their neighbourhood. The design intent focused on three elements: creating a strong frontage to Kylemore Road with a four-and five-storey range of apartments; lining the site’s rear boundary with a terrace of single-aspect family houses; forming a landscaped courtyard to give the development a sense of place.

An exemplar of deep retrofit refurbishment in a six-storey 1970s office development, this scheme provides flagship new headquarters for the Department of Environment. Considered design interventions in respect of energy performance upgrading, embodied carbon, circular economy and environmental design - including a new central atrium providing natural ventilation and daylight - have transformed the building into a modern flexible work environment, safeguarding the future of this unique building for another 70 years.

Donnybrook Gardens was formerly the home of UCD’s School of Horticulture and takes its inspiration from the horticultural history of the site. The five buildings, comprising a total of 86 apartments, are linked together by a series of shared common gardens, with a central south facing lawn, a variety of deciduous and evergreen trees and herbaceous borders.

The former c.1923 redbrick electrical substation is a modest piece of industrial heritage that has been reimagined as a multi-purpose event space for Dublin Port. Conserved to best practice, extended with contemporary glass and concrete structures to double its footprint with a glazed viewing panel within, to reveal the eighteenth-century sea wall below, illustrating the historic layering of the site, where the city once met the sea.

The Forensic Science Laboratory provides cleanroom, laboratory, office and support environments to international best practice, essential to the Irish Judicial system. The project has been delivered to meet the technical demands of modern investigative forensics and client requirements while also minimising energy, embodied carbon and water usage, enhancing biodiversity and promoting the wellbeing of staff. The high performance technical spaces work in conjunction with flexible, comfortable office spaces through proximity and visual interconnection, both internally and to the surrounding campus, to provide an exemplary working environment.

The project involved the complete strip out, re-furnishment and fit out of a three-storey former restaurant in an old coach house building off Baggot Street to create a new dynamic and inspiring furniture showroom for MJF Interiors to showcase their furniture lines, office glazed screens and accessories. The existing building has been transformed from a dark, constricted warren of small rooms to a large light filled open space.

An all-timber micro extension of three square meters to the rear of the house at ground and first floor transforms the key spaces in this two-storey Victorian terrace. The approach was driven by a desire to provide maximum impact with minimal construction work, meaning lower costs and minimal environmental impact. The renovation focused on improving connections between living spaces, adding space only where needed and maximising sunlight and views.

This design for parish housing, including a rectory, ‘community hub’, curate’s house and a mix of high quality, dual aspect, BER A2-rated dwellings, creates a small but significant mixed-use sustainable neighbourhood of nine dwellings on a previously under-utilised site. The design intent proposes varied house typologies as an appropriate form for infill development and urban intensification, a model for the ‘missing middle’ and long-term sustainable regeneration of city suburbs.

The Old Mill was never a mill. A boarded-up shell of a 19th century grainstore, in the heart of Kinsale’s medieval town centre, has been transformed into a public library and exhibition space laid out over three levels on a new engineered timber structure hung from the eaves of the existing ruin. A vessel for stories and imagination, the building re-engages its urban context and invites robust conversation.

The clients for this project, three friends, purchased an awkward, unappreciated site and developed, for themselves, a terrace of three new two-bedroomed, three-storey dwellings. The site constraints were significant, due to the limited site dimensions, and each dwelling responds accordingly, differing in layout, but with the same floor area and general arrangement. A visionary client and an exceptional contractor, from inauspicious beginnings, to three new houses in the city.

The character of this garden extension arises from reading the typical Dublin ‘backlands’ that contain a variety of informal structures of mixed styles and materiality. The project reconfigures this ordinary palette of concrete and corrugation into a refined mix of formal and informal. Interior spaces led the design by creating a dialogue between the upper ‘plastic’ world of light catching clerestory and a lower world of structure and lining.

Located on a steeply sloped site overlooking the sea on the South-East coast of Ireland, this new house is composed of a series of spaces linked by pockets of courtyard, sensitively integrated into and celebrating the surrounding landscape. Gently pigmented concrete walls reflect the local granite. While light, air and views are woven through the house, the surrounding new gardens are characterised by playful paths meandering between biodiverse native planting.

The design provides 101 residential apartments at Castle Park, Dalkey, creating a vibrant and sustainable neighbourhood that harmoniously blends public and private amenities. Embracing cutting-edge off-site construction methods, the design prioritises construction efficiency, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness throughout. By utilising less than 30% of the heavily wooded and sloping site area, the proposal demonstrates a commitment to environmental stewardship, preserving the surrounding woodland and minimizing the development’s ecological footprint.

The neighbourhood of the Liberties in Dublin was selected for its variety of patterns of settlement, its diverse inhabitation, and variety of living environments and housing / building types within a low-rise but densely occupied urban context. Proposals were developed to expand existing living and working infrastructures; a tool kit for ‘gardening’ inherited plots and building stock in a process of pruning, grafting, and companion planting; a kind of urban horticulture.

The works comprise of the renovation and construction of an addition to a family dwelling. We cleared some small lean-to extensions to the rear and restored the plan order of the original house. The plan of rooms results in is deep and convivial moderating spaces for a family alongside rooms for individual retreat. The existing and the new drawn together as an enfilade formed in light.

This farmhouse is for a new generation on an equine farm in an area of outstanding natural beauty. The design was inspired by surrounding agricultural buildings and used passive solar principles to achieve a high environmental rating. Irish-grown Douglas fir timber was used for the structure. West-facing living spaces open onto a covered terrace allowing life to spill outside. The bedrooms and study face east over the fields.

One Lime Street is the final piece of the Cardiff Lane redevelopment, comprising 216 dwellings on a site previously occupied by a number of obsolete buildings. The design integrates residential and communal spaces, reinforcing the urban block morphology and introducing new facades to define the streets. Oriented along a North-South axis, the building maximises daylight to create a central, green urban courtyard, articulated through the use of traditional materials.

Price’s Medical Hall in Dublin 2 is a well-known pharmacy since 1837. The Protected Structure is from the early Georgian era (1760-1810) with Victorian timber corner shopfront and beautiful carved timber and cast iron detailing.  It required funding, with the business remaing structural consolidation to the shopfront, first floor beam and upper floors with attentive brick repairs and lime mortar repointing to the brick facade. The works were carried out in three phases with BHIS and Historic Structure grant funding while remaining open throughout the works.

The library combines historical and modern elements in its design, creating a unique and inviting space. The white brick facade is adorned with colourful vertical blades that add visual interest and contrast. The interior is bright and spacious, and accessible to everyone. A neon sign from the 1970s, “Dom Książki”, connects the library’s past and present. The library offers a variety of books and events for the community.

This project involves the refurbishment and extension of the former Dublin Skin Cancer and Urinary Hospital. The existing buildings were in a significant state of dilapidation following years of neglect and the stablisation, repair, consolidation and development to the rear took place over ten years. The redevelopment delivers a mixed-use building containing office, restaurant and cultural spaces.

The MacKenzie and Moncur Vinery and Propagation House were originally erected (c.1870’s) at Seamount, Malahide. They were donated to Fingal County Council for re-instatement at Ardgillan Demesne. The timber and steel components were found stored in numerous outbuildings where an in-depth study of the surviving elements was undertaken to inform the conservation strategy. No drawings existed of the original construction. The glasshouses were pieced together from reference to historical photographs.

The project, which provides facilities for boats moored in the small craft harbour, is located at the edge of a man-made pier, on an extremely exposed site and deals with the threshold between sky, land, and sea. The roof, a simple inverted planar surface, directs rainwater back into the sea via a large spout and rises on the south-eastern corner to allow for a look-out over the harbour entrance.

With 564 apartments and 350 un/ha, Sandyford Central serves as a model for high density, sustainable urban development. The six building blocks were strategically planned to complete an unfinished development while creating pedestrian pathways along high quality landscaping that promote permeability and foster new urban connections.

Sperrin House blends tradition and sustainability. Drawing from local vernacular forms and primitive stone dwellings, the contemporary timber-clad ”barn-like” form sits atop a textured concrete base, maximising views over the Sperrin Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Repurposed stone from a former on-site dwelling knits into the newly built form, getting a second life as a contributor to a now light-filled, low-impact composition befitting the client’s vision through an innovative blend of past and future.

St. David’s perches on the water’s edge in Greystones. It transforms the small, sloped site by densifying accommodation: building up and laying down - a lighthouse of teaching spaces sits between two existing buildings, while a ground-based sports hall pegs out the territory for play. This allows for an increased school population of 750, the two new elements are connected with an intense landscape intervention navigating the levels across the site.

The Rambling Houses at Fartha were proposed as a set of three experimental structures, demonstrations of local skills and built in locally sourced materials. Rambling houses were found in old Irish villages, gathering places for music and storytelling, places open to the passer-by. The material quality of two old farmhouses at Fartha were a starting point for this conversation between Architects and makers, resilient structures having supported life and community for many generations. Stone Vessel, the second in the series, is built entirely out of stone and assembled by hand, stone on stone.

The design of the Strength & Conditioning Gym takes advantage of its triangular site to make a strong geometric proposal. The dark toned cladding of the sloped triangular form ensures the massing recedes visually, important within its surroundings of high value landscape. A lattice of glulam beams holds up the roof and is left exposed as the primary internal feature. Mass timber CLT wall panels top a flood protected base structure.

The Campus, Cherrywood, focuses on sustainability and wellbeing. The project included a masterplan with multiple interventions. The Canopy and Sunken Garden offer a place for people to interact and share ideas, while enjoying the benefits of a natural biophilic environment. Constructed from glulam timber, an exemplar of sustainability. The Meeting Pods offer biophilic meeting spaces, nestled within the tree canopy, creating 300% of their energy requirements, powering the site-wide lighting.

Church of Oak Distillery, located along the canal outside Monasterevin, Co. Kildare, is a historic grain mill reborn as a contemporary whiskey-making haven. Embracing its deep ties to the town’s industrial history, it provides visitors with a distinctive journey, immersing them in the area’s rich heritage and the art of whiskey-making. The project plays a pivotal role in revitalising a historical industry within the town and its surrounding region.

The Lark Theatre is a new 400-seat venue and music school facility in the town of Balbriggan. The structure is part of the Irish Institute of Music and Song campus and is located next to a three-storey Georgian House which provides accommodation for visiting artists and scholars. The building itself also provides classrooms suitable for large groups which also serve as rehearsal rooms for the recital hall.

The Residences at Sandford Close are the first completed Low-Rise, High-Density Residential Development in Ireland. Building upon extensive long-term research projects into high-density residential design, the scheme achieves a density of 100 units per hectare, fitting into the surrounding residential context and providing a more cost effective typology than comparable apartment developments.  

Designed and constructed during the pandemic, the Rock Wing delivered single occupancy rooms for 5000 additional patients annually. Catering for highly infectious patients, it reduced pressure on public services, spread of the virus and impact on critical hospital and community services. The building form is setback, providing a landscaped edge along Eccles Street, setting the principles of a linear public park to be completed in future developments.

The Trim Library and Cultural Centre, through consolidation of the historic town centre, conservation of the protected Chapel and the provision of a significant new civic space for the arts, contributes to Trim’s long-term sustainable economic, social and cultural regeneration. Design intent hinges on the creation of a new collective space, gathering an assemblage of disparate components, anchored by a new 247-seat Auditorium, as the cultural hub of the town.

This project delivers a range of healthcare services in the Grove Hospital, Tuam, a landmark building with an important social history.
The design refurbishes and utilises as much of the existing building as possible. New build interventions are designed to demark entrances and provide new accommodation, employing a contemporary concrete aesthetic that is sympathetic in terms of scale, proportion, and materiality and one which complements the existing heritage on site.

Inspired by Vavasour Square itself, this project is about emphasis and exclusion, and how the marking of a square gives heightened presence to the space framed within that geometry. By backing the new living spaces around the perimeter, the imposing presence of the adjacent apartments is diminished. Emphasis is reasserted towards the garden, and borrowed views of mature neighbouring trees lend a more secluded character – a refuge in the city.

Wilkinsons Brook, located on the northern edge of Tyrellstown - an expanding settlement to the northwest of Dublin - provides 69 new two, three and four bed family homes. The project sets new standards for higher density, low-rise, family orientated neighbourhoods in response to changing 21st century living patterns.