No.’s 7 and 8 Lucky Lane, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 wins one of six annual AAI Awards for 2010. Charles Jencks, invited critic on this years AAI Awards Jury, described images of the housing ‘as good as Edward Hopper’ and ‘too exquisite’ to be real. “it’s so poignant, almost melancholy. It’s late Sunday afternoon and everythings’s gone, and there’s no sign of any food or hope. Look at how the light hits her head…” 

The Beach House, Port Oriel, Co. Louth is completed. 

A2 Architects in collaboration with John Gerrard, Artist, are invited to participate in EV+A 2010 Limerick.

Eight pig slat benches, echoing the eight pig sheds represented in ‘Grow Finish Unit (near Elkhart, Kansas) 2008′ are installed in the 3rd floor space of a redundant office block in Limerick City. The polished floor is treated as a plain or expanse on which the benches rest. From the windows views are offered to an area of Limerick formerly known as ‘Pigtown’ that once accommodated many slaughterhouses and pig processing factories.

The benches are made from two types of readymade drained slatted floor sections used in pig production farms, one with an undulating anti-slip surface for the sow and the other with a heated floor pan insert to provide comfort to piglets. The public are invited to sit on these benches, and in so doing, can experience a little of what it feels to rest upon them.

Medium: galvanised mild steel floor slats (2200mm x 600mm), galvanised mild steel farrowing cage handles (25mm pipe diameter legs), galvanised mild steel mechanical fixings.

‘Counter-Axis’, A2 Architects’ Europan 10 entry for Ballymun, Dublin, is awarded runner-up prize in the Europan International Housing Competition 2010. A traversing counter-axis becomes an inhabited bridge of 15no. artists studios The counter-axis stitches two large community parks together to form a linear elevated promenade to be enjoyed through browsing, walking, skating, jogging, running, cycling by citizens and visitors alike. This counter-axis penetrates a new public room, housing various art spaces in the existing boilerhouse and pumphouse. The scale of this new multi-dimensional room will act as an attractor of citizens not just from Ballymun but also from Dublin City and further afield (www.europan-europe.com)

‘New Order’, two new terraced mews houses by A2 Architects, mark the beginnings of a new street on an existing lane in the dense inner-city area of Stoneybatter, Dublin. In all ten identical terraced mews houses have so far been granted permission on the lane. A ‘double return’ mews typology is developed by employing a return to both the front and rear of the new mews houses. A repeating bracket‐like party wall of light polychromatic stock brick establishes the recurring structure and enclosure for the new houses.

A2 Architects in collaboration with John Gerrard, Artist, complete a 150m2  art/work/dining/kitchen ground floor space at Loquaiplatz, Vienna. The long windowed nave space, overlooking a park, is served by a number of alcoves housing kitchen, production area and ancillary accommodation.A finely polished concrete floor slab, a central spine of power services and a number of robust stone elements carefully structure the space. (www.johngerrard.net)

Caomhan Murphy is invited as guest critic to the Master of Architecture reviews, School of Architecture, University of Sydney.

A2 Architects Lecture, ‘Emerging Work” School of Architecture, University of Sydney.
‘Thursday Night Lectures at the University of Sydney investigate wide-ranging interdisciplinary ideas about the culture of architecture, planning and allied arts. The series seeks to stimulate debate amongst, students, professionals, the University and wider communities.’ 

A two-bedroom apartment in one of the first apartment complexes by Zoe Developments is remodelled, providing a studio apartment of a quality appropriate to its setting on the Liffey Quays. Substandard partitions, services and finishes are stripped out and a grand room of dual aspect, overlooking the Halfpenny Bridge, is revealed. A high gloss red ceiling reflects the southerly light of the Liffey River by day, while at night radiates a warm glow, both within the apartment as well as to passers-by outside.

Peter Carroll co-directs UL Regional Planning Think Tank at the School of Architecture, University of Limerick (www.saul.ie)

A2 Architects are awarded ‘Best Educational Building 2009′ for Eurocampus/ Lycee Francais d’Irlande in the RIAI Architecture Awards 2009