Category Archives: News

In collaboration with Upstart and Dublin City Council this Summer, A2 Architects have master-planned a Pop-Up Park for Dublin City Centre. From 22nd August ‘Granby Park’ will transform a vacant site on Dominick Street Lower. An A2-designed education hub/dining area/exhibition space will be housed within a 20x20m repeating multi-bay layout of partially covered aluminium poly-tunnels on a jigsaw-like platform of painted ply sheeting. The sheeting is arranged loosely so as to allow for pockets of intensive planting. The Park will be open to the public from this coming 22nd August. For more information go to www.granbypark.com

Construction of A2’s pin-wheeled garden pavilion in Lawrence Road, Dublin also nears completion

Raymund Ryan, Architecture Curator at Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh writes about Pulp Press (Kistefos) 2013 in Architecture Ireland, ‘New art venues such as Kistefos are evolving from the known sculpture park paradigm, where discreet objects are set in fields of grass, to a more hybrid condition that is conscious of both context and of new media and that is keen to instigate engaged critical exploration. Pulp Press certainly nudges Kistefos in that direction. With echoes of chapels, grottoes and gazebos from long ago, it represents a new vector for Irish visual culture. Modest in dimension yet full of potential, it scrambles our preconceptions of time itself.’

John Gerrard’s Pulp Press Pavilion opens at Kistefos, Norway. Pulp Press (Kistefos) 2013 is an ambitious site-specific commission by Irish artist John Gerrard. A pioneering artist operating in the area of simulation, Dublin-born Gerrard uses technologies more conventionally employed by the military and gaming industries. His installation Pulp Press is located in a 100m2 poured concrete pavilion designed in collaboration with A2 Architects for the Kistefos Museum – one of Scandinavia’s largest parks of contemporary sculpture. The museum occupies the grounds of a 19th century paper mill in Jevnaker, an hour north of Oslo, Norway. The new pavilion sits along the edge of the river Rands which powers the work by hydro-electrics – the very same river that gave rise to the original factory in 1889.

A2 are appointed to refurbish and extend an impressive Victorian house of remarkable quality on Park Avenue, Sandymount.

A2’s Lucky Lane Housing also played host this month to the Editor of A10 magazine Indira Van’t Klooster for an interview with A2 Architects.

A refurbished public counter and waiting area are added to the Family Law Section of The Courts Service in Limerick City for The Office of Public Works. The project employs oak internal joinery, glazed hatch screens and powder-coated mild steel supports.

Construction of a new garden room to the rear of an existing Victorian house in Clontarf begins on site. A roof light central to the tall timber-lined room is supported by a deep-beamed exposed pinwheel structure.

Construction of ‘Machine Sculpture Pavilion’, Kistefos, Norway in collaboration with John Gerrard Artist continues apace. The forthcoming unveiling of the pavilion will be on 26th May 2013.

A2’s Tullamore Community Arts Centre is featured in the Jan/Feb’13 issue of a10, the journal for new European Architecture. The competition-winning project is currently at detail design stage and is due to go to tender in March’13.

A Pop-Up Park for Dublin, one of our projects of Summer 2012, closes our entries for this year. In collaboration with Upstart and StreetFeast this Summer, A2 Architects developed a temporary park to last a set period of three months in Dublin City Centre. Situated on the proposed CIE Central Bus Station site just south of the busy Jervis Luas Stop, the project sets out both with an ambitious programme and with a light foot: An information portal, classrooms, dining area and exhibition space are housed within a repeating parallel-bay layout of prefabricated and sheathed aluminium poly-tunnels on a square 50x50m mat of conditioned timber palettes. The palettes are arranged so as to allow propogation of existing foundation trenches for food growth. As well as offering rest to park users, seating is designed to collect rainwater from the roof and to provide raised planting beds. It is very much intended to realise this public project in Summer 2013.

Peter Carroll as School of Architecture UL Project Leader leads a collaborative team of SAUL graduates and external consultants to complete a Department of Education and Skills Pilot Inventory Research Project on 18no. schools in Limerick City. SAUL brought an innovative approach to this inventory in both project approach and future potential for post-graduate research at SAUL. The methodology for completing the research was in four stages: 1. general survey of existing schools, 2. options and appraisals study, 3. overview of community assets and 4. school location in the context of the current local authority development plan.