Two of A2’s projects are amongst 33 shortlisted projects in this years Irish Architecture Awards 2020, to be announced in mid October. The projects are Sky Road Clifden, Co. Galway (above) and Rear Return, Lower Rathmines Road, Dublin.
Category Archives: News
A2 are delighted to get our first front cover of Architecture Ireland and to share it with our colleagues in Dún Laoghaire Architects Department for our shared project, Rapid Delivery Housing at George’s Place, Dún Laoghaire.
Our public realm is temporarily limited to 2000 metres. This restriction offers the possibility of a new relationship with our local built environment and a changing perspective on our immediate surroundings. Within 2000m is part of Project 20×20 – A Year Like No Other by the Irish Architecture Foundation, which aims to form a new overview of our relationship with architecture and with the communities that architecture serves. Peter Carroll was invited to contribute the following observation:
Rainwater Rills, Stoneybatter – Of the 2,000 or so artisan houses in Stoneybatter, one of the densest areas of Dublin per person per square metre, one can find impressed rainwater rills at every fourth terraced house embossed into the original turn-of-the-century concrete footpaths. A circular indent receives the rainwater from the cast iron downpipe before scoring the footpath and the granite kerb with a 40mm half-round recess, always at a four degree angle to the perpendicular. A small, frequent, treasured delight!
Rapid Delivery Housing at George’s Place Dun Laoghaire by DLR Architects Department with A2 Architects wins an Architectural Association of Ireland Award for 2020.
The purpose of the annual AAI Awards is to encourage higher standards of architecture throughout the country and to inform the public of emerging directions in contemporary architecture. With that in mind, the jury chose a selection of significant projects for awards; a university on a plateau in Paris, a travelling activation for Irish market towns, a domestic masterwork built around an Ash tree, an exemplary vernacular art space on an Aran Island, a piece of new urban fabric in Limerick and an affordable rapid-build social housing scheme in Dun Laoghaire.
A four storey return is added to the rear of a terraced Georgian house in order to provide for ancillary spaces and first floor terrace for a three storey house as well as a new a garden level apartment. Douglas fir cladding wraps the tower-like return as it folds its way to the garden by means of a new external terrace. Like many returns in the backlands of Georgian housing this rear return attempts to engage with and contribute to the characterful and nuanced fabric to be found behind the restraint of ordered Georgian terraces.
The materiality of the house at Sky Road, Clifden is primarily restrained in order to foreground the beauty of the surrounding landscape. Externally insitu concrete, mute grey plaster and granite dressings sit quietly as backdrop to the lush sheltered courtyard as well as local flora, fauna and fields beyond. Internally oak flooring, panelling and painted plaster are likewise countered by a fireplace wall in local Connemara marble that is map-like in density and scale.
A2 close an enjoyable and successful 2019 with a feasibility study commissioned by Corbally Community Park Enabling Committee made possible by funding for the feasibility study from municipal district special projects general municipal allocation of funding from Limerick City and County Council. The proposed community park is to contain new public realm, cycling infrastructure, two playing pitches, changing room pavilion, playground, nature gardens, forest walk and a Mens’ Shed.
Conservation of Hehir’s Cottage, Scattery Island, Co. Clare nears completion. Client: The Office of Public Works and The National Monuments Service.
Peter Carroll beginning a walking tour of contemporary architecture in Limerick as part of Open House Limerick, entitled ‘Valuing Unprotected Buildings Unfortunately at Risk’, foregrounded by the blue and yellow mosaic of the General Post Office lobby on Cecil Street. Peter also gave a lecture that evening on Limerick City’s Resilience and the ongoing Intelligence Unit research on Limerick City that he co-directs at SAUL.
Cranking geometries of sea walls begin to take shape while leading to jetty at DLR Baths Redevelopment. DLR Architects Dept. in collaboration with A2 Architects.
