It's probably true to say that any serious architectural practice will consider their offices to be a bit of a showcase for visiting potential clients. Sure enough, the Dublin office of Murray O'Laoire Architects (MOLA) in Fumbally Court (off Clanbrassil Street) is almost exactly what you might expect a modern, trendy architectural office to look like. Located in a converted grain store, of course, it's a huge, tall, open plan wooden-floored space with flexible desks, large windows and big oak beams on the ceiling just to remind you of the building's heritage.
As if to complete this almost textbook picture, the casually-dressed staff are either rushing around with rolled up plans under their arms or beavering away on Apple Macs.
It's a good advertisement for the firm, but thankfully the director and co-founder Mr Sean O'Laoire is not one of those individuals whose artistic ego dominates a practice. Listening to Mr O'Laoire, one suspects that such individuals would not be welcome in the field of modern urban design.
"I've always had trouble with this wrong focus in the 20th century of the architect as egoist or artist," says Mr O'Laoire.
"I think most people who have studied urban design would freely admit that if they go, say, to a charming medieval town in France, they wouldn't necessarily remember an individual building. What they would remember is an assemblage of buildings and the extremes of working through buildings."
Mr O'Laoire explains that much of what urban design is about is creating a place for the individual building in "the order of things" rather than a series of individual, stand-alone buildings. However, it's a difficult thing to achieve.
"Giving a sense of order to buildings is the biggest challenge for urban design in a free market capitalist society because there's no order, unlike in medieval times, when there was either a patron or a consensus on how things should be."
Mr O'Laoire's background is very much in urban design. Dublin born and bred, he graduated from University College Dublin (UCD) and University College Los Angeles (UCLA) in California before lecturing on the subject for three years in Bolton Street.
In 1979, he went into partnership with Hugh Murray to set up MOLA in Limerick. The company now employs 150 people and is one of the biggest architecture practices in the Republic.
Much of his own work concerns developing urban frameworks. He says he is particularly proud of his work on the Dublin Docklands development plan because it represented the first planning remit that sought to balance both social and physical regeneration, but also allowed scope for architectural beauty without having to depend on one grade of building.
Mr O'Laoire, who had a penchant for doodling a lot in his copy books while at school, says he was lucky to have a very enthusiastic art teacher, particularly since there was little arts education in his time. Given his artistic leanings, architecture seemed a responsible and respectable choice, he says. In addition, architecture also offered a way of channelling creative energies towards achieving social goals. "I had that sort of interest in how my work might influence society," he said. "That still interests me and I think it prompted me to take an interest in urban design, which really embraced the larger public realm."
Mr O'Laoire believes the beginnings of the modern architectural movement were greatly influenced by a strong left-wing ethos. However, he admits while many would dispute this belief, he was also influenced by his father's strong interest in social issues and politics. The start of the MOLA practice coincided with a time when Limerick was undergoing regeneration, which provided the two partners and their technician with opportunities to contribute to the city's renewal. In more recent years, many of the firm's higher-profile projects have been grounded in academic surroundings, such as the UCD Student Centre, St John's Castle in Limerick, the new Glucksan Library in the University of Limerick and the Modern Arts faculty in NUI Galway.
Future projects look set to centre on healthcare and hospital design, with the building of the new National Children's Hospital in the Mater, a large hospital in Tullamore, Co Offaly, and the redesign of Hawkins House ("one of the most hated buildings in Dublin"), which houses the Department of Health and Children. Mr O'Laoire proudly points out that the award-winning Irish Pavilion that MOLA designed for the Expo 2000 in Germany is to be transferred to the Dun Laoghaire College of Art as a centrepiece art gallery.
"While I don't want to blow the trumpet of this practice, we possibly are unique because we allocate money from our own budget towards research and development," he said. Every year, the firm hosts a colloquium that brings together architects to discuss issues and problems in the area of housing. Mr O'Laoire, who lives in Dublin with his partner and 12-year-old son, clearly has no regrets about his decision to work with the built form. "It's a great platform for looking at life. It stimulates interest in other areas." As well as offices in Dublin and Limerick, MOLA has offices in Warsaw and Moscow. "We've always had a strong cosmopolitan profile in the office." There are architects in the practice from South Africa, German, Italy and France, and the retention rate is very high, he says. A high proportion of the staff are associate directors.
Mr O'Laoire believes that while the quality of Irish architecture has significantly improved, there is a much greater onus on architects today to consider the social as well as physical impact of their work on the environment.
"Architects can and will design in a vacuum," he said. "I think architects in Ireland have to help contribute to the definition of the social framework in which they're working." In terms of the debate about urban development, he says architects need to show the public that there are better ways of developing cities "other than spreading out endlessly into the metropolitan area of Dublin". He said he would be interested in contributing to the future debate about whether we should preserve certain housing estates in Dublin, "and not just Ballymun". "We have to show by our actions that we understand what the social and individual needs are, and develop a more focused understanding of end users and what their requirements are. But at the same time, architects should not be shy about the idea of beauty as its own end."
