A youth centre and a house bordering on bling took top AAI Awards this year, writes Frank McDonald
SOMETIMES IT takes an outsider to spot the obvious. "A cycle seems to be forming in Ireland that needs to be broken," according to Brussels-born architect Julien de Smedt. "The younger generation of architects . . . are mainly designing small-scale residential projects, while the large commercial offices are designing the major public works."
In a cri de coeur as the foreign assessor of this year's Architectural Association of Ireland awards, de Smedt of JDS Architects, Copenhagen asked why Ireland is "so nervous of the talent it has" and he implored "the people in power, the planners, the city architects and the institute of architects to recognise and challenge young talent . . . to define its cities".
De Smedt, who won the Golden Lion at the 2004 Venice Architecture Biennale for his concert hall in Stavanger, Norway, when he was not yet 30, suggests that Ireland "finally has a chance to make amends and re-establish a new culture of design in the city" by involving younger architects in major projects such as Grangegorman.
Referring to the relatively small scale of many of the 92 submissions for the 2008 awards, he said his first impression was that these were "rather surprising for a national selection".
But then, as he remarked later: "Like, I'm an architect who has never done house extensions, but I have lots of friends who do it all the time ..."
Francis Rambert, director of the Institut Français d'Architecture, who was the architectural critic on this year's jury and immediately got caught in a traffic jam, grasping "the reality of Dublin sick with ... suburban sprawl", thought the submitted projects would offer "some kind of response" to questions about urban density.
He saw a "gleam of hope" in the Brookfield Community Youth Centre and Crèche, by Hassett Ducatez Architects, in this "almost forgotten" district of the "typically sprawling Dublin suburb" of Tallaght: "The emergence of (unexpected) architecture in such a place is very important, a generous architecture that enriches a poor area."
The jury was unanimous in awarding the AAI's Downes Medal to Gráinne Hassett and Vincent Ducatez (who is French, incidentally) for what de Smedt described as a project "with a very strong social take, and a very brutal and honest architecture".
The completed building was "joyful and elegant", according to Irish assessor Martin Henchion of Henchion Reuter Architects, Dublin/Berlin.
"This youth centre takes on this crap suburbia, with its suburban distributor road and suburban wasteland," he observed.
"This is the battleground in Ireland, because the city centre will survive, the one-off house in the country will probably survive. But this is where architecture can really make a difference."
Dublin and Vienna-based artist and photographer John Gerrard, the jury's distinguished non-architect, praised "its wit, flair and most of all its sense of hopefulness and joy. Upon being given the building, the children (in an anecdote recounted later) went bananas, howling for joy and ecstatically embracing the space, a vote of confidence if ever there was one".
Angela Rolfe, assistant principal architect with the Office of Public Works, was equally enthusiastic about the Brookfield project: "I am delighted that a public building which grapples with a lot of very difficult issues won the Downes Bronze Medal this year. It is very heartening to see that integrity, bravery and persistence can shine through ..." However, she found the change in the type and scope of AAI submissions "quite shocking" - from the earnest projects dealing with conceptual architectural issues in the pre-boom period of the late 1980s and early 1990s to a lot of today's crop of domestic and commercial projects that promoted "architecture as fashion".
Boyd Cody also got a special mention for a single-storey extension to a house in Clontarf, with two L-shaped glazed screens opening to communal garden and private courtyard.
Rolfe found it "beautifully sculptural" while Rambert commented that it worked with light, interesting spaces and views to create "real architecture".
According to Henchion, Dermot Boyd and Peter Cody "are at the top of their game. All the other versions of house extensions we've seen are trailing behind these guys and they don't care to stop. They are consummate." But he thought this might be slightly unfortunate: "They are so identified with this scale of work they can't break out of it."
Jason O'Shaughnessy, of Architecture53seven, wowed the jury with his juice bar and roof terrace for Egan's bar and nightclub on Main Street, Portlaoise, with a floating roof structure cast in concrete and cut into a series of "folding ribbons of light". Gerrard was "astounded" to find something as radical as this in an Irish provincial town.
For Rambert, it was "that new type of space, the smoking area, and it's a good interpretation of the regulations now all over Europe", while Rolfe suggested that it would bring more life back into the heart of a town "left to rot" after its bypass was built and there was little left in the centre other than "chippers where the teenagers hang out".
Among the three other award-winners, A2 Architects were singled out for their ingenious remodelling of a single-storey cottage in Portobello (see story below) through "spatial layering" and the use of glazed screens. Rambert saw it as making the best of a tight urban site.
"There's real architecture here, getting views, getting comfort, getting space in a very fluid way."
On a much larger scale, John Park of ABK Architects got an award for the gleaming new Civic Offices, at the rear of Cork City Hall. Although it was the product of a design-and-build process, the assessors commented that the building is "beautifully controlled" (Rolfe) and read as "a really competent and confident-looking public building" (Gerrard).
THE FINAL award went to Paul Dillon Architects for a most unusual building - an "anti-box", as Rambert described it - in Galway's Briarhill Business Park. Its "sticky-out bits", as Rolfe characterised them, would make people speeding past in their cars go "Oh" as they keep going, "and maybe at that level, it holds its ground", as Henchion said.
Two of the seven special mentions went to educational projects - O'Donnell + Tuomey Architects, for their sensitive conversion of the Provost's stables in Trinity College into an Irish art research centre, and Murray O'Laoire Architects for the prominently-located Tailteann sports/aula maxima pavilion at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick.
De Paor Architects got a special mention for their "Groundworks" scheme on Clontarf Road, facing the junction of Vernon Avenue, even though Gerrard detested the "overbearing" lamp standards and Rolfe queried its value as a public space. Noting the absence of seats, she said: "It should be for people. But there's nothing there for them."
The most unusual project featured this year is the ARC Building in Hull by Níall McLaughlin Architects.
Designed as a "Heath Robinson device" to raise this depressed city's morale and educate people about Hull and its environment, this is a "nomadic" building because it will be moved to a new location every three years over a 20-year period.
The two other special mentions went to housing schemes - one by Maxim Laroussi of Architecture Republic for a pavilion-like house at the end of a terrace in Dún Laoghaire and the other to GKMP Architects (in association with OMP) for an infill development of 36 apartments in the corner of Pearse Square, which the AAI jury wanted to see built.
Henchion expressed regret that an elegant house in Co Donegal by Donaghy & Dimond Architects had been "denied recognition" because the jury took a decision to exclude all one-off houses in the countryside on principle.
Given the need to replace so many poor-quality houses already built, he felt it was important to recognise exemplary projects.
Gerrard was disappointed to find that few of the entries addressed issues of sustainability. He also noted the absence of "major patronage from the super wealthy in Ireland", saying it was a great pity that most of them continue to spend vast sums badly, on "pastiche architecture and the worst in figurative painting and sculpture".
New Irish Architecture 23: AAI Awards 2008, edited by Nicola Dearey and John O'Regan, is published by Gandon Editions (€20).
The AAI Awards exhibition is at the Irish Architectural Archive, 45 Merrion Sq, D2, from tomorrow evening until May 30th. It goes to the Civic Theatre, Tallaght in June and then on tour
'This is the battleground in Ireland . . . this is where architecture can really make a difference
