Winning designs chosen for two public parks in Adamstown

Landscaping:  The new neighbourhood of Adamstown in west Dublin is to have two public parks designed by landscape architects Foley and Salles who won the commission through an international competition.

Dermot Foley and Remi Salles both run landscape architectural practices in Dublin and teach at UCD but joined together to realise this project.

"Because we work together at UCD I was aware of what Remi was up to, knew what he was capable of and decided that we would make a good team for the competition," says Foley. "We had a very good working relationship."

The brief was for a specific number of sports pitches, cafés, playgrounds and art exhibition areas and to have a design that was in sympathy with the rest of Adamstown, and its infrastructure, but Foley says that landscape design doesn't have the same tight briefs that are associated with architecture.

"With buildings, architects have a lot of constraints and a definite foundation on which to generate something whereas when we were designing this it took a long time to decide what the important things were. Parks are not separate destinations but exist in a much wider context and it is very important for a park to form part of a coherent network. You need to work out how the surrounding buildings will face onto it and in Adamstown we have responded to the urban form."

Part of this contextualisation involves how a park's boundaries link into the surrounding area. "The edge becomes very important; you can see that in lot of park designs now. For instance, in St Stephen's Green a lot of activity happens around the edge. Even the pavement outside is very important. It is well detailed with lots of planting. Then once you are in the park it becomes quite a simple affair with grass and trees," says Foley.

One side of one of the parks, Tandy's Lane, will be on a busy street with a QBC, car-park and bus stops. The park design responds to that while it will be quieter on the edges that meet narrow streets.

The active edge will have a strip that is essentially an extension of the street and which can be used at night when the park is shut. This will have a jogging and cycle track as well as play areas. In the other park - Airlie Park - there will be tennis courts, football pitches and a café which have been designed so that they can be open at night if the need arises.

While many Irish parks are still planted in a Victorian style, the Adamstown parks will have more native species - such as oak, ash, hawthorn and alder - although they will planted on a grid rather than left to run wild.

The competition was judged by landscape experts and members of the Adamstown development companies as well as being watched over by the Irish Landscape Institute.

Also on the panel was Eddie Conroy, chief architect of South Dublin County Council, where Adamstown is based. "The spatial organisation and clarity of the project contains a strong, legible structure which is easily understandable and yet diverse," he says.