Aesthetic housing is the challenge, says Minister

One of the major challenges facing architects today is to design "aesthetically attractive and people-friendly" housing, in line with the Government's recent decision to increase residential densities, according to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, yesterday.

Speaking at the opening of the annual awards exhibition at the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, he said this was part of the package agreed after the Bacon report, which was now abating the "inflationary gallop" of house prices.

Although Mr Dempsey warned that higher densities "must not be achieved at an unacceptable amenity cost", he was confident that architects would rise to this challenge, citing some "outstanding" projects in many of the designated urban renewal areas.

Referring to the fact that two schemes in Northern Ireland had won RIAI Regional Awards, he said he had no doubt that the Belfast Agreement had the potential to spur economic growth and construction investment on an "unprecedented scale" there.

In the Republic, architectural possibilities had been lifted on to a new plane by the Celtic Tiger economy. "We are now operating at a scale of investment where many of the top practitioners in the world are being and will be drawn to the prestige projects Ireland has to offer."

The Minister said there were also opportunities to export Irish architectural services, even though winning projects in other countries was never easy because of intense local competition. But An Bord Trachtala had an open door to architects wishing to explore this area.

Altogether 16 projects won RIAI Regional Awards, ranging in scale from a major extension to the Mercy Hospital in Cork by O'Riordan Staehli Associates to a highly unusual mews house with an atrium in Ballsbridge, Dublin, by de Blacam and Meagher.

Other Dublin award-winners included the National Museum at Collins Barracks, by Gilroy McMahon and the Office of Public Works Architectural Service, and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Hall, by McCullough Mulvin and Robinson Keefe and Devane.

Brian O'Halloran Associates won a Dublin regional award for the Distillery Project in Church Street, which provides another complex of offices and other facilities for the Bar Council. Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, by Arthur Gibney and Partners, was another Dublin winner.

One of the awards in Munster went to the new grandstand at the Kingdom Greyhound Racing Stadium in Tralee, Co Kerry, by Michael Healy and Associates, which was consciously designed to project a modern image of this long-established spectator sport.

The only Northern regional award this year was won by Dublin-based architects O'Dowd, O'Herlihy, Horan for a co-op scheme of holiday homes on Arranmore Island, off the Donegal coast, which has been widely praised for reinterpreting traditional rural housing.

In Leinster the two awards went to Henry J. Lyons and Partners for the Environmental Protection Agency's new head quarters at Johnstown Castle, Co Wexford, and to Keane Murphy Duff for their smart new entrance to Lucent Technologies in Bray, Co Wicklow.

In the West, awards were given to the new courthouse in Carrickon-Shannon, by Burke-Kennedy Doyle and Partners, and a major extension to the Regional Hospital in Limerick, designed jointly by Murray O'Laoire Associates and Brian O'Connell Architects.

Scott Tallon Walker won a major overseas award for their Dollar Bay apartments in London's Docklands, with Todd Architects taking another prize for the Kingston University campus. Two apartments, one in London and the other in New York, also won awards.

The awards scheme, now in its ninth year, is intended to show the range and quality of contemporary Irish architecture completed during the previous year. The exhibition, sponsored by Roadstone, runs until June 5th at the Architecture Centre, 8 Merrion Square, Dublin.