Meath projects take top prizes at building of the year awards

Two projects in Co Meath - home of the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey - have taken top prizes in this year's OPUS Building of the Year awards.

The awards, presented yesterday, went to Grafton Architects for Meath County Council's new civic offices in Dunshaughlin and to Newenham Mulligan and Associates for Trim courthouse. The jury said the civic offices were "a jewel-like beacon of contemporary design on the suburban fringe of a typical Irish town" and had been "imbued with a civic character without recourse to ponderous stylism".

In the case of Trim courthouse, the jury said it was to the credit of everyone involved that its new extension had an "expressive contemporary design" avoiding any "banal mimicking pastiche" of the restored older building. Newenham Mulligan were also commended for the Revenue information offices in Lower Mount Street, Dublin, while Ahrends Buryon and Koralek were highly commended for the Carrickmines Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club, in Co Dublin.

In the Under £250,000 category, the winner was John Dorman Architects for a weekend house in Connemara. Two projects shared the award for housing in the Over £2.5 million category - the transformation of a 1970s housing estate by Fingal County Council's architects' department and a private housing scheme in Clontarf, Dublin, by O'Mahony Pike. Referring to the Fingal scheme, which involved a local authority housing estate in Corduff, Blanchardstown, the jury said credit was due for the re-orientation of existing houses.

O'Mahony Pike's project at 150 Howth Road, Clontarf, was praised for "its intensity of development coupled with a large variety of dwelling units" and the creation of urban-type spaces. In the Conservation category, deBlacam and Meagher took the premier award for their conversion of a 19th century warehouse in the Grand Canal Docks into offices for Treasury Holdings, with RKD highly commended for the Guinness Storehouse.

Student awards went to Harriet Browne for her urban design project adjoining the National College of Art and Design and to Derek Treneman for his "innovative and daring" project entitled Humanising Engineering Studies.