New-build convent faithful to ideal of sustainability

DesignA convent building near the Mater Hospital in Dublin 7 shows how its owners, the Sisters of Mercy, have taken sustainable architecture to heart, writes Emma Cullinan

There's a lot happening at the corner of Berkeley Road and North Circular Road, on Dublin's northside, both in terms of construction and commotion.

Traffic roars along the ring road and the pavements are busy with pedestrians. To one side is the vast neo-Classical Mater Hospital and on the other is the interminable orange wall that is Mountjoy Women's Prison.

Sitting on this corner is a quiet building, simply shaped, with a flat roof, that is to house some of the Sisters of Mercy nuns who recently moved out of the Mater hospital building, which they founded.

The new convent is by MCO Architects, which was established by Laura Magahy and Eve-Anne Cullinan. They were already running MCO Projects (a development management company) and were previously directors of the Temple Bar urban renewal project. One guiding ethos of the practice, which is headed up by architect Phillip Crowe, is sustainability, says Magahy (as it is with many other Irish architects, not least because EU law will require it) and that is something that the Sisters of Mercy share. "We are very concerned with conservation and all aspects of energy efficiency," says Sister Margherita, who worked with the architects on behalf of those who use the building.

The convent's 30 bedrooms are all naturally ventilated. Air is sucked in through vents in specially designed windows, from Finland, and up out through pretty steel stacks on the roof.

This is covered in sedum plants which soak up water, helping to prevent run-off and excessive drainage, and which also provides a verdurous view down onto the building from the hospital next door.

The downpipes are positioned within the building giving the overall structure a neater look than that afforded by the plastic drainpipes descending the building next door.

The palette of materials in this neat convent is uncomplicated and pleasing: mainly timber, steel and white brickwork. The architects chose white bricks because their research found them in some subsidiary buildings in Victorian times. If the Mater Hospital is the classically dressed grandparent, this new building is the hand-crafted contemporary handbag that accessorises it.

There is a logic to the fact that the northside of the building, facing the North Circular Road, has few windows in it: design that takes account of the elements often hunkers down against the north while opening its heart out to the sunny south, which this convent has done.

But at the moment the plain wall does create a brick valley of the North Circular Road, with Mountjoy Women Prison's tangy edifice across the road. The planners required some expression on this side of the building, hence the kink where the walls steps out. The right-angle is filled with a stained glass window by Peadar Lamb, grandson of the painter Charles Lamb and great-great grandson of Ford Maddox Brown.

Art is important to the Sisters of Mercy, too, says Sister Margherita.

This stained-glass window filters colourful light from the east into the prayer room. This contemplation space also has views out to the northern "woodland" side of the garden with newly planted trees. The aim is that these trees will gradually mature to cover the wall.

Mature trees already on the site were shown the respect of having the building bend around them. On the south side of the convent, and at the entrance on the east aspect, are hunky timber structures that provide a warmth and softness to the building. Timber was chosen for its tactile quality and ease of maintenance.

This cedar is untreated, although the timber doors that accommodate the ventilation system are treated as they were bought in specially and that's how they come. The timber structure to the southside provides balconies and walkways out from the bedrooms and a view from which to contemplate the garden planted by Mary Reynolds - Chelsea Flower Show gold medal winner - who opts for natural, flowing planting schemes. She persuaded the architects to go for a lawn: "Which architects don't usually like," says project architect Gavin Wheatley. But, as he agrees, it works here.

As we stand in the pouring rain watching the water bounce off the glistening black tiles on the terrace, I can see why the nuns like their new home but Sister Margherita says that she wishes I'd seen it the day before, in the sun: "It was scintillating," she says.

She's happy with her new home which, despite its simplicity, she says has a luxury that she is rather embarrassed about. Certainly the interior, with its diningroom and communal facilities on one side of the L-shape and bedrooms and prayer room on the other, has that comfort of newly built institutional buildings. Yet it's the scintillating aspects: the narrow west-facing sunroom off the dining and sitting rooms; the wooden walkways overlooking the garden, and the combination of natural materials and natural ventilation, that shows how it really shouldn't be a big deal to slot a new building sensitively into a tight site. Such structures can have a pleasing presence and make their inhabitants happy.