The design for an abstract mews house in Monkstown has won this year's top AAI award, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor.

The Architectural Association of Ireland's five assessors had no hesitation in awarding the AAI's top award - the Downes Medal - to the relatively youthful Dermot Boyd and Peter Cody for a mews house in Alma Lane, Monkstown.

Their client was moving into it from the main house and wanted a livingroom with similar dimensions on the first floor, to catch light throughout the day.

The only common feature of the hodge-podge of mews houses on the lane was that they were all faced in brick, so it had to be a brick house. But instead of doing something drearily conventional, the architects decided to abstract the new mews house "to make it a simple object, a sculptural form, a cube placed in a walled enclosure".

The AAI's five assessors were Patrick Murphy, distinguished non-architect member of the jury and director of the Royal Hibernian Academy; Terence Riley, architectural critic and curator of art and design at New York's Museum of Modern Art; Dublin-based architect Denis Byrne, a previous AAI award winner; Rotterdam architect Kees Kaan; and award-winning Portuguese architect Manuel Aires Mateus.

Pat Murphy loved the mews house's "dumb, clear geometry", while Terence Riley thought it went beyond "faux, fashionable minimalism [ and] the kind of monastery-like white interiors that you get repeatedly". But Denis Byrne wondered if it would control how "the old lady will occupy it - perhaps with net curtains and an accumulation of possessions".

Boyd Cody won an award for the refurbishment of a house in Wellington Road, Dublin 4. Here, their concept was "architecture as an installation", in which all of the new elements were clearly expressed as such and at the same time integrated with the "majestic proportions" of the existing house and its gardens.

The kitchen extension is "extruded" out of the existing return to accommodate a new dining area, with a large sliding glazed screen to allow its use as an indoor/outdoor space. It is counterpointed by a black reflecting pool in the rear garden, while a sunken terrace and black bamboo "veil" has been installed in the front garden.

As Riley saw it, the extension is "not just an extension of the architecture, but of the furniture elements and the cabinetry as well, which infiltrate the old house from the new". Byrne was impressed by how the existing return had been continued in a "very sculptural way" and contained "very nice, well-made objects".

At the other end of the spectrum, Niall McLaughlin Architects won an award for a daringly different social housing scheme in Silvertown, east London.

The project resulted from a Peabody Trust design competition, "Fresh Ideas for Low Cost Housing", and involved building 12 apartments with generous spaces wrapped in a colourful "skin". Byrne described it as "an incredibly glamorous social housing scheme", while Murphy said the colours - derived from chemicals - were "great fun".

Riley thought it was "pretty damn exciting", and remarked: "I hope the architects don't mind if I steal this idea, take it to the States, and build a project right away with it!"

Niall McLaughlin Architects received special mentions for two other projects, a weird and wonderful "houseboat" on the Thames and the conversion / extension of and old cottage and boathouse attached to Galley Head lighthouse near Clonakilty, Co Cork, into a sensational holiday home overlooking the sea. Kees Kaan didn't like it one bit. Having seen the setting, he felt it was "too selfish, too egocentric". But Riley was more indulgent. "In the current scheme of things, where you have Libeskind bending skyscrapers back and forth, tilting the earth, and everybody falling into a big hole, it's hard for me to see this as hugely disruptive".

As for the houseboat, made of woven carbon fibre with inflatable elements and a dense loggia evoking "the delight of hiding in a hedge", Byrne was seduced by its "madness of invention . . . like a rocket-ship" while Mateus said he liked it because "it's really ugly". For Riley, it summed up "the madness of houseboat owners".

The third award was won by Henchion Reuter Architects for a new Youth and Community Centre at St Teresa's Gardens in Dublin - seen as the first step in its regeneration. Conceived as a "villa", it houses a multi-purpose community hall, a youth services centre, a community drug team and a drop-in centre and roof garden. Mateus thought it was "a very good building in all ways". Riley agreed: "It is a very taut little box, maximising all sorts of little opportunities."

Kaan was not by its "international style", commenting that this was something he had noticed about other new buildings in Dublin. "It looks like they go elsewhere for references."

Among the special mentions, high praise was reserved for Cullen Payne's refurbishment of Dublin City Council's dreary multi-storey car-park at Drury Street. It has been re-clad with perforated metal panels, illuminated at night, above a stone-faced ground floor that includes integrated shopfronts and a wider entrance.

"I knew it from what it was before, and this is just so much more handsome," Byrne commented. "It preforms a great civic duty. But I think it's also a very clever use of common and cheap materials. It's quite sophisticated in a car-park way. But it does allow that quality of light to come through it. It's good industrial jewellery."

Donnelly Turpin Architects received two special mentions for Dublin City Council's new Swimming Pool and Leisure Centre in Finglas and for the Dubco Credit Union in Little Green Street, which serves the council's staff; its centrepiece is an oak-clad egg-shaped members' hall, which rises through the full height of the building.

One of the aims of the Finglas project was to provide a new "civic address" for the area, incorporating council area offices, a youth resource centre, a crèche and information centre as well as a swimming pool and other leisure facilities in an area that had been "bereft of almost every aspect of social infrastructure".

Riley saw it as "a nice urban civic gesture", while Byrne said it made "a huge contribution to a place not noted for its urbanity. I think also it gives an emblem to the area that it's in, something that's easily read. You can see it as you pass in the car; you can see it over the trees or as you're riding by on your horse. It's exotic here."

Of the Dubco Credit Union, Riley commented that it could have been "just a crabby counter" embedded in an urban block. "It's really quite an accomplishment to see these offices appearing as light-filled and as open as they are. At a time when banks are turning into ATM lobbies, it actually has the feel of a public space."

Two university projects also received special mentions - the new bridge over the River Shannon, linking the main campus of the University of Limerick to its extended area in Co Clare (designed by Murray O'Laoire Architects and Arup Consulting Engineers) and O'Donnell + Tuomey's Glucksman Gallery at UCC.

The bridge, or rather bridges, run in parallel - one for traffic and the other for cyclists and pedestrians. The main vehicular deck rests on the "fishtail" concrete piers, which extend to form lighting standards to illuminate both 150-metre decks, while the lighter pedestrian deck is supported by projecting cantilevered ribs. Kaan thought it was "very beautiful", because of the way the light comes through.

The separation of vehicles from pedestrians also appealed to Riley, with his experience of walking across Manhattan's traffic-choked bridges. "It also seemed to be not overly articulated, like some bridges done by certain well-known architects."

The assessors were less enthusiastic about the Glucksman Gallery, conceived as a "man-made landscape" set among trees. Though Murphy felt it had "great movement", he noted that the "biggest area of wall is curved, and there are windows everywhere". Rileyand Mateus were also unsure if it made an "ideal gallery".

O'Donnell + Tuomey also received a special mention for their Irish pavilion, or rather installation, at last year's Venice Biennale. It was intended to convey a sense of the industrial school in Letterfrack, Co Galway, and its ongoing transformation into a thriving furniture college, demonstrating how to exhibit architecture in a novel way.

Its "Scary House" construction was a powerful evocation of the trauma of Letterfrack, Byrne felt. "It's theatre as well, really. It's mood, atmosphere. It's quite a rich thing. It is poetry." Riley found himself looking at every single thing in the ensemble, and he was particularly "fascinated with this house that sucks you in".

MV Cullinan Architects got a special mention for their gorse-coloured boathouse at Moynard, Co Galway. Riley saw it as "a well-crafted variation on one of architecture's most romantic programmes: boats, water, stone, colour". For Murphy, it was proof of the value of hiring an architect, even for "what could well be described as a shed".