Smashing year for glass at RIAI awards

Glass stepped out of the shadows to become a key award-winning element at this year's RIAI (Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland) awards, writes Emma Cullinan

One of the last projects that the late Arthur Gibney was involved in has won "Best Public Building of the Year" in the latest RIAI (Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland) awards, which were handed out last night.

The sloping glass-wrapped offices of Kildare County Council, designed by Heneghan Peng Architects, in association with Arthur Gibney and Partners, was said by the judges to be "an exciting yet serious building, successful on a number of levels".

It's been a good year for glass in the 17th RIAI annual awards, which attracted 162 entries. There were 16 main awards, including five special awards. One project, which scooped two of these, was the Falls Leisure Centre, Belfast, by Kennedy Fitzgerald and Associates which was voted both "Best Accessible Project" (sponsored by the OPW) and "Best Sustainable Project" (sponsored by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government).

This three-storey glass-clad building, topped with projecting lanterns, uses Okalux double glazing which have been coloured so that, at various times of day and night, the sports centre glows with blue, green, red and purple. This brave building has been a boost to this part of the the city.

Simple curtain walls made up of identical plates of glass can be monotonous and, designed without much thought, they can result in those awful, dull office buildings. As glass technology keeps improving, and as designers find ways of creating more interest, glass glimmers to greater effect. Expect to see an increasing number of shimmering, coloured, curved and tilted glass façades which add dynamism to buildings.

This year's "Best Commercial Building", the Eye Cinema in Galway, has a curved glass wall that offers a new vision for cinema-design. We are traditionally used to entering dark box-office areas in our progress towards the blackened screening room but here we have different types of visual treats en-route to the cinematic experience.

Architects Douglas Wallace created this cinema as part of a scheme that includes the g hotel, whose camp interior, designed in conjunction with milliner Philip Treacy, has received lots of publicity. Having been kept out of the limelight by its showy neighbour, it's interesting that the Eye Cinema has quietly seen its way to a major architectural award.

Also using curved glass as a grand gesture is the Cork University Maternity Hospital by Reddy O'Riordan Staehli Architects. Glass is placed through the white limestone building with a large, sweeping central section that expands over the roof line, seeming to suspend itself in space by its armpits. Scott Tallon Walker also won an award for a hospital: their redevelopment of the Main Clinical Block at St Vincent's, Dublin.

While vibrant vitreousness can become a large part of a building's identity, glass can also be used for its barely-there properties, hence its use internationally as the perfect add-on to historic structures.

Architects Bucholz McEvoy's entrance pavilion to the Dáil in Dublin is a neat, nicely detailed box that hides behind railings and sits happily betwixt the monumental National Library, Leinster House and the National Museum. As the judges said: "The architects succeeded in creating a structure of ethereal quality - it is so polite to its neighbours that it nearly ceases to exist. The glass enclosure makes no shadow, thus becoming truly transparent. The understated good manners of this building belie the complexity and care of the design."

The Sean O'Casey Bridge in Dublin's Docklands, by Brian O'Halloran and Associates, is another example of a structure that has neatly placed itself into the city's fabric.

The redevelopment of the Lifetime Lab in Cork, by Jack Coughlan Associates, snuck in a glazed lift shaft, away from the existing building, which used to be a waterworks and is now a visitor and education centre concentrating on sustainable living. "The prominent elevator and bridge create an appropriately-scaled signal of the new use of the site, yet do not compete with the landmark brick and stone chimney stack," said the judges who awarded this the "Best Conservation/Restoration" project (sponsored by the Heritage Council).

As ever, many of the awards were for projects commissioned by state bodies so it is heartening to see that builders Thomas Joyce opted to go the architectural route, commissioning a housing scheme in Westport by Richard Murphy, a talented Edinburgh-based architect, in association with Taylor Architects which is based in Castlebar.

"Having developed a number of standard housing schemes in the town, we wanted to approach this site in a more innovative manner," said the clients. "With the architect and town planner we were able to achieve a higher density of development and a higher architectural quality. Overall, it has been a very positive and successful relationship between developer, architect and planner and will provide a blueprint for future projects in the area."

A housing association that appointed Gerry Cahill Architects to design a housing scheme in Donabate, Dublin, also reaped rewards. And Trinity College underscored its success in commissioning buildings: Grafton Architects picked up an award for an extension to the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering.

Along with State bodies, private clients of one-off houses and extensions are contributing to design quality in Ireland.

Many of these remain anonymous, being wary about displaying their home life to the public, but Jim Sheridan has come clean about being the owner of the fabulous, and now award-winning, Martha's Vineyard house in Dalkey, by de Blacam and Meagher, and has been generous about displaying it to the wider world.

Boyd Cody has become a veteran of Irish architectural awards, with their light-filled homes often gaining a placing in the OPUS, AAI and RIAI, and this time their prize-winner is a house in Rathmines, Dublin (which recently garnered an AAI award). Another award-winning house project is an extension in Drumcondra by Donaghy Dimond architects which has been working away on neat, nicely detailed houses countrywide for a while now. Perhaps this recognition (and a recent AAI award) will see them move onto larger projects which they richly deserve.

RIAI president John Graby pointed out that all of the special award winners this year were outside Dublin. "This shows that good design is recognised as an important attribute right across the country," he says.

It seems that Irish architecture is moving further afield than that. London-based Keith Williams architects, who won Irish awards for their Athlone Civic Centre, entered a London project - the Unicorn Theatre - this year and has come up trumps. There was also an award for the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Canada, designed by Moriyama & Teshima Architects, of Toronto, in association with Griffiths Rankin Cook Architects, based in Ottawa.

The Irish connection is Alexander Rankin, a partner in the second firm, who was born in Belfast.

Irish architecture is becoming noticed internationally and international architecture is taking note of Ireland.