UCD, the State's largest university, has launched a major international architecture competition for a landmark development at the Belfield campus.
The Gateway Project, comprising cultural, academic, leisure and business facilities, represents the start of a 15-year UCD campus development plan. The university is inviting submissions from leading architecture firms from around the world. A jury of internationally-renowned architects will produce a shortlist in January before selecting the winner next April.
The winning design team will win a prize of €500,000. Those short-listed will receive €200,000.
The Gateway Project is part of a wider campaign to make UCD more attractive to students at a time when the competition for Leaving Cert students among the universities has rarely been so intense.
UCD president Dr Hugh Brady has been unhappy with the state of the 1970s-style campus for some time. He says the look of the college does not reflect the new "dynamic" UCD.
Over 22,000 students and 1,000 academics study and research in the Belfield campus. But the campus has been criticised for lacking a university atmosphere, especially in the evening when most students commute home.
The college says the Gateway Project is designed to ensure that Belfield becomes a "24/7" campus where there is a greater level of interaction between the university, the local community and the wider visiting population to Dublin.
UCD's ambition is to build a gateway of great architectural quality that it hopes "will be recognised throughout the world".
The site will also include a cultural centre with art-house cinema/film studies facility and university welcome and graduate centre, new student residential accommodation and services, retail outlets, a medical centre, creche facility, conference facilities, hotel, offices for knowledge-intensive businesses, other university executive and meeting rooms and a provision for multi-storey car parking.
Launching the competition, Dr Brady said: "This is a highly prestigious project, providing the world's leading architects with an opportunity to create an iconic landmark for Dublin and Ireland. The development will enhance the working and living environment for students and staff and open up the campus to local and wider communities."
A special website, www.ucd.ie/ gatewayproject, has also been launched to support the competition.
The closing date for the receipt of submissions of interest is Wednesday, December 6th, 2006.