The project takes on a back land site south of Dorset Street, Dublin 7, with entrances on to Anne’s Street North, Ball’s Lane and Halston Street. The programme is a meeting house or town hall that conceals its size from the surrounding streets. From Anne St North you enter a small bar and from there move through a series of rooms; lounge, dining room, garden, etc., until you reach the Hall. From Ball’s Lane you come through a narrow lane into a courtyard garden and on through the sequence of rooms. From Halston Street, a doorway in an almost blank façade leads in to the garden and on. The sequence culminates in a window that looks back out over the city.
Each room has a fireplace, alcoves and recesses making more nested spaces.
The range and dimension of rooms was influenced by a survey of Dublin pubs and cafes and a wider study of international precedent projects that provide a place to gather at different scales.
The aspiration of the project was to take on the role of the pub in civic life and to expand upon it without losing a sense of seclusion and intimacy. To make space for solitude and celebration in public life.
Method _
Remaking a piece of found ground in Dublin City through subtraction. To excavate and take advantage of existing site conditions and pieces of the city’s history which have been left behind in the wake of new developments. The idea that a building is not a static object but that it has a life of its own and that this could be conveyed through its form, skin or use.
Proposal _
To retain the old theatre entrance on Longford Street and to stitch it back into the fabric of both the place and the city. To fold the existing boundary wall on Stephen Street back into the site, allowing the fold to act as both an entrance and more importantly to address the Georgian Townhouse opposite. This move provides new breathing space to both the house and the street, and also creates new public ground in the city, partly sheltered by the overhanging studios and the foliage of the red birch trees contained within the sunken garden.
The programme is a bronze foundry consisting of a large courtyard and a series of different scale workshops. This poche space contained at the centre of the block acts as a workyard for the foundry and also provides breathing space for the programme and the city.
