RIAI | Irish Architecture Awards

Citation

Dublin, Over £1,000,000

This building is an example on several fronts. It resolves in an unapologetic but complementary way its juxtaposition with an older structure. It deals effectively with its location on a very important city site at the college entrance. Its internal organisation - meeting the circulation requirements of public, teaching and medical / dental uses - is little short of ingenious on such a tight site. The handling of the complex services also serves as an example. Perhaps, most importantly, it is a pleasant building to visit.

Architects' Description
Our main concerns and objectives in the design of the hospital have been:

• to provide a humane and attractive environment for dental treatment and education
• to unify the old and new buildings so as to avoid any sense of two separate buildings
• to provide the buildings with a heart, which would give them a sense of identity and also unity - the central atrium space fulfils this purpose.
• to design a building which reflects its dual role - clinical and educational
• to design a building which addresses both the city and the college, and helps to establish links between them
• to design a building which fulfils its urban design role in its location - the tower marking the Lincoln PLace entrance - and which addresses the proposed new square in the college.

Clients' Comment
Preparing a schedule of accomodation for a dental teaching hospital which serves the combined functions of patient treatment, undergraduate and postgraduate education and training was a most difficult task. Each dental chair and unit - and there are 107 of them in the new hospital - is the equivalent of a mini-operating theatre. Two thousand patients are treated in this dental hospital each week. The challenge to design two multipurpose clinics, each containing forty dental chairs, and also provide an acceptable and aesthetic appearance for the apprehensive patient was enormous. To have to do that in the campus of Trinity College on a very restricted site, and link it to a Victorian building, was a daunting task for the design team. Not alone did they manage to provide us with every element we asked for, but they did so in such a way as to invite many accolades from international guests. For many, a dental hospital and a pleasing building would suggest a paradox, but this has been achieved in Dublin.