RIAI | Irish Architecture Awards

Citation

Southern (over €3,000,000)

Combining consistency and deftness in the handling of space and materials internally and externally, this project stood out particularly for the complex, playful and intelligent design of its external skin.

Architects Comment
Inherent in the brief for the National Software Centre is the challenge to create interior spaces which would facilitate social integration and exchange of ideas, an exterior expression which would give meaning to it’s function, and a site strategy which would enable a campus to develop in the future.

A 4-storey square doughnut plan type with asymmetrical double-height entrance allows the creation of a tall meeting place at ground level, becoming a courtyard over. This allows the second and third floors to be naturally ventilated as well as creating an external amenity at this level.

The external expression is given meaning by exploiting the material properties of glass, metal and concrete and light, in relation to performance criteria of daylight, view, insulation, ventilation, heat gain and glare control, creating a pattern which has the properties of an ever-changing binary code, (motif of the generic SI-FI computer), appropriate to the use.

The curved enclosure to the roof mounted services provides a contrasting form, which serves to terminate the building in the vertical.

The strategic location of building and cars enables a landscaped plan incorporating the contiguous sites to develop in the future.

Client Comment
The primary object of the National Software Centre is to assist in the creation of knowledge intensive companies. This is achieved by developing space in which a critical mass of starter "incubator" and established "own door" companies can flourish within mutually beneficial atmosphere in a single location.

Sponsored by both private and public sector investment, the first phase occupies a 3.8 acre section of the 13 acre Loughmahon Technology Park, 3 miles from Cork City Centre.

The first building was to take account of future phases which will acquire contiguous areas of this park as required.

The "square doughnut" plan proposed by the architects is an efficient footprint which maximises the site development potential and internal usable areas while creating public spaces within the building which respond to the objective to create an exchange of ideas.

An essential criteria in a development which aspires to national status is that it has a uniqueness which makes it instantly recognisable for what it is, and the external material and fenestration achieves this is a subtle manner, without compromise to function.

The planning of the first phase with parking to the rear will allow the landscaped frontage to take shape as future phases develop.