Murray O’Laoire

This is just a financial reorganisation with personnel implications.

Sad for the associates, sure.
But one expects to see the principals – plus their chosen few – back under a new harness à la Douglas Wallace in the very near future.

http://www.rte.ie/business/2010/0326/murray.html

STATEMENT FROM THE DIRECTORS OF MURRAY Ó LAOIRE ARCHITECTS LTD
The Directors of Murray Ó Laoire Architects Limited (MOLA) have today (Friday, 26 March) announced that, with regret, the company is going into liquidation.
The firm is unable to meet its current financial obligations as a result of cumulative bad debts and the ongoing difficulty of securing profitable work as well as the increasing difficulties in getting paid on time, or at all.
The MOLA Directors want to acknowledge the enormous contribution of so many wonderful, talented and tremendously loyal staff and want to thank them for their professionalism and support over the years.
We also thank the many colleagues, advisers, collaborators, contractors and suppliers for their invaluable contributions.
Our clients, from all sectors of society and the economy, also merit our great thanks for the faith they placed in us and the opportunities they gave us to contribute.
We will do all we possibly can within the constraints of the liquidation process to minimise the impact of this event on our creditors, our clients and our staff.
The company is committed to an orderly winding down of its affairs and will hold a creditors’ meeting within the coming days.
The company does not propose to make any further comment on issues beyond the detail of this statement.
Note for Editors:
Murray Ó Laoire Architects was formed in 1979 by Hugh Murray and Seán Ó Laoire.
The company currently employs 127 staff with offices in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Bratislava (Slovakia), Moscow (Russia), Aachen (Germany), Tripoli (Libya), Barbados and Abu Dhabi and has worked on projects such as Thomond Park Stadium and Tailteann Sports Hall, Mary Immaculate College (both in Limerick), the CIT Cork School of Music, GMIT in Galway, Athlone Town Centre, the Green Building in Temple Bar, Dublin and the Irish Pavillion at the Hannover Expo 2000.

@Global Citizen wrote:

Its just been announced that Murray O’Laoire have gone into liquidation.
A sad day.

I know of at least 2 other “zombie” practices in Cork who are at the mercy of the banks at the moment. Both part of management buyouts in the heady days of 2007.Bad timing except for the sellers of course.
Very bleak picture of the profession at the moment and not prospects of a pick up in the short term.
Hope that they bounce back in some format in the future.

@teak wrote:

This is just a financial reorganisation with personnel implications.

Sad for the associates, sure.
But one expects to see the principals – plus their chosen few – back under a new harness à la Douglas Wallace in the very near future.

Would have to agree with this. Quick search on courts.ie reveals no creditors pursuing them and a practice that size must still have a lot of ongoing projects. Distinctly recall them winning at least two multi- million euro tenders in the past few months

Feel very sorry for the staff:(

must be about time for Mary F Coughlan to come out and call us all a bunch of wasters again

@wearnicehats wrote:

must be about time for Mary F Coughlan to come out and call us all a bunch of wasters again

Yes, there hasn’t been a sniff of Coughlan’s cold wind in a while now. She must have been told to put a cork in it.

Hmm such a nice court yard…
I wonder what happened to that special bolo.
Anyway not back they will come back as murray o’laire sphered or something.

Can anyone bat off a list an indicative head count of the top practices and there ruff staff numbers???

Are there any projects to look forward to?

Construction output still expected to drop 20% this year? housing shortage what would santa know

@tommyt wrote:

Feel very sorry for the staff:(

I have to agree.

Seen too many companies go under and then re-appear (less the staff)

THE TÁNAISTE has warned a number of professions that the Government will not back down in its drive to increase competition and get better value as it tackles the economic crisis.

Specifying “engineers, architects, the legal profession, dentists and others”, Mary Coughlan told the MacGill Summer School at Glenties, Co Donegal, last night she would be submitting a report to Government on the issue before the end of the year.

Observing that there were sectors which had yet to feel the “chill winds of economic reality”, the Tánaiste said “certain professions” had yet to reveal how they intended to reduce fees and charges and she went on to accuse them of “economic conceit”.

Sad day. Pretty shocking news for one of the stars of the Celtic Tiger. They were an example in how to export all the knowledge/experience gained here over the last 10-15 years. Real shame.

@reddy wrote:

Sad day. Pretty shocking news for one of the stars of the Celtic Tiger. They were an example in how to export all the knowledge/experience gained here over the last 10-15 years. Real shame.

Absolutely.

I’m involved with them on a couple of projects and they are/were just about the best, in terms of dedication to the project, in terms of quality of people and in terms of quality of product.

Hopefully they will re-emerge in a different form. So depressing.

They were a gargantuan figure on the Irish landscape for two decades and to see them gone is a real blow to me.

I knew one of the guys who helped start up their Moscow office, using local staff and Irish minders.

They should name and shame the c***s who owe them money and wouldn’t pay.

Wouldn’t as opposed to couldn’t

And string them up.

Sad day indeed.

ONQ.

There’s going to be a piece on the RTE 9 news

@onq wrote:

They should name and shame the c***s who owe them money and wouldn’t pay.

Wouldn’t as opposed to couldn’t

And string them up.

Sad day indeed.

ONQ.

Don’t be so naive. They are in turn shafting others, no doubt their day-to-day trade creditors and middle ranking and newer staff they presumably kept in the dark about choosing such a radical course of action. I would bet you any money, out of 120 odd staff there were still people working their bollox off -thinking their team/area was viable and feeling positive before this bombshell. Anything else is really irrelevant right now.

Yes.
I think Murray and Ó Laoire themselves have had excellent innings.
It is not as if they were like 2 guys in a small studio being told the state of things last night by their book-keeper.
Much smaller practices have an in-house ICA as financial controller.

The communiqu̩ today Рmoreover the self-important refusal to comment further or answer press enquiries Рshows a darker undercurrent.

The suggestion in the 9 o’clock news that the state was a principal bad debtor will put a cold chill down everyone whose hopes depend on government work.
This is something the press will certainly latch on to.

But let’s be positive.
The uncredited associates of the old MÓLA will now be regrouping themselves to find a way to pay their mortgages.
Work from these new groupings – surely in different aesthetic directions than those of the old firm 🙂 – may soon pleasantly surprise us.

the other two?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0327/1224267175618.html

@missarchi wrote:

the other two?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0327/1224267175618.html

Douglas Wallace was the first one to go, dont know the second one.

@tommyt wrote:

Don’t be so naive. They are in turn shafting others, no doubt their day-to-day trade creditors and middle ranking and newer staff they presumably kept in the dark about choosing such a radical course of action. I would bet you any money, out of 120 odd staff there were still people working their bollox off -thinking their team/area was viable and feeling positive before this bombshell. Anything else is really irrelevant right now.

Absolutely, brings to mind a tale from a friend that worked in one of those doomed offices, saying that the directors wouldn’t even consider salary reduction, while slashing salaries, pension and hours left and right, whilst still shared their profits from whatever jobs where coming in between them and all for the sake of the company. Yeah, Right!:mad:

@xeex wrote:

Douglas Wallace was the first one to go, dont know the second one.

Possibly Traynor O’Toole?

DW not in the last month…
One more?

Bkd ?

@tommyt wrote:

Don’t be so naive.

I’m not naive tommt.
I run my own sole tradership, although for how long is anyone’s guess.
Previously I reported directly to the principal of a practice similar to the size of Murray O’Laoire.
I faced people not paying their bills every day, and having to keep staff morale up while ensuring compliant work was done.
Non-paying thievery doesn’t just occur in recessions – it goes on all the time, but in the boom times you just write it off to bad debts.

They are in turn shafting others, no doubt their day-to-day trade creditors and middle ranking and newer staff they presumably kept in the dark about choosing such a radical course of action.

By all accounts Murray O’Laoire, particularly Sean O’Laoire, were pretty staff focussed, as are most successful practices.

I would bet you any money, out of 120 odd staff there were still people working their bollox off -thinking their team/area was viable and feeling positive before this bombshell. Anything else is really irrelevant right now.

Advertising massive redundancies is the last thing people in management do, regardless of the reason.
Anyone in in the profession feeling warm about their position in 2009 defines the term “naive”.

ONQ.

@xeex wrote:

Absolutely, brings to mind a tale from a friend that worked in one of those doomed offices, saying that the directors wouldn’t even consider salary reduction, while slashing salaries, pension and hours left and right, whilst still shared their profits from whatever jobs where coming in between them and all for the sake of the company. Yeah, Right!:mad:

Are you dissing the directors of MOL for doing their job and drawing a salary – they are all gone how, together with the rest of the staff, so your comments seem unfair.

Or are you suggesting that they should some how have foreseen the extent and depth of this recession, which caught all the financial houses on the hop?

Or are you saying they should have paid the staff something they were entitled to – Directors salaries?

I dunno what you mean by dividing the profits BTW – its all salaries for most directors.

ONQ.

@teak wrote:

Yes.
(snip)
The communiqu̩ today Рmoreover the self-important refusal to comment further or answer press enquiries Рshows a darker undercurrent.

You’re posting like a bad version of a well-known crime correspondent.
Instead of posting dark and badly written melodrama like you, I shall engage in rank speculation instead.
It is possible there were people who wanted to keep the office going, to seek credit to do so in the hope things would turn around later this year or next and thereby run up massive debts.
A decision was made and to avoid unpleasantness a veil was drawn over those discussions – this is part of what is known as the orderly winding down of a company.

The suggestion in the 9 o’clock news that the state was a principal bad debtor will put a cold chill down everyone whose hopes depend on government work.
This is something the press will certainly latch on to.
(snip)

Really – you think?

John Graby has been highlighting the grim reality of Public Sector Work way back in 2008 and again in 2009, particularly on Morning Ireland on the date of the launch of the Registration Board on 16th November 2009.
I may not agree with the man on some of what he’s been a party to recently, but there is no doubt in my mind that he has the best interests of practitioners who are Members of the Institute at heart, and he saw the government’s lip service and duplicity coming a long way off.

The only question that arises in my mind is whether he was far sighted enough to see the depth of this economic downturn and was the BCA 2007 *that* far sighted a policy to try and protect the bigger MRIAI practices as suggested in another thread – I don’t think so myself.

I think the depth of this has caught all of us by surprise and its not over yet – another harsh budget leading to strikes and civil unrest, or a double dip recession and Ireland will go to the dogs.

Unless you see the – dare I say it – architects of this disaster being called publicly to account and feeling the pain, expect this “Earls over Serfs” nonsense to continue.

And if you want to see who the architects of all this pain are – follow the money.

ONQ.

@onq wrote:

I’m not naive tommt.
I run my own sole tradership, although for how long is anyone’s guess.
Previously I reported directly to the principal of a practice similar to the size of Murray O’Laoire.
I faced people not paying their bills every day, and having to keep staff morale up while ensuring compliant work was done.
Non-paying thievery doesn’t just occur in recessions – it goes on all the time, but in the boom times you just write it off to bad debts.

By all accounts Murray O’Laoire, particularly Sean O’Laoire, were pretty staff focussed, as are most successful practices.

Advertising massive redundancies is the last thing people in management do, regardless of the reason.
Anyone in in the profession feeling warm about their position in 2009 defines the term “naive”.

ONQ.

Fair enough. Posted in haste as usual and I accept a lot of your points. On the other hand I work in an organisation (larger in total than MOLA) that values its staff enough to keep everyone abreast of the month to month fianancial health of the company.

Anyone who has been made redundant was aware months in advance of the precariousness of their position (which is pretty much everyone for the past 18 months)

I have also been informed by friends in the fianacial sector that any large employer who doesn’t hold a war chest of six months staff salary is trading relatively dodgily.

I would still contend that immediate liquidation of a company of this size and stature has to attract a decent level of scepticism.

I also agree with your points in the main tommyt, and what I was really trying to point out what that unless people actually know the policies of Murray O’Laoire towards their staff they shouldn’t be making accusations of what knowledge was dessiminated by the directors to the people working in the firm.

We held a war chest that has lasted us for a year and more as sole traders – we are now facing oblivion, because like all good things, war chests run out – its the lack of ongoing profitable work from clients who pay that is screwing all of us into the ground.

Be a skeptic all you want, but just remember that by biting the bullet now suggests that MOR were in fact NOT trading dodgily – a fact they as DIrectors must adhere to in order to avoid censure by the receiver. Continuing to trade in the face of no profitable work WOULD BE a breach of their duties as directors and that is one factor that might have precipitated what seems to us to be “sudden”, but which I expect was something known for a good while.

It may be that the recent closure of Traynor O’Toole has concentrated their minds, as it has the minds of all of us working in the profession.

I hated Gay Byrne for making his comment on the Late Late Show with Ryan Tubridy that this year “will be a bloodbath”, but Uncle Greybo was right – we’re in March still and we’ve lost two of the brightest lights in Irish Architecture and BKD are sending signals that all is not well in their practice too.

I was too young to remember the boom in the 1960’s, but I wonder is this what it was like at the end of that cycle – did people have this same feeling of utter despair and hopelessness – despite their best efforts – that numbs the mind and makes it difficult to see a future path?

I can still remember queuing for petrol in the nineteen-seventies – then getting annoyed with the long wait as a biker in a line of cars and roaring off laughing into the distance, giving my lone digit salute to the petrol station as I passed, knowing that the petrol crisis was just another fallout of some superower’s manipulation of the world.

(tut, tut)

Most un-politically correct, but I get a similar urge today.

This time to sell up and move on, in the face of an economy that has been plunged hugely into debt by virtue of the current property bubble boom and bust cycle, and profligate spending beyond our means by many of us.
Still, its different now with a family to support and good clients who will return once things improve – its how long that will take that’s the problem.
That, as well as wondering whether its worthwhile actually going anywhere else to look for work at all – look at the airport car parks in Dubai – allegedly full of cars abandoned by people who were let go and couldn’t afford the repayments.
Work might be okay “over there” for a while, but there are signs that the Derivative Bubble is up next and that may push us intp a deeper, so-called Double-Dip Depression.

(sighs)

Time for the antidote to all that depressing stuff – a cuppa tea.

🙂

Later.

ONQ.

Just on the subject of firms being owed money by the public sector:

I think the media will definitely NOT latch on to this one – it is a well known fact in business circles that many firms that have gone to the wall might still be trading if their public sector clients had paid their bills – but somehow it’s not pc to publicise this fact.

The irony of the thing is that firm closures will cost the public sector more in redundancy payments and social welfare payments – if anyone of those useless wasters in government had any aptitude for alteral thinking, they would realise that it’s always better to keep a sound company going rather than let it go to the wall. And I’m not even talking about giving hand-outs – just paying your bills would be a start Mr. Useless Taoiseach Cowen!!!!!!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0329/1224267276492.html

THE COLLAPSE last Friday of such a prominent architectural practice as Murray Ó Laoire shows how bleak the outlook is for many professionals in the construction sector – not just architects, but also engineers, quantity surveyors and others in the frontline of an industry in deep trouble., writes FRANK MCDONALD , Environment Editor

“There’s a horror landscape out there,” Seán Ó Laoire said

It makes for very grim reading. The planning profession is being equally devastated with a significant drop in numbers employed as consultants and a number of well respected firms under threat.

I hope my memory isn’t faulty on this, but I recall Murray O’Laoire as being one of the few firms that gave direction to Irish architecture back in the late 80s and early 90s.

When most of the trendy new practices were dabbling in post-modernism [UCD shite we used to call it] and the stoggy old stalwarts like STW were still churning out unreconctructed modernism as if nothing was wrong, down in Limerick Murray O’Laoire were coming out with some confident contemporary buildings that showed there was another way.

That tourist office on Arthur’s Quay and to a slightly lesser extent the visitor centre at King John’s Castle represented a bit of a breach in the walls that most of the Group 91ers then quickly poured through.

As I said, my memory could be a bit faulty on this, but that’s the way I remenber it.

I run my own sole tradership, although for how long is anyone’s guess.

ONQ,

Does this means what it says – that your practice is set up as a sole tradership ?
I ask as I’d have thought that a limited company (with wife/brother/old accountant friend as second director) would be more advantageous – in both good and bad times.

The loss of the number of high profile practices is a loss to architecture in general. It stems from I think imprudent business practices and allowing clients to run up too large a bill. I know it was an easy trap to fall into and our banks and government all pushed for more and more. There will be other casualties of that I have no doubt.

@Solo wrote:

The loss of the number of high profile practices is a loss to architecture in general. It stems from I think imprudent business practices and allowing clients to run up too large a bill. I know it was an easy trap to fall into and our banks and government all pushed for more and more. There will be other casualties of that I have no doubt.

This is why I argued fees be paid via the RIAI if techs can join the ranks.
Architects union? or is everything developer lead?

@teak wrote:

I run my own sole tradership, although for how long is anyone’s guess.

ONQ,

Does this means what it says – that your practice is set up as a sole tradership ?
I ask as I’d have thought that a limited company (with wife/brother/old accountant friend as second director) would be more advantageous – in both good and bad times.

It means exactly what it says on the tin Teak.

When I set it up in 1993 there was a more onerous audit regime for small companies.

I think we were audited twice and passed both times with flying colours, but the additional cost for companies was quite high IIRC.

I think the audit threshold was raised in recent years to quite dizzy heights of turnover – 2/300,000 Euro IIRC? – so now things might be different.

ONQ.

@gunter wrote:

I hope my memory isn’t faulty on this, but I recall Murray O’Laoire as being one of the few firms that gave direction to Irish architecture back in the late 80s and early 90s.

When most of the trendy new practices were dabbling in post-modernism [UCD shite we used to call it] and the stoggy old stalwarts like STW were still churning out unreconctructed modernism as if nothing was wrong, down in Limerick Murray O’Laoire were coming out with some confident contemporary buildings that showed there was another way.

That tourist office on Arthur’s Quay and to a slightly lesser extent the visitor centre at King John’s Castle represented a bit of a breach in the walls that most of the Group 91ers then quickly poured through.

As I said, my memory could be a bit faulty on this, but that’s the way I remenber it.

Nope, that’s my memory too.

Endless graph paper designs by STW were blown away by MOL,.

But that seemed to prompt STW to better things like the intervention in the Civic Offices, which some hate, but I think is one of their best buildings, with the ships prow motif and the internal courtyards and “bridges”.

ONQ.

@missarchi wrote:

This is why I argued fees be paid via the RIAI if techs can join the ranks.
Architects union? or is everything developer lead?

I must be missing something here.

Why would fees be paid through a private body like the RIAI?

Why would technician membership be a material issue in such a situation?

ONQ.

@wearnicehats wrote:

“Armageddon is upon us…

“What we’re looking at now is the devastation of Ireland’s building industry and its associated professions…”

“There’s a horror landscape out there….”

Look at the positive side.

Err…

ONQ.

The close timing of the MOLA liquidation and nama bank bailout is quite disturbing. the former event signals the loss of one of the most talented, ambitious and progressive firm of architects that the country has ever seen. the latter event copperfastens the enfeebling of the irish economy over the next few decades and the impoverishment of highly skilled professionals across the private sector. Let the brain drain begin…

@jesus_o_murchu wrote:

The close timing of the MOLA liquidation and nama bank bailout is quite disturbing. the former event signals the loss of one of the most talented, ambitious and progressive firm of architects that the country has ever seen. the latter event copperfastens the enfeebling of the irish economy over the next few decades and the impoverishment of highly skilled professionals across the private sector. Let the brain drain begin…

There may be some escape route for younger people with excellent 3D and Revit skills, but for older executives and senior partners I think it will be more difficult to find work abroad.

Unless people are willing to work and settle down in far flung places like China and Australia, there is little hope and in Oz once you’re over 45 you cannot apply to settle there permanently.

Similarly the larger practices on the East Coast of America are intent in keeping their people in work themselves in the face of a construction industry slowdown.

Some of the brightest and best may get places, but few enough even of those.

ONQ.

Speaking of the architects of this disaster, Charlie Bird on the 9 o’clock news was seen hollering through David Drumm’s millionaire’s door over in the States.

Apparently it was bought in 2007 and declared a “Homestead” in 2009, meaning its a sole domicle and protected up to 500,000 dollars against any claims against it.

And the current chief executive of Anglo has apparently provided for writing off 80% of the monies owed to it by its former directors.

I hope MOL partners are as well looked after.

ONQ.

I think the mandatory audit threshold was raised in recent years to quite dizzy heights of turnover – 2/300,000 Euro IIRC? – so now things might be different.

Yes.
For 12 years or so it’s been £250,000 or €317,434.

But my point was that allowances (e.g. civil service milage on cars owned by users) and taxes (at 12.5% on any profits versus the income tax rates 20%/41%) are better as a ltd co.
And neither can creditors come after the personal property of the proprietors.
I have heard it said that there may be advantages in starting as a sole trader if you want to claim VAT back on building work done on the premises leased.

Sorry for going off-topic.
Frankly, as a layman often looking at Mr Murray’s buildings, I will not be too sad to see a reduction in the amount of skyline annually granted to him.
I find many of his larger buildings cold from the outside. The Clarion Hotel looks tacky.
Several having clichéd motifs, e.g. the castellated motif so common in many of the new blocks in Limerick city — though it is a fault shared by many other new blocks there, e.g. some of the newer car-parks in Limerick even have corner towers in them.
I can’t make the same accusation at some of the jobs done by Mr Bingham.
I’d see him as a real loss, despite his preference for more horizontal aspect development.

Someone in an old thread said that a practice needs to be so big or so financed before it may present designs for public sector buildings.
If this is so then surely it militates against the young architects in their 20s who have the idealism, freshness of mind and energy to come up with novel designs — and also the time to recover from the strains of failure.
It also discriminates against those experienced but small practices who could well have very worthy proposals for certain projects.
Is this not something that your RIAI (pushed by its members, naturally) would address ?

@teak wrote:

I think the mandatory audit threshold was raised in recent years to quite dizzy heights of turnover – 2/300,000 Euro IIRC? – so now things might be different.

Yes.
For 12 years or so it’s been £250,000 or €317,434.

But my point was that allowances (e.g. civil service milage on cars owned by users) and taxes (at 12.5% on any profits versus the income tax rates 20%/41%) are better as a ltd co.
And neither can creditors come after the personal property of the proprietors.
I have heard it said that there may be advantages in starting as a sole trader if you want to claim VAT back on building work done on the premises leased.

Sorry for going off-topic.

Not at all and thanks for the heads up – I hope to talk to my accountants next week and we’ll discuss all this 🙂

Frankly, as a layman often looking at Mr Murray’s buildings, I will not be too sad to see a reduction in the amount of skyline annually granted to him.
I find many of his larger buildings cold from the outside. The Clarion Hotel looks tacky.
Several having clichéd motifs, e.g. the castellated motif so common in many of the new blocks in Limerick city — though it is a fault shared by many other new blocks there, e.g. some of the newer car-parks in Limerick even have corner towers in them.
I can’t make the same accusation at some of the jobs done by Mr Bingham.
I’d see him as a real loss, despite his preference for more horizontal aspect development.

Is that Ralph Bingham?
Yep, he was one of the best of my comtemporaries – nice guy too.

Someone in an old thread said that a practice needs to be so big or so financed before it may present designs for public sector buildings.

Circa €250,000k in turnover IIRC

If this is so then surely it militates against the young architects in their 20s who have the idealism, freshness of mind and energy to come up with novel designs — and also the time to recover from the strains of failure.
It also discriminates against those experienced but small practices who could well have very worthy proposals for certain projects.
Is this not something that your RIAI (pushed by its members, naturally) would address ?

MY RIAI?
I’m not yet registered, never mind a Member of the Institute.

I’m not sure of the RIAI’s position on the public sector work, but I’d say its hardening.
The subject arose in this thread in a very negative way suggesting the government, having instroduced the front loaded GCCC contracts are now simply not paying people for work done and not scheduling new work with approved budgets to come online.

Its abuse on top of injury from a government in a state that saw Anglo Execs got pay rises and the top level Civil Servants weren’t docked proportionally.
I won’t go so far as to call Cowan a traitor to this country as Eamon Gilmore did, but I find myself looking crooked at him more and more as this train wreck continues.

RIght now it seems that the only forward momentum is the ongoing crashing rail cars and after this stops there will be an unholy mess to wade through.
Then the courts will jam up as people simply cannot pay their bills and judgements are sought against them.
We are Donald Ducked, and there is no bolt hole to run to like there was in previous recessions.

Even Australia is looking very dodgy at the moment, with jobs for 3D desk jockeys but few senior people, whereas in the Middle East they’re looking for senior project architect so finish off high tech jobs for relatively low money.

Reading between the lines:
– in Oz they are trying to win work with high tech presentations.
– in the Middle East, they are trying to get people back to finish out jobs on site.
– in several areas they are looking for experienced people to work on large scale hospitals.

Seeking Work, FInishing Work, Government Work – the private sector is running on empty Worldwide.
A few Star Architects are getting work – that’s about it – good luck ot them.

ONQ.

I won’t suggest changing career direction into fire specifications consultancy or interior design.
The investment of time, work – for some, love too – into a profession demands that these skills are applied as they ought be.

All I can suggest is renovation work driven by insulation grants and fuel savings, the the old Pat Kenny Show no-brainer idea.

Insulation will only take one so far in energy minimisation.
To get maximum benefits some redesign is also needed to the layout of many homes.
And, God knows, so many of these old houses were never designed in any proper sense at all.

It has also become clear to me lately that a some architects have a far surer touch with the outlines of landscaping a house than many of the professional landscape gardeners.
It’s terrible to see a new house built in the countryide and the ground around it left in a mess of cultivars and exotics selected from the local garden centre — which naturally makes a far greater margin on these garish intruders than on our native species.
With present landscaping “guidances” tending to become regulatory across all councils soon, I’d expect more involvement from the architects on this aspect of development.

Sean O’ Laoire was on the Marian Finucane show this morning – playback available here:
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/marianfinucane/

After reading Frank McDonald’s article on Thursday, which had a touch of an obituary about it. That Marion Finucane interview with Sean O’Laoire was uplifting, especially after this weeks depressing NAMA / Banking bill was presented to the nation. These guys are maybe down but not out!

Two things impress me, firstly a drive to do business anywhere from the west of Ireland to Moscow. 😎 There is a big European market out there. Secondly from my home town perspective, they have played their part in turning Limerick city’s arse, to face the river.

Like the Steamboat Quay, Clarion Hotel & Restaurant Pavilion, Arthurs Quay Park & Tourist Information Office, Potato Market, Limerick County Circuit Court, King John’s Castle Visitor’s Centre.

Architects’ contribution must be recognised (Irish Times)

FRANK McDONALD

The Government needs to take the crisis in architecture seriously if more liquidations are to be avoided

SEÁN Ó Laoire has been a friend of mine for many years. His father Dónal was my Irish teacher at St Vincent’s CBS in Glasnevin, and his uncle Frank taught us geography there. I also know Hugh Murray well. So it was a terrible shock for me personally when the architectural practice they founded in 1979 went into liquidation last Friday.

Murray Ó Laoire Architects (MÓLA) started not in Dublin, but in poor benighted Limerick. Hugh and Seán became the city’s bright boys, and livened it up with projects such as the restoration of the Potato Market, a new pedestrian bridge over the Abbey river, and the gutsy visitor centre at King John’s Castle that everyone loved to hate.

Working with Jim Barrett, who had made himself de facto city architect, MÓLA put Limerick back on the map with an eye-catching contemporary tourist information office and civic park on a vacant site at Arthur’s Quay – part of a vision, now largely realised, of providing a continuous pedestrian route on the city side of the river Shannon.

Later projects in and around the city included Limerick Regional Hospital, Thomond Village student housing at UL, the Clarion Hotel “skyscraper”, the new terminal at Shannon airport, the sensitively renovated courthouse, the Tailteann sports hall at Mary Immaculate College and, of course, Thomond Park – cauldron of Munster Rugby.

Cork also benefited from MÓLA’s renovation of its opera house, which at least partly made up for Michael Scott’s blanking the river Lee, and the CIT School of Music, one of the few examples of a public-private partnership project that really worked. And Galway got fine new buildings at GMIT as well as the Bon Secours private hospital.

Back in 1994, MÓLA blazed a trail for environmental sustainability with the Green Building in Temple Bar – even though it didn’t all quite work out as planned. By then, it had opened an office in Moscow, during the rip-roaring era of Boris Yeltsin. This was to be the first of several overseas offices – more were opened in Aachen, Abu Dhabi, Barbados and Bratislava.

The practice represented Ireland at the Hanover Expo in 2000 with a pavilion described as “classy and sophisticated” by Wallpaper magazine. Its largest single project abroad was the Eurovea complex on the banks of the Danube in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, designed for Ballymore Properties; the first phase is to open at the end of April.

One of its most controversial projects at home was the development of previously untouched Carton Demesne in Co Kildare as a golf resort, with a luxury hotel linked to the country seat of the dukes of Leinster and numerous villas around the 18th century parkland. It typified the sort of compromises architects made during the boom.

But whether it was a commercial project such as Athlone Town Centre, schemes for third-level institutions such as TCD’s student housing in Dartry, or the UCD Students’ Union in Belfield, MÓLA’s work was always characterised by humanity, idealism and even a touch of irreverence. It also won numerous awards, including an RIAI (Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland) gold medal.

Nobody who was there will ever forget Seán Ó Laoire’s lecture on the theme Building on the Edge of Europe – heroically delivered in French – at L’Imaginaire Irlandais, the cultural festival in Paris in 1996; he couldn’t have imagined that, just 10 years later, the price per square metre of housing in Dublin would be dearer than in the French capital.

Ó Laoire was nauseated by the excesses of the boom – the formless housing and big-box retailing shovelled into fields at the edges of towns and villages, the countryside colonised by vulgar mansions, and so on. “It’s the antithesis of what I believe it could be, but the potential of the place is what keeps me going,” he said in 2007.

Not long before that, much to his own astonishment, MÓLA had employed up to 250 staff drawn from so many countries that its Fumbally Court atelier in the Liberties was a real melting pot. Contraction became inevitable when the credit crunch struck in 2008 and the recession hit. When the end came, there were 127 on the payroll.

“All of these people contributed to the betterment of Irish society in many ways, designing schools, hospitals and residential buildings at a level that competed with the highest standards abroad,” one leading architect commented. “It’s a real tragedy that they’ve found themselves in the situation they are in today – on the dole.”

The Government needs to take this seriously, if more liquidations are to be avoided in architectural practices where principals often go without pay to keep their business going. For a start, it must ensure that public bodies pay bills promptly, instead of leaving those who provide services hanging on for months before they receive payment.

Ciarán Cuffe, an architect himself, must know how bleak things are. As Minister of State for planning, he will be expected to advance projects that have some chance of sustaining architects and other construction industry professionals in employment. Why should only accountants, lawyers and estate agents be engaged by Nama?

The Society of the Irish Motor Industry, which is, after all, merely an association of dealers in imported cars, managed to get the Government to save its bacon with the latest scrappage scheme.

At least architects make a real contribution to society, and the RIAI needs to spell that out more forcefully.

@teak wrote:

I won’t suggest changing career direction into fire specifications consultancy or interior design.
The investment of time, work – for some, love too – into a profession demands that these skills are applied as they ought be.

All I can suggest is renovation work driven by insulation grants and fuel savings, the the old Pat Kenny Show no-brainer idea.

Insulation will only take one so far in energy minimisation.
To get maximum benefits some redesign is also needed to the layout of many homes.
And, God knows, so many of these old houses were never designed in any proper sense at all.

It has also become clear to me lately that a some architects have a far surer touch with the outlines of landscaping a house than many of the professional landscape gardeners.
It’s terrible to see a new house built in the countryide and the ground around it left in a mess of cultivars and exotics selected from the local garden centre — which naturally makes a far greater margin on these garish intruders than on our native species.
With present landscaping “guidances” tending to become regulatory across all councils soon, I’d expect more involvement from the architects on this aspect of development.

Well, teak,

Thanks for taking the time to make the suggestions and I’m sure there are many readers of thsi forum who will thanks you too.
Any positive or helpful comments are welcome at a time like this.
We’ve already developed a degree of expertise in terms of

• Fire Certs
• Planning appeals
• Legal and conveyancing work.

My wife is a qualified interior designer who has worked in Paris and London.

All of these jobs are few and far between right now and the fees are relatively poor for the work done.
We alreayd have to high court actions on at the moment, but getting an interim payment on either is almost impossible withotu suing the client.

We’ll keep the head down, keep talking to people and look at our options.

Thanks again for the comments.

ONQ.

@CologneMike wrote:

After reading Frank McDonald’s article on Thursday, which had a touch of an obituary about it. That Marion Finucane interview with Sean O’Laoire was uplifting, especially after this weeks depressing NAMA / Banking bill was presented to the nation. These guys are maybe down but not out!

Two things impress me, firstly a drive to do business anywhere from the west of Ireland to Moscow. 😎 There is a big European market out there. Secondly from my home town perspective, they have played their part in turning Limerick city’s arse, to face the river.

Like the Steamboat Quay, Clarion Hotel & Restaurant Pavilion, Arthurs Quay Park & Tourist Information Office, Potato Market, Limerick County Circuit Court, King John’s Castle Visitor’s Centre.

The article is right, staff were at least 250 two years ago. I only recently heard it was 127 at the drop, seams right with the level of redundancy in the market.

You also left out of of there more famous buildings in limerick, or is it a structure 😉

@CologneMike wrote:

That Marion Finucane interview with

You simultaneously accorded her importance and dissed her there by embolding her name but spelling it wrong 😉

@Bren88 wrote:

You also left out of of there more famous buildings in limerick, or is it a structure 😉

I think the only riverfront project I left out was the “Castle Lane” as it was kind of . . . forced upon them like?

@Devin wrote:

You simultaneously accorded her importance and dissed her there by embolding her name but spelling it wrong 😉

Arghhh . . . . . . sorry Marian, looks like I’ve been away a tad too long, over here Marion is the common form.

Hope none of my former Christian Brother teachers come on here and box my ears for leaving out a fada or two (Seán Ó Laoire).

@CologneMike wrote:

Hope none of my former Christian Brother teachers come on here and box my ears for leaving out a fada or two

LOL

They really were something else, weren’t they? when the rest of the religious community seemed to be doing nothing but groping and fondling, the good old Christian Brothers were still out there boxing peoples’ ears 🙂

@CologneMike wrote:

I think the only riverfront project I left out was the “Castle Lane” as it was kind of . . . forced upon them like?

[/B].

I specifically said “in Limerick” as opposed “on the river front”. I know the point you were making, but was just giving them kudos for significant building (or structure) in Limerick.
Besides, its only about 1km from the river any way

throughout all of this downturn with established companies failing around us I wonder if we aren’t getting lost in misty-eyed recollection of a dear departed relative; whether the whole debt issue is but a smoke screen. I know if I was one of the unfortunate employees of a successful firm that had ceased to trade I would be more interested in what happened to the vast profits a company of that ilk could have made during the boom. Profits that a company of that size should have made would, in theory, be more than enough to sustain a period of lesser productivity. Unless, of course, those profits were systematically harvested off leaving nothing but bare bones in the event of any market mishap. I might be cynical enough to see whether there may be a malpractice issue hidden deep in the core of it all. Just a general muse – not specific to any company

Speaking from the exerience of the practice in which I work (still employed, thankfully, although on a four-day week), we first felt the effects of the downturn in May 2008. That was when the government started cancelling jobs and decided to impose an 8% fee-cut on all contracts including ones where fees had already been agreed and the work mostly done.

Most offices have been whittling away at their savings since then, trying to stay afloat with little scraps of jobs despite being shafted by their banks (I know of one firm where their bank halfed their overdraft without any notice, forcing them to let staff go as they didn’t have the cash flow to pay the monthly wage bill).

I would imagine that MOLA have been, like the rest of us, limping along on their savings for almost two years now but there’s a limit to everything. As Seán O Laoire himself said, they have been throguh recessions before but nothing like this one.

Maybe I’m too willing to give them the benefit of the doubt but I really don’t agree with the conspiracy theory tone of some of the previous posts.

As far as I’m concerned, the real enemy is our worse-than-useless, corrupt, cronyist, sit-on-their-hands government. I don’t care if there is no viable alternative in sight – just let’s get those useless idiots OUT!!!!!!!

Architects left debts of over €10m
11 April 2010 By Ian Kehoe

Murray O’Laoire, the award winning firm of architects that closed down last month, has left debts of more than €10 million.

The firm was also part of a consortium bidding to build the Metro North light-rail system, and was involved in the National Children’s Hospital project and the proposed colocated hospital in Limerick.

http://www.sbpost.ie/news/ireland/architects-left-debts-of-over-10m-48535.html

@hell wrote:

(snip)
As far as I’m concerned, the real enemy is our worse-than-useless, corrupt, cronyist, sit-on-their-hands government. I don’t care if there is no viable alternative in sight – just let’s get those useless idiots OUT!!!!!!!

Speaking with a dyed-in-the-wool Fianna Fáil-supporting developer this afternoon even he had to admit that the government’s policies were largely to blame for what has occurred in the Irish economy and the building industry.

This was from a guy who actively supported the prolongation of the 20% capital gains tax [as oposed to the 40% level once mooted] so the water hasn’t sunk so deep that he recognises his own voice in the tent at Galway as promoting those same policies.

But both of us agreed that there is no-one on the opposition benches that suggests a credible alternative government and thus we are left with this least worst option running the country on a daily basis.

ONQ.

It’s strange how companies are disappearing.

All the UK companies seem to be pulling out now too. I see Buro Happold have gone insolvent.