15th annual AAI Awards

I’m inclined to agree with the assors of the AAI 2000 awards re:the lack of ‘urban scale’ planning in relation to the projects exhibited. The general comment all made was to the effect that the majority of the projects reflected a boutique like private development quality rather than reflect concern with the public environment.

Some of the stuff selected for commendations and award seemed somewhat whimsical. particularly the two timber boxes by Grafton Architects (although beautifully detailed),the convertible room and the urban house prototype also the school building, again by Grafton Architects was not, to my mind particularly well detailed or designed although it was difficult to consider its dsign as the spaces indicated on plan lacked a key to make them intelligible.

The two major exceptions to this were, I thought, the de Blacam and Meagher schem for Castle Street which really does have a strong Urban nature and deserved to do better and curiously enough the small Garage conversion which was a real masterpiece, probably built for the proverbial tuppence and achieving a very sophisticated response to a brief that most architects, myself included, would find it hard to respond to eg:the extension to the semi, so beloved by the Irish middle classes -I thought it had far more integrity than at least two of the award winning schemes and deserved far more than a commendation for its obvious quality.

With one or two exceptions, most of the rest of the commendations were pretty unimpressive although maybe I’m being a little unfair. Any comments?

All the comments made here and in the Irish Times by Frank MacDonald are valid points about the awards. However, I feel there are a few points that have been overlooked:
People are invited to submit entries with no restriction on size or type…they just have to be members of the AAI. So perhaps the work that appears absent, exists but is not submitted therefore is not visible to the assessors. What I am trying to say is that I don’t think the work of the type referred to is either not existant, unsubmitted or of such poor quality that assessors chose to disregard. As for the comment that the school is castleblayney is badly detailed, if you ever worked on a school for the dept. of education you might see where the assessors were coming from. As for the awards, i thought the Credit Union should have received the medal…but that’s just my opinion.