Grafton architects win the first World Building of the Year award

Fair play to them. It’s a fantastic thing for Irish architecture.

It’s a lovely piece of work and a great accolade for an Irish firm

http://ireland.archiseek.com/news/2008/000320.html

Great to see an Irish architecture firm doing well on the world stage. Hopefully they’ll continue creating buildings of that standard in Ireland. I do like the one near Stephen’s Green, by the Cemetary.

Wow they’re great photos Paul. Its some building. Fingers crossed this will work as a catalyst for Irish firms finding work abroad.

That is a great looking building. Well done to them.

It’s a superb looking building, hopefully this will be a boost for Irish architecture in general.

An Irish firm, but the project architect in Grafton was Italian, I believe.

*waves flag ineffectually*

(PS I still have issues with the Huguenot building.)

I was racking my brain as to what the overhang was reminding me of. Perhaps the Stirling and Gowan Leicester University engineering building? Perhaps it’s something else though? Certainly something from that era. hmmm!

has anyone been there in person? there are not many photos floating around

@phil wrote:

I was racking my brain as to what the overhang was reminding me of. Perhaps the Stirling and Gowan Leicester University engineering building? Perhaps it’s something else though? Certainly something from that era. hmmm!

melnikov?

http://www.worldbuildingsdirectory.com/project.cfm?id=284

this one should have won – it’s a joy

http://www.worldbuildingsdirectory.com/search.cfm?page=1

If you search through the Irish entries we get a pretty good picture of the quality of work completed here in the last while – some really good buildings there, not to mention the very many projects which weren’t entered.

@cajual wrote:

melnikov?

Never seen that before. Impressive though. I was beginning to wonder had my brain somehow associated the overhang in the new Grafton building with the one under the staircase on the Fellow’s Square side of the Berkeley in Trinity (in which case I would be getting slightly carried away with the similarities!).

@phil wrote:

I was beginning to wonder had my brain somehow associated the overhang in the new Grafton building with the one under the staircase on the Fellow’s Square side of the Berkeley in Trinity

I wondered if that was what you were thinking of too! To be precise, I suspected it might have been the old south elevation, now no longer visible, where the little tailor-made van used to park under the sloping staircase projection.

either way, I think my imagination was running away with itself!

@ctesiphon wrote:

An Irish firm, but the project architect in Grafton was Italian, I believe.

*waves flag ineffectually*

(PS I still have issues with the Huguenot building.)

Typical Irish begrudger:rolleyes:

I think its simply wonderful what Grafton have done. Heneghan Peng are also doing something similar with their Grand Egyptian Museum, which I think will be a highly impressive building

http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/news/news.aspx?article=e2a311df-7eb9-4193-9adc-bfea42fb9d8c

someone is seeing it in person;) the russians are coming!

I really cant understand why anyone would like that building. Its an ugly heap of concrete.

you know it’s been a good week for architecture in Ireland; just reading that Hackett Hall McKnight (story link! – one of them worked for Grafton for quite some time) have picked up Young Architect of the Year 2008 http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/4387/hackett-hall-mcknight-win-bd-young-architect-of-the-year.html so hats off to them to (I have to admire these guys for sticking around belfast because to be frank they could have effed off years ago but they chose to remain in a city which has no real heritage of promoting modern architecture http://http://www.hhmck.com/

congratulations guys

…no real heritage of promoting modern architecture

Inventing history?

@Chris_533976 wrote:

I really cant understand why anyone would like that building. Its an ugly heap of concrete.

It’s actually completely clad in local stone (the university bought an entire quarry to provide enough to cover the buildings surfaces). I’d suggest you find out more about the building before throwing the word “ugly”around.

It looks to be an extraordinary building, spatially complex, structurally daring yet still retaining a strong contextual relationship to the city. I’d love to see it in the flesh.

o what a feeling;) take a bow…

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2008/1103/1225523317020.html

Badly made video of Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell talking after winning their award

http://www.worldarchitecturefestival.com/news-detail.cfm?newsId=72

From the World Architecture Festival website: Global broadcast channel CNN International will be on location at CCIB throughout World Architecture Festival to film the event for their “The Spirit of…’ feature series. The programme, “The Spirit of… Architecture”, will be broadcast at the following times:

Thursday 13th November at 1400 and 1830 GMT
Saturday 15th November at 0800 and 1830 GMT
Sunday 16th November at 0400, 0830 and 1430 GMT

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/30/best.buildings/index.html