RIAI impressed with architect's urban living design for one Tipperary town

Learning from Roscrea by JFOC Architects has been announced as the winning proposal for the Town Centre Living architectural design competition in Roscrea.

The announcement was made by The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien.

The Town Centre Living competitions, which launched in January, aimed to encourage innovative designs from architectural firms for social housing within town centres in Castleblayney, Kildare, Roscrea, and Sligo.

The competitions aim to progress the Government’s Town Centre First policy objectives of compact growth and town centre revitalisation, by way of real showcase projects which will provide almost 100 new social housing homes. All competitions were adjudicated anonymously by four separate juries.

The jury citation on the winning Roscrea design said that the proposal unanimously impressed the jury at urban, building and detail scales and in making a place that was delightful for people, both the future residents of the housing and the broader town community.

JFOC Architects said in their statement on the design that they were proposing a project that felt as if it had always been a part of Roscrea, while creating a series of new interlinked small scale public spaces grafted on to the existing flow of the town.

“This project serves to tidy up a slightly ragged edge-of -town condition in the spirit of the existing Gantly Road Masterplan. We want to make a new ‘“’mini-landmark’ on this prominent corner, a destination on a sunny day, connected back to the main street down existing pedestrian routes. New housing on this corner site offers more than new housing; streets are reinvented and urban space is created.”

In addition to the first placed winners, the competitions awarded prizes to the second and third placed schemes and commendations in Roscrea:

Second prize winner: ODKM Architects; third, O’Mahony Pike Architects; Highly Commended: Boyd Cody Architects with James Flaus and Kevin Quinlan

RIAI CEO Kathryn Meghen said that the RIAI was delighted to have worked with the Department Housing, Local Government and Heritage to deliver the competitions.