Roscrea architect's winning design will soon become a reality

A design for a new building to become one of the most significant aspects of the redevelopment of Roscrea's Gantly Street by an architect originally from Roscrea will soon become a reality.

Claire McManus, daughter of retired Doctor, George McManus and Libby (RIP) from Parkmore in Roscrea, now works for an architect firm in Dublin and designed a building which will soon be a centre piece in the redesign of a piece of dormant land in the heart of the town on Gantly Road.

Gantly Road itself is planned to receive a complete upgrade and become a fully fledged street replete with housing, retail outlets and public amenities.

In late 2022 the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI), in association with the Department of Housing, announced their first ever design competition for architects, for a new social housing development in the middle of four different Irish towns.

The competition, open to all architects, sought to deliver an exemplary winning design that would celebrate housing delivery within our town centres.

They invited every Local Authority to submit sites they considered would be suitable. Tipperary County Council sent in two sites, one in Tipperary Town and one in Roscrea.

Both were infill sites in the heart of the town that it was considered would greatly invigorate the town itself if they were developed. But up against every other Local Authority, Tipperary County Council remained hopeful rather than expectant.

The competition was officially launched at the RIAI offices in Dublin by the Minister of Housing, Darragh O’Brien, on January 27th 2023. At the launch, after submissions from every Local Authority were reviewed, the four winning sites were announced. The four were in Sligo Town in Sligo, in Castleblaney in Monaghan, in Kildare Town in Kildare and the Tipperary site at Gantly Road in Roscrea.

Pictured above is a bird's eye view of the piece of land at the junction of Gantly Road and Chapel Lane where the building will be located

Up against every other County Council it was a great achievement for Roscrea to be selected as one of the winning four sites.
The RIAI advertised the Town Centre Living competition for the four sites in February design proposals were received from all of the main architects in Ireland and some from the U.K. 28 architectural practices submitted an entry for the Gantly Road site.

The competition brief was to provide 14-18 new housing units and a community facility that would be suitable for town centre living in an innovative design that would greatly enhance this prominent site in Roscrea.

All of the entries were assessed by 3 independent judges over two days in April 2023. The judges were very impressed with the range and quality of proposals that were put forward for what is a challenging site in the town.

They felt that the range of approaches demonstrated that it is possible to design medium density, low rise housing in the middle of a town that not only create homes and neighbourhoods that are desirable places to live, but also create good urban and landscaped spaces that reinvigorate the town itself.

In the end they unanimously decided that the winning design was 'Learning from Roscrea' by JFOC Architects in Dublin. On the announcement of the winners a lovely link between the design and the town emerged when it was discovered that one of the directors of JFOC, Claire McManus, is originally a native of Roscrea.

The scheme is now to go through the Department of Housing approval process and planning and it is hoped that construction will begin in early 2025.

The RIAI have now given all of the 28 original entries for the competition to Tipperary County Council to put on display in the town. This will initially take place in venues, the Shopping Centre from Monday August 26th to Monday September 16th and the Library from Tuesday September 17th to Monday October 7th.

It is amazing to see the variety of wonderful design solutions, by many of the top architects in Ireland and the U.K., for the same piece of ground in Roscrea. Everybody is invited to visit this unique Roscrea Exhibition.