On Thursday 14th November 2013 the Institute of Designers in Ireland held their annual awards celebrating the best in design on the island of Ireland. The awards cover all design disciplines and the night in Vicar Street Dublin was attended by the who’s who of the design world.
Cork Institute of Technology’s newest educational space, the Architecture Factory came, won the top award categories in Education, Commercial Interiors and Sustainable Reuse. But the biggest shock was still to come……of the 21 categories of design from fashion to web design….CITs Architecture Factory was crowned with the Grand Prix for best Contribution to design in Ireland in 2013.
The Institute noted that the design ticked all the boxes, being a genuinely unique approach, innovative, far reaching and achieved within a modest budget, reiterating that good design means good business.
The interior of the former TYCO building is straight out of a design magazine, bright, funky and fun. The design of the interior architecture was by CIT lecturer Marc O Riain, and developed and delivered by RKD Architects. The exciting modern space is defined by the six lime green used shipping containers serving as offices which surround the open plan design studios.
A wide boulevard replaces the traditional lab with an open experimental zone, where all years and experiences collaborate. Here everybody seems equal; everyone seems to learn from each other, first years to PhDs, students and lecturers alike. Where the roof rises, a mezzanine overhangs the boulevard, accommodating quieter, more traditional, but no less exciting spaces.
The space is actually an old factory, converted smartly and cost effectively, resulting in an innovative and creative space. There are no ceiling grids, a few walls, factory lighting, and no air conditioning (the types of things that make traditional office or education spaces expensive). You might think with 240 students and 12 staff that it would then be very noisy, but it’s not. There is a buzz, but that’s it. It’s not distracting, just active.
The design, according to Marc O Riain, takes its lead from the occupy movement. The design follows the principals of Guerrilla Architecture, opportunistic and unconventional. The building adaption is interior architecture; there is no elevation, no outward expression of the interior intervention. The contemporary use of containers in architecture reflects the field’s interest in sustainable reuse and re embodiment of energy through repurposing.
“It was a factory and we wanted the educational space to respect its origins. We wanted a shared open environment, where all possibilities are open. We knew that in interior architecture and architectural technology, students learn as much from their peers as they do from their lecturers; so the creation of open spaces helps the cross communication of ideas, complex inter relationships, lapsed memories, delayed thoughts, shadows and reflections, that bounce ideas into new places. Ideas seem to eddy on the margins of each studio, creating reflecting pools for those who transition through the space, absorbing iterations of the ideas as they step in the stream of creativity.
Here, a design of true merit rises, playful and surprising, as if to announce some new optimism, a relief at least from the architectural recession, and an inspiration for those who work and study there.”
