University College Dublin (UCD) and Malcolm Reading Consultants have announced Steven Holl Architects (SHA) as the winner of an international competition to design a new portion of the university’s 330-acre campus.
SHA’s scheme for the 60-acre area creates an entrance precinct, organized around a pedestrian walkway, with seven new quadrangles of green space. A prismatic new building called the Centre for Creative Design, located next to a plaza and reflecting pool, features towers that mirror the angle of the earth’s tilt and an auditorium that recalls the shape of UCD’s dodecahedral 1972 water tower. Intended to foster collaborative learning, the Centre will allow students and faculty to view classroom and maker spaces through glazed interior walls, while also offering spaces that encourage silent study and concentration.
A jury selected SHA, based in New York and Beijing, from a total of six finalists that presented concepts for the project in June. Some 98 firms from 28 countries entered the competition.
UCD president and chair of the competition jury Andrew J. Deeks called Holl’s vision “intriguing and striking—combining an iconic design for the Centre for Creative Design with a masterplan distinguished by a few considered, highly intelligent moves that open up the centre of the campus and use creative landscaping to intensify its natural beauty.” For his part, Holl noted how the scheme reflects “on the history and quality of UCD’s campus, responding to the particulars of the site to create place and space.”
SHA is leading a design team comprising Dublin-based Kavanagh Tuite Architects, U.S. analysts Brightspot Strategy, structural engineers Arup, landscape architects and urban designers HarrisonStevens, and climate engineers Transsolar.
Video courtesy of Malcolm Reading Consultants / Steven Holl Architects
