丨爱尔兰都柏林

Ringsend Library

Client: Dublin City Council

Value: Undisclosed

Built Area: 544 sqm

Start Date: Mid 2021

End Date: On going

Project Type:

Education + Community

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DMOD worked closely with an extensive design team in particular Mitchell & Associate Landscape Architects to develop a design to regenerate the whole of Ringsend Library Square, introduce traffic calming measures, enhance the public realm, create a new public square, and refurbish and extend the library building.

The library design proposal has been developed in response to the urban context, the site history and the building programme generated by DCC library’s division. The proposal was to extend the existing library, a detached seven-bay, single-storey Art Deco public library, built c.1937. By wrapping it on 3 sides with the new building forming a new street edge on Fitzwilliam Street and moving the library entrance onto the north elevation creating a strong back drop to the new public square. While the new build forms a frame on both sides of the existing library front elevation, preserving and emphasizing the unique character of the original building.

Internally the new library building structure is expressed in a radial arrangement from the existing building and aligning to the curve of Fitzwilliam Street. The structure is left exposed internally and is a subtle nod to the social history of Ringsend as a fishing village, and a representation of the skeletal structure of the Ray, a fish which the village of Ringsend has had a unique relationship for centuries.