St John’s River
An urban promenade along the river flood plain is the main aim of the St John’s River group. This area floods annually and therefore each of the projects had to accommodate this issue. The urban promenade will define a character to the river with the creation of walkways, public spaces and the planting of five species of tree; downey birch, silver birch, aspen, scot’s pine and black thorn.
Brendan Spierin was focused on bringing people together, encouraging social interaction and serendipitous encounters. His project is in reaction to speculatively built offices by designing the first purpose built co-working space in Ireland. The building is driven by a ‘shifting atrium’ space which houses all the communal elements of the programme.
Investigating the different facets of well-being, broken into three area; social, emotional and physical, and their relationship to architecture is the basis for Ross McCarthy’s thesis. He found that Waterford’s social and emotional well-being had regressed and its sense of identity was lost. The establishment of a boat manufacturing industry was in response to Waterford’s historical, cultural and social context aimed at re-establishing a unique identity.
A centre to encourage connection between the working and unemployed citizens of Waterford was the physical representation of Wayne Holmes thesis. He looked at blurring boundaries and adopting typologies from both high and low culture encouraging chance encounters and promoting the idea that it is not what you know but who you know for employment opportunities. He strives to create something ordinary that is beautiful and legible to everyone.
The research for Thomas McPhilips’ thesis was based on Colin Rowes’ ‘Phenomenal Transparency’. It is about a cognitive experience, giving glances and allowing a person to assume what they are seeing. The typology employed is a YouTube Space, a media production building for internet content. The building is wrapped in an air of mystery with glimpses into some areas where access would normally be denied, placing the public in positions similar to actors and producers while other times the production crew overlooks the public.
Vincent O’Byrne draws on Robin Evan’s comparative essay: “Figures, Doors and Passages” for his thesis. His proposed building is a new city block with the goal of weaving living and working typologies simultaneously into the fabric of the city. The block consists of 2 storey offices/shops/cafés with two bed apartments/one bed studio/workshops located on the 3rd and 4th floors creating a bright and busy public street. A raised residential courtyards towards the center of the block adds another dimension of space and activity to the fabric of the city, onto which the apartments, workshops and studios all have access forming a family of entrances and new communities.
Proportion does not come from intent, but comes from a variety of influencing factors due to both limitation and innovation of various structural techniques. Aoife Cunningham’s thesis looks at a grid as an ordering mechanism for the arrangement of columns to create both major and minor spaces. She explores these ideas in a Farmer’s Market and Stock Exchange building. The arrangement of processes within a stock exchange is studied by looking at the nature of the ancient market spaces, the gathering place for people to barter and trade.
