social housing schemes are among more than 40 contenders for the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland annual awards which will be announced on Friday.Rathdown County Council’s “rapid build” estate at George’s Place are two of 16 housing developments shortlisted for this year’s awards.
The council tenants who moved in last year can expect utility bills to cost little more than €200 per year. A computer-generated image of Dolphin House terraced housing which has been designed to create new frontage overlooking the Grand Canal. The 1950s estate of 400 flats near the Coombe hospital in Dolphin’s Barn, the largest remaining council flat complex in the State, became notorious for a heroin problem in the1980s and 1990s. The flats were increasingly neglected with persistent damp, mould and sewage problems. It was designated for demolition and redevelopment more than a decade ago and the council had hoped to pursue the project as a public-private partnership, but the economic crash scuppered those plans.
The blocks were stripped back to skeletons to allow for replacement of all sewerage systems and drains, water and electricity services, so they could be redeveloped as low-energy use buildings.The officers’s quarters and mess at Clancy Barracks, Islandbridge. Strenuous efforts were made to ‘strip back to the clean lines of this Victorian jewel’.