Stirling Prize-winning studio Niall McLaughlin Architects has accomplished a seven-storey museum in Limerick, Eire, with vaulted ceilings and partitions designed to “mirror the forces present in rugby”.
Situated on Limerick’s important excessive road within the Georgian Quarter, the Worldwide Rugby Expertise was constructed as an attraction that celebrates the sport of rugby as a part of a rejuvenation of the town centre.
Niall McLaughlin Architects, which gained the 2022 Stirling Prize for its Magdalene School library on the College of Cambridge, created a 33.8-metre-tall tower set again from the road entrance by a portico.
On the tower’s high flooring, a public corridor with double-height home windows offers panoramic views of the town and acts as a beacon that may be seen from afar.
“As a tall constructing on a decent city web site with stringent fireplace escape necessities, a splendidly episodic, vertical journey is created by means of a collection of very totally different areas – some small, some massive, some daylit, some darkish – all to reach on the high and reorientate oneself by means of the distinctive panoramic views of the encircling metropolis and landscapes past,” Niall McLaughlin Architects affiliate Tom McGlynn advised Dezeen.
The two,110-square-metre constructing has arched ceilings and purple brickwork on the outside facades and inside flooring and partitions.
“Each in and out, structural forces are expressed by means of brick and vault detailing to create a constructing that displays a number of the forces discovered within the recreation of rugby,” mentioned McGlynn.
“There’s a sense that the inside areas are carved out of a brick mass and that is bolstered by means of brick-format quarry tile flooring.”
The constructing sits inside a conservation space in Limerick’s Georgian Quarter and on the footprint of three derelict Georgian townhouses.
Niall McLaughlin Architects designed the red-brick constructing to slot in with the encircling historic buildings whereas distinguishing itself as an attraction.
“We seemed on the totally different types of these historic taller buildings,” mentioned McGlynn.
“For these civic buildings set into terraces, the tower component was typically set again behind a lower-level portico or entrance that continued the road line – this appeared probably the most acceptable typology for introducing a brand new tall public constructing in Limerick,” he continued.
“A lot of the historic civic buildings have a good time their peak with ‘crowning’ options on the high and we noticed the requirement for roof gentle shading on our constructing as a possibility to provide it a crowning function – one that’s sensible but additionally expressive and sculptural, paying homage to Georgian-era traditions.”
The studio created a rhythmic facade made out of a mix of brick-clad pre-cast facade panels and hand-laid brickwork.
Vertical brick piers had been separated by horizontal spans of red-pigmented pre-cast concrete, creating recessed bays.
In line with McGlynn, the proportions of the bays had been designed to enhance the encircling Georgian streetscape and break up the strong wall to enhance the sizes of window openings.
“The uncovered pre-cast lintels and cills are pigmented to match the purple brickwork and this mixture of brick and precast displays in a up to date method the brick and stone detailing on native church buildings,” mentioned the architect.
A mixture of three kinds of handmade clay bricks was used to attain a facade that fits the historic brickwork native to the world.
“By utilizing handmade bricks, we may make sure that the color and end of the quite a few specials used all through the constructing would match the usual bricks,” mentioned McGlynn.
“A pale mortar was specified to reference the color of conventional lime mortar,” he added. “This permits the brick texture and bond to be learn from a distance, animating the facades.”
A grand portico marks the doorway to the Worldwide Rugby Expertise, which offers a sheltered public area for rugby followers to collect.
“With the Worldwide Rugby Expertise positioned between Limerick prepare station and Thomond Park stadium, we felt there was a possibility to offer native and visiting followers with a significant assembly place for match days,” McGlynn defined.
Sequence of plasterboard arches function throughout the ceilings, which had been completed in a purple hue to match the brickwork.
“The idea was for the ceiling vaults to be pigmented concrete as a structural type supporting the flooring above. Nevertheless, on account of masses, embodied carbon issues, buildability and value, these at the moment are shaped from plasterboard on a metal-frame grid, or timber formwork within the case of the highest flooring,” mentioned McGlynn.
“There was additionally a requirement to offer acoustic absorption to counter all of the exhausting surfaces, and the plasterboard substrate offered the chance for a rough-textured, pigmented acoustic plaster system to be utilized, giving the ceiling vaults a cementitious look.”
Retail area is positioned on the bottom flooring and a restaurant was located on the primary flooring subsequent to the double-height entrance corridor.
Throughout all flooring ranges are exhibition, schooling and occasion areas that accommodate digital shows, museum items about rugby and interactive coaching video games.
Different tasks accomplished by Niall McLaughlin Architects embody an entrance tower added to a fortress in England and a house in Hampshire made up of a collection of stone pavilions.
The images is by Nick Kane.
Challenge credit:
Architect: Niall McLaughlin Architects
Essential contractor: Flynn
Planning advisor: City & Nation Sources
Challenge supervisor and amount surveyor: Interact PMS
Heritage advisor: Consarc
Structural and civil engineer: Punch Consulting
M&E engineer: Metec Consulting Engineers
Expertise designers: Occasion Communications
Fireplace advisor: CK Fireplace Engineering
Challenge supervisor design course of: Aegis Security Administration
Assigned certifier: Punch Consulting
Daylight advisor: BRE
