ROSCREA Town Centre Living Competition RIAI Exhibition
In late 2022 the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI), in association with the Department of Housing, announced their first ever design competition for architects, for a new social housing development in the middle of 4 different towns in Ireland. The competition, open to all architects, sought to deliver an exemplary winning design that would celebrate housing delivery within our town centres. They invited every Local Authority to submit sites they considered would be suitable. Tipperary County Council sent in two sites, one in Tipperary Town and one in Roscrea. Both were infill sites in the heart of the town that it was considered would greatly invigorate the town itself if they were developed.
The competition was officially launched at the RIAI offices in Dublin by the Minister of Housing, Darragh O’Brien, on January 27th 2023. At the launch, after submissions from every Local Authority were reviewed, the four winning sites were announced. The four were a site in Sligo Town in Sligo, a site in Castleblaney in Monaghan, a site in Kildare Town in Kildare and the Tipperary site at Gantly Road in Roscrea. Up against every other Local Authorities in the country it was a great achievement for Tipperary County Council to be selected as one of the winning four.
The RIAI advertised the “Town Centre Living” competition for the four sites in February design proposals were received from all of the main architects in Ireland and some from the U.K. 28 architectural practices submitted an entry for the Gantly Road site.
The competition brief was to provide 14-18 new housing units and a community facility that would be suitable for town centre living in an innovative design that would greatly enhance this prominent site in Roscrea.
All of the entries were assessed by 3 independent judges over two days in April 2023. The judges were very impressed with the range and quality of proposals that were put forward for what is a challenging site in the town. They felt that the range of approaches demonstrated that it is possible to design medium density, low rise housing in the middle of a town that not only create homes and neighbourhoods that are desirable places to live, but also create good urban and landscaped spaces that reinvigorate the town itself.
In the end they unanimously decided that the winning design was “Learning from Roscrea” by JFOC Architects in Dublin. On the announcement of the winners a lovely link between the design and the town emerged when it was discovered that one of the directors of JFOC, Claire McManus, is originally a native of Roscrea. The scheme is now to go through the Department of Housing approval process and planning and it is hoped that construction will begin in early 2025.
The RIAI have now given all of the original entries to Tipperary County Council and an exhibition of all the Gantly Road design proposals is currently on display in the library
It is amazing to see the variety of wonderful design solutions, by many of the top architects in Ireland and the U.K., for the same piece of ground in our town. So everybody is invited to come along to see this unique Roscrea Exhibition for themselves.