Commercial Property & Interiors
Summer 2005

BOX ARCHITECTURE

Box Architecture was created in 1997 in Dublin by David Dwyer and Gary Mongey. Since conception, the company has been established as a leading design practice having won 9 Irish National Awards to date. Quality has remained the focus of Box throughout and this been employed to a variety of projects including urban schemes, apartment units, award-winning private commissions, corporate offices, crèches and housing developments.

Box Architecture has established its practice on the forefront of deign. With a hands-on approach using execution in the presentation and design medium, Box reflects an ethos of the highest principle. The aim is to use simple technology to achieve inspirational aesthetics in the built form rather than a direct commercial approach. This technique has been employed to a variety of projects including award-winning domestic extensions, doctor’s surgeries, corporate offices, one-off houses to a crèche and housing developments. Thus, reflecting the versatility in the application of the Box methodology to a wide range of projects. Quality rather than rapid expansion remains the focus in order to retain sustainability well into the future and keep the practice at the vanguard of architectural design.

The success of Box Architecture is achieved through a personal approach to understand client needs. With a hands-on approach, technical expertise, creative execution and a commitment to continued education, the company applies a philosophy of the highest principle in order to contribute to a sustainable future and maintain quality architecture.

STATE-OF-THE ART CRECHE IN CARPENTERSTOWN

This is a 5,000 square foot purpose built crèche for sixty children known as ‘Magic Years’ and outlines part of a development which incorporates a residential cluster to the west of the site nestled within a suburban housing estate. The brief was to provide a “home away from home”.

Approach to the building is by way of a shared car park, a drop off point and then one proceeds by foot through a series of external spaces by an orchard to the heart of the building. One then passes between low and tall forms into the central hall incorporating pigeon holes for children’s belongings. Five brick elements arrange the double-height central hall creating a hierarchy of overlapping layers giving access to the play rooms adjacent to the exterior of the building where the smallest of the spaces connect to the garden. Timber screens separate the rooms from the hall, forming spaces at the scale of the children for displays and sittings. Windows are shifted within the wall thickness to express the mass of the brick elements.

The brick elements provide each of the children’s rooms with changing and eating facilities. Different staircases give access to the dormitories and a balcony at first floor which creates the perception of a maze to the child. Roof lights are used in differing orientations throughout the building to animate and promote awareness of moving light.

The rhythm of spaces is extended to the external landscaping treatment which results in dense foliage to the southern boundary.

CLIENT’S COMMENTS:

Are we pleased with the result? Perhaps the best people to answer that might be the parents who have proffered such insightful remarks such as fabulous and wow. Better still, maybe we should ask the children in our care, whose happy faces and stimulated engagements tell it all.

INDUSTRIAL UNIT IN KELLS, CO. MEATH

Box Architecture’s project of a fit-out of an industrial unit in Kells, Co. Meath was selected for exhibition in connection with the RIAI Regional Awards 2003. This is the seventh Irish architectural honor since 1999.

The project involved the fitting out for processing, of a mid-terraced industrial unit (ground floor 346 m² and mezzanine 242 m²) belonging to Archaeological Development Services Ltd. (ADS), a company providing a range of archaeological services to the construction and development sector. The existing structure is a portal frame, access is both from the front and rear and a mezzanine to the front leaves a double height void at the rear of the building.

The brief required that an industrial feel be retained and that the use of natural daylight be maximized. The design approach was to insert a series of objects into the building around which the plan evolved, denoting the building program.
On the ground floor the reception and administrative areas are held to the front. A laboratory is in the centre of the building flanked on both sides by utility elements containing vertical circulation piercing to the mezzanine, toilets, dark room and air abrasive room, allowing daylight to penetrate deep into the volume by retaining translucent roof lights. The preliminary processing and storage area is to the rear in the two-story void.

A shaft of light down the stairs indicates access to the mezzanine level. A plate is inserted to one side of the mezzanine under which is gathered formal functions, which are delineated by clear glass walls interrupted by timber door planes, creating a flexible open plan in the centre of the building.

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