Ireland's long boom has seen a massively revived interest in building – it could hardly be otherwise when the entire economy is seemingly grounded in the construction industry, but for all of the building work going on in Ireland, two things are often left as secondary considerations: design quality and sustainability. Located in Naas, County Kildare, the new civic office, Áras Chill Dara, aims to satisfy both criteria.
Built to house Kildare County Council and Naas Town Council, Áras Chill Dara was designed by Heneghan Peng, the Dublin-based architects behind the Grand Museum of Egypt, the Giant's Causeway visitor centre in County Antrim and the proposed redevelopment of Carlisle Pier in Dún Laoghaire.
Both graduates of Harvard Graduate School of Design, the company's founders Róisín Heneghan and Shih-Fu Peng are really only at the beginning of their careers but have already won plaudits for their work. Áras Chill Dara itself has won a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) European Architecture award in 2006.
Initially based in the United States, upon winning the competition to design Kildare Civic Office in 2001 the pair relocated to Dublin. Heneghan Peng's design beat off stiff competition from other international architects including Irish firm NJB Architects, England's Arthur Collin and Katerina Tsigarida Architects from Greece.
Central to Heneghan Peng's success in winning the competition was not only the building's modern and forward looking design but also its environmental credentials: "The brief aspired toward energy efficient design and green building," says Shih-Fu Peng. "That was the starting point. We needed to employ the best and most innovative techniques to achieve this.
"It [sustainability] was an aspiration and, relative to local government, it is setting an example. Local government set the standard and is on the cutting edge of promoting the standard," he says.
Building for a brighter future
"In a large sense, sustainability can mean nothing," says Shih-Fu Peng. "From a developer's point of view, it can mean the most cost effective solution – sustainable for the developers. In order to really achieve sustainability you need to work with a consultant who belies in true sustainability and who doesn't just apply a fixed set of standards – one needs to look at the building and its purpose. We worked with Buro Happold's Bath office."
In designing Áras Chill Dara, Heneghan Peng saw sustainability as rooted in the building's location: "The nudge toward the forest provides shade in summer, for example.
"From stage one and two, we submitted a building that we felt was strong architecturally but also used its shape to promote sustainability," he says.
Located on a 3.2 hectare site, formerly part of Devoy Barracks, Áras Chill Dara is an 11,500 sq. metre building. The building consists of two blocks or 'bars', each four storeys, that lie on a slightly inclined ground plane, gently rising from the street level which is actually a 'civic garden' public green space. The building's twin bars that form the actual civic offices enclose, and are intended to be a continuation of, the civic garden.
Additionally, the final brief required accommodation for 420 staff, a council chamber, space for Naas Town Council and parking for 413 cars.
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