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Project: Urban Block
Location: Inchicore, Dublin
Designed by John Pardey Architects
Website: www.johnpardeyarchitects.com
John Pardey Architects design begins with a concept of a ‘platform’ – a stone-clad base that covers the site containing commercial accommodation, and this stone element rises up to the street frontage to make a civic face. Formed by two interlocking rectangles in plan, each contains a large open courtyard arranged diagonally opposite each other. These are revealed by large apertures on the facades, emphasising the inner and outer worlds of this building that contains a Crèche at first floor, and Health Centre above. Continue for more images and the rest of architects description after the jump:
Location: Inchicore, Dublin
Designed by John Pardey Architects
Website: www.johnpardeyarchitects.com
John Pardey Architects design begins with a concept of a ‘platform’ – a stone-clad base that covers the site containing commercial accommodation, and this stone element rises up to the street frontage to make a civic face. Formed by two interlocking rectangles in plan, each contains a large open courtyard arranged diagonally opposite each other. These are revealed by large apertures on the facades, emphasising the inner and outer worlds of this building that contains a Crèche at first floor, and Health Centre above. Continue for more images and the rest of architects description after the jump:
![](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Odu7eqW6gAY/TH-4qeCaXJI/AAAAAAAAlQs/Ek26GOyQBLU/s400/Urban+Block+by+John+Pardey+Architects+02.jpg)
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Set upon the platform stretching back into the site, residential blocks are planned in two different forms; a western block as a simple form, with a façade of balconies sheltering behind vertical awnings that ensure a constant variety within unity – to the inner pedestrian street, the blocks are conceived as a series of elegant boxes, perched atop the platform as if birds on a wall. Clad in western red cedar, these blocks add a rhythm and human touch to the inner street animated at pedestrian level by active shopfronts and youth café.
Anti-urban and unpleasant. The "platform" was a mistake during the urban renewal period…there is so much left from that period left to undo. Why go back there?