Athlone Civic Centre
by Keith Williams Architects Keith Williams Architects as Architect & Designer - Wed, 18 May 2011
Athlone’s new civic centre houses the new town library, the Council’s civic chamber, its administrative offices, and a one stop shop enabling the Council to effectively offer a single accessible point of contact with the public for all of its services.
The site for the new civic centre and square is in the eastern (Leinster/Westmeath) quarter of the town. Space was created by demolishing the former council offices, an undistinguished house, crudely extended in the 1970s and surrounded by rundown industrial premises. Ireland's National Buildings Agency had drawn up a masterplan for the site, which guided the strategic direction of the project. The project is located immediately north of the gothic St Mary’s Church with its adjacent Jacobean Tower. It faces across the new town square and St Mary’s cemetery toward Church Street, Athlone’s historic main artery which leads down to the River Shannon and the traditional town centre.
The building is organised formally using four prime compositional elements. The huge toplit public entrance hall from which access to all elements of the building can be gained, is immediately legible from the public square. It contains the ceremonial stair to the debating chamber and is the key organising space within the building. Immediately to its right when viewed from the new square is the one stop shop with debating chamber above. To the left are two bar-like forms, the lower of the two containing the double height library, and the upper containing the administrative offices on two levels. For the most part, the project is naturally ventilated to provide the necessary cooling to most of the office and library spaces, whilst reconstructed stone louvres to the south elevation both reinforce the architectural language and provide a degree of solar shading during summer thereby allowing the building to have a relatively light energy requirement.
The civic centre has been built from a form of pale honed reconstructed stone echoing Athlone’s major stone built public structures, the Castle, the grand neo-baroque Church of St Peter & St Paul (1937), and Shannon Bridge. Each major public structure, despite being built at very different times in different architectural styles for very different purposes, exhibits a solid formal consistency which distinguishes the civic buildings from the traditional architecture of the town, which is largely rough stucco roofed in natural pitched slate. The designs for the Civic Centre follows that developmental pattern.
Remnants of the former town wall and bastion dating from the 17th century were identified during site investigation, and were restored and integrated into the construction of the new town square.
The project involved the Williams office at every design level from the strategic driver of the urban proposition through to the minutiae of the interior. The firm designed the bespoke joinery for the Council Chamber, created a new design for the public benches for the civic square, and designed and patented a range of interior door furniture, the Parallel Range, specifically for the project.
Client : Athlone Town Council
The site for the new civic centre and square is in the eastern (Leinster/Westmeath) quarter of the town. Space was created by demolishing the former council offices, an undistinguished house, crudely extended in the 1970s and surrounded by rundown industrial premises. Ireland's National Buildings Agency had drawn up a masterplan for the site, which guided the strategic direction of the project. The project is located immediately north of the gothic St Mary’s Church with its adjacent Jacobean Tower. It faces across the new town square and St Mary’s cemetery toward Church Street, Athlone’s historic main artery which leads down to the River Shannon and the traditional town centre.
The building is organised formally using four prime compositional elements. The huge toplit public entrance hall from which access to all elements of the building can be gained, is immediately legible from the public square. It contains the ceremonial stair to the debating chamber and is the key organising space within the building. Immediately to its right when viewed from the new square is the one stop shop with debating chamber above. To the left are two bar-like forms, the lower of the two containing the double height library, and the upper containing the administrative offices on two levels. For the most part, the project is naturally ventilated to provide the necessary cooling to most of the office and library spaces, whilst reconstructed stone louvres to the south elevation both reinforce the architectural language and provide a degree of solar shading during summer thereby allowing the building to have a relatively light energy requirement.
The civic centre has been built from a form of pale honed reconstructed stone echoing Athlone’s major stone built public structures, the Castle, the grand neo-baroque Church of St Peter & St Paul (1937), and Shannon Bridge. Each major public structure, despite being built at very different times in different architectural styles for very different purposes, exhibits a solid formal consistency which distinguishes the civic buildings from the traditional architecture of the town, which is largely rough stucco roofed in natural pitched slate. The designs for the Civic Centre follows that developmental pattern.
Remnants of the former town wall and bastion dating from the 17th century were identified during site investigation, and were restored and integrated into the construction of the new town square.
The project involved the Williams office at every design level from the strategic driver of the urban proposition through to the minutiae of the interior. The firm designed the bespoke joinery for the Council Chamber, created a new design for the public benches for the civic square, and designed and patented a range of interior door furniture, the Parallel Range, specifically for the project.
Client : Athlone Town Council
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May 18, 2011 | occupation unknown Keith Williams Architects Keith Williams Architects added the project Athlone Civic Centre & Library
