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New Street Art Festival Transforms the Walls of Small Irish City

sorchaohiggins — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 15:00:48 +0000

Each August, the small city of Waterford in Southeast Ireland gets an extreme makeover. This year, the annual Waterford Walls festival took place from the 17th to the 26th, showcasing the incredible artworks of 40 artists from both Ireland and abroad across 40 walls, transforming the city, and adding some vibrant color to its streets. The project hopes to attract visitors to Waterford to see the art, advertising the city as a kind of open-air art gallery.

Some of the world’s best muralists and urban artists were invited to participate in the festival. Fintan Magee, for instance, is an artist from Brisbane, Australia, whose work is informed by his childhood experiences and contemporary world issues such as climate change and class struggle. Magee is one of the leading figurative artists among this new generation of muralists, and his work can be seen on walls all over the world, from Waterford to Saarbrucken, Germany and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

James Earley is one of Ireland’s most eminent urban artists, and his work draws from his rich family history of stained glass making and the animals and pagan/religious traditions native to Ireland. He works extensively as a curator for Dublin’s Dean Hotel and is responsible for transforming the facade of Bloom’s Hotel in the city’s Temple Bar into a Joycean masterpiece inspired by Ulysses. Joe Caslin is another well-known artist from Ireland, and he’s currently making waves with his large-scale monochrome portraits that adorn some buildings around Dublin and (now) Waterford.

Street art festivals have been gaining traction in cities all around the world for the past eight years or so. Though graffiti and street art were once seen as negative and subversive things, they have recently become a lot more widely-accepted. This is in large part thanks to the status achieved by the renowned street artist Banksy, who (perhaps inadvertently) created a market for urban art that did not previously exist, in many ways legitimizing it as an artform and creating a commercial demand for it. Subsequently, many cities now see the benefit of commissioning large-scale street artworks, whether it’s to regenerate run-down areas or simply to inject some color and life into the community.

Mural arts projects can also act as community-based initiatives, in which locals are involved in both their curation and organization. In many cases, these types of projects tend to result in more positive and long-lasting murals, because the people who have to live near these walls for an extended period of time eventually claim them as their own, until the walls end up becoming landmarks that are representative of the community as a whole. Waterford Walls has established itself as a leader in the Irish world of street art for its sensitive incorporation of it into the city and its strong relationships with the artists it invites. Ireland has a long and rich history, and the Waterford Walls festival is merely one more insertion into the already fascinating world of art and culture that the country has to offer.

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FaulknerBrowns to Redevelop Queen’s Parade

sorchaohiggins — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 21:00:56 +0000

After 20 years in planning limbo, the Northern Irish town of Bangor is finally set to undergo a massive $98 million redesign. In an effort to revitalize the quaint seaside resort, the Newcastle-based architects FaulknerBrowns are hoping to completely transform its “Queen’s Parade” waterfront area. Ultimately, the firm hopes to make the mixed-use development a popular destination for locals and international tourists alike.

Affected by an eight meter change in sea level from front to back, Queen’s Parade has never been an easy site to develop any kind of construction on. Throughout the planning process, FaulknerBrowns had to be extremely mindful of this geographic feature. The architects also had to work around a lot of the area’s already-existing urban and residential developments. Of course, the design team won’t be alone in executing this mammoth task. The revitalization project is the product of a big collaboration between the city council, developer Angelvale Consortium, and a slew of other local organizations and committees.

Among the proposal’s most promising features is the addition of a four-star hotel, which will directly overlook the waterfront and be able to house 80 guests at a single time. The latter point is particularly important to the Queen’s Parade area, whose shortage of suitable accommodations has plagued its tourism industry for decades now. The hotel will be operated by Beannchor, a local group that already runs a number of successful lodgings across Ireland. Guests of the hotel will be able to access an adjoining family entertainment center that has its own virtual reality area, adventure playground, and indoor surf rider. While the kids are busy in the entertainment center, the parents might want to venture into the nearby public square, which will boast a movie theater and a concert venue!

FaulknerBrowns also intends to run a covered courtyard, or “winter garden,” through the revitalized Queen’s Parade, allowing visitors to explore the area without having to worry about potential rainfall. The canopy will be an angled timber structure that keeps people dry while adding a layer of elegance to the commercial premises around it. The winter garden will be lined with tons of easily-accesible shops, restaurants, and cafes, and since it’ll be covered, it can also be used to house temporary attractions like farmers markets, pop-up events, and exhibitions. For added convenience, a 360-space parking lot will be erected near the back of the site.

The FaulknerBrowns proposal is looking to capitalize on and prolong the region’s recent spurts of tourism, which can be attributed to Northern Ireland’s many appearances in the popular TV show Game of Thrones. As a part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland has also been impacted by the Brexit referendum. Needless to say, these plans arrived at a good time and are sure to bolster the confidence of the city’s inhabitants. When the project is completed, Queen’s Parade will be the perfect place for families to escape to for the weekend. The best part is, they’ll be able to enjoy all of the complex’ recreational facilities rain or shine, and that’s important in a gloomy place like Ireland!

The post FaulknerBrowns to Redevelop Queen’s Parade first appeared on Dornob.

Picturesque Irish Home Gets a Natural Modern Extension

Delana — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 15:00:46 +0000

In the stunning Fanad Peninsula in Ireland, this traditional home was revamped with a garage that became a studio and a new structure that would become both a boatshed and a lovely new enclosed courtyard.

MacGabhann Architects took on the Drumnacraig House project in 2011 and made the previously-small cottage in a larger, natural-looking, more modern abode.

The new addition is clad entirely in Western Red Cedar, visually separating it from the original structure. The use of this natural material also ties the home in to its lovely natural surroundings.

The addition’s roof slopes upward to mimic the surrounding landscape, raising up to meet the rocky but tree-filled terrain surrounding the home.

A new mezzanine level in the studio addition features enormous windows which allow for a view of the nearby sea. This sloped addition also provides a measure of privacy and protection for the patio behind the home.

The new boatshed is located a short distance away from the main home and is connected by a glass-enclosed sunroom. The sunroom provides entrances for the home and the shed as well as giving the residents a place to sit comfortably to enjoy the view while sheltering themselves from the sometimes-fickle Irish weather.

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Old Stone Barn Gets a Modern Heart

Delana — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 15:00:01 +0000

This rural outbuilding to home conversion in the Irish village of Broughshane started out with something that was already truly an object of beauty: a crumbling old stone barn. With some clever manipulation, they turned the old barn into a light-filled, contemporary living space.

McGarry-Moon, the architects who undertook the project, wanted to preserve the rustic aesthetic of the existing stone structure. They did not, however, want to simply rebuild the past or recreate the building methods that had been used to construct the original barn.

The clients were driven by a desire for a comfortable, understated interior and spectacular views of the surrounding area. The architects came up with a plan to fuse the old building techniques with modern technology to invent a kind of 21st century rural architecture.

Using the existing stone barn structure as a base, a stainless steel frame was inserted within the existing stone walls rather than on top of them. The two-story structure uses all of the older structure’s original door and window openings on the bottom and a modern double-height space for the upper level.

The upper level houses the kitchen, dining and living space at one end; the other end holds the master bedroom and en-suite bathroom. The bedroom end has been cantilevered off of the old stone base to provide more floor space and to add another modern architectural element to the already-impressive home.

The home’s lower level houses two more bedrooms, a bathroom and a utility space. Extensive glazing on two of the sides allows for incredible views of the beautiful landscape while zinc cladding wraps around the bottom, up one side, and over the roof to provide the family with privacy and create a lovely visual contrast with the traditional stone. The home is the perfect melding of old and new, traditional and contemporary.

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Two Tiny Irish Cottages Joined By a Single Glass Stairwell

sdeProfile29685 — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:00:44 +0000

Two run-down stone cottages in the Irish countryside provided an ideal setting for a revamp that mixes traditional with modern. Peter Legge Associates took on the derelict Connemara Residence and remade the two small buildings into a single family residence joined by a glass-enclosed staircase.

From the exterior, the cottages retain much of their old-world charm. They were built from local stone and seem to be a part of the surrounding landscape itself.

Closer inspection reveals plenty of modern updates. The glass-walled staircase, of course, adds a very elegant element to the cottages. Skylights are positioned to let in the maximum amount of natural light.

The dining room culminates in a gorgeous set of bi-fold glass doors that open up wide to let the residents enjoy the stunning surroundings.

Elsewhere in the home, native stone mixes with rich wood while splashes of orange and copper complement the muted, minimalist color scheme.

Thanks to the unifying glass stairwell walls, the family occupying the residence has twice as much room as the original residents would have. The breathtaking modern home is truly a testament to the power of connections: connections between the old and the new, the natural and the human-made, the earth and the sky.

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