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UCD STUDENT CENTREFITZGERALD KAVANAGH AND PARTNERS
ARCHITECTSWITH ARUP
a day inthe life
A DA
Y IN
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UCDBook cover.indd 1 8/17/2012 1:12:05 AM
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a day inthe lifeucd student centreFitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners
Text by Graham BarryPhotography by Donal Murphy
contributions byDr Hugh BradyJames Mary O’ConnorAidan Kavanagh
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A Day in the Life:UCD Student Centreby Fitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners
EDITOR Graham BarryCOEDITORS Aidan Kavanagh, Andrew Howley
PHOTOGRAPHY Donal Murphy
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means now known or hereafter invented, without the prior permission of Fitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners.
First published in 2012 by Fitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners71 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2, Irelandwww.fkp.ie
Printed in Ireland on FSC-certified recycled paperISBN 978-0-9573697-0-2
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a day inthe lifeucd student centre
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Student health centre
Fitzgerald debating chamber
Gym changing rooms
Link to UCD Sport
Spinning studio
Fitness studio
Tepidarium
Changing village
Gallery walk
Café
Gym
Radio pod
Student society offices and meeting rooms
Bridge to student centre
Performance theatre
The Red Room
Multimedia theatre
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08:00 - 11:59
12:00 - 16:59
17:00 - 20:59
21:00 - 23:59
morning
Dr Hugh Brady PRIMUS INTER PARES
James Mary O’Connor ON THINKING BIG
Aidan Kavanagh DIVERSITY, DIVERSIFICATION AND THE GREAT LEGACY
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156165167
About Fitzgerald Kavanagh and PartnersProject creditsAcknowledgements
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contents
afternoon
evening
night
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Good architecture makes a difference to those who see it, work in it, study in it and play in it. It lifts the spirits. That’s just what the new UCD Sports and Leisure facility does for me, it lifts my spirits. It is the building that the campus has needed ever since the Belfield project was conceived in the middle of the last century. For students, staff and visitors alike, it has provided a new heart to the campus.
The UCD campus is organic. Over the years many fine buildings have been added to the core, centred on the Newman Building and Science Centre, but though these buildings were for students they were not by the students. That distinction goes to the Sports and Leisure facility which has been wholly funded by the student body, past and present, and which will be home from now on to the community of students. The Centre’s architects, Dublin based FKP Architecture, have done an incredible job. The building is ‘of’ the students because the students participated in a thorough consultation process that prefaced the design work and which defined the aims of the design team. The architects put it very
nicely when they said, “The UCD student body was the decisive design generator.”
The most common request from the college’s students was a foil, or respite, from the traditional grey architecture of much of the rest of the UCD campus and that’s what they were given, in spades. The new Centre has got light, it’s got colour and the facilities, the pool, gym, cinema, theatre and debating chamber are each, simply, magnificent. In years to come, when people say ‘What did the Celtic Tiger do for us’, one thing they’ll be able to say is that it allowed creative people, architects and engineers in this case, to seek and deliver excellence.
Let me claim that UCD is ‘primus inter pares’ amongst Irish universities, its size, diversity and history giving it its own unique place in Irish society. The college, through its societies, has helped develop society’s leaders across all sectors, commercial, educational, legal, cultural and sporting. But there was always one problem – there was no flagship space dedicated to the non-academic expression of students.
For example, the L&H that has helped hone the debating skills of leading lawyers, politicians and members of the Fourth Estate over many decades but has had to make do with an adequate, but not ideal, lecture theatre for its debates. They and all the other debating societies will now have the magnificent Garrett FitzGerald debating chamber to call home. The equally ‘homeless’ amongst the college’s family of musicians will also take residence in the acoustically perfect chamber. Another example is DramSoc, which has nurtured many of the nation’s finest talent, theatrical and cinematic, for many decades, was based in the LG basement, never a proper theatre. But now they have perfectly formed 125 seater ‘proper’ theatre in the Centre. I said that good architecture lifts the spirits. Just going into the new theatre does that for me. A new theatre, especially in a time of economic gloom, is something to truly celebrate. Even better, the output from that theatre is going to lift all spirits all year, every year. I’m delighted for them and for all future ‘DramSocers’.
If the Sports and Leisure Centre is the heart of campus then the pool is the heart of the heart. The confidence that the Celtic Tiger gave us, a confidence that will surely return, meant that instead of building a smaller pool we decided to go big. We have over 30,000 people on campus, the size of large Irish town. This is the first Olympic sized pool on the South side of the capital city. It’s huge, it’s bright, it’s eco and sustainable, it’s seductive, it’s where students (and the Olympic swimmers amongst them), staff and our neighbours around the South Dublin can come to use and enjoy one of the finest facilities of its type.
I started by saying that the new Centre is the new heart of campus. I look forward, long after my term is finished, to seeing new waves of students pumping life into that heart, with their creativity and energy, inspired by a beautifully inspiring building. Congratulations to all involved in bringing it to fruition.
Dr Hugh BradyUCD President
PRIMUS INTER PARES
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The opening of the extraordinary UCD Student Learning Leisure & Sport Complex project designed by Fitzgerald Kavanagh + Partners (FKP) is a momentous occasion in the recent story of the UCD Belfield campus. As a fellow architect, professional colleague of FKP’s Director Aidan Kavanagh, and Principal at the firm of Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners based in Santa Monica, California, USA, I am delighted to add my enthusiastic voice to the celebration of this remarkable architectural achievement.
The ideals and values of our own practice, Moore Ruble Yudell, are most fully evident in the depth and breadth of our work for college and university campuses. Moore Ruble Yudell is internationally recognised for a strong and varied practice in campus architecture and planning. In Ireland, we take great pride in our current role as the Master Planner, Design Architect, and Design Team Leader on the Grangegorman Urban Quarter Master Plan for the Health Service Executive (HSE), Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) and the Local Community in North Central Dublin. This project is at present being implemented, following the international design competition held in 2007, which was awarded to Moore Ruble Yudell’s Team, and the completion of the Master Plan design process in 2009.
In our extensive experience on planning and architectural projects at academic institutions, we have found that the ultimate test of campus buildings is how well they “fit,” relate to and affect the
existing campus fabric at multiple scales—not only the immediate surrounding buildings around the site, but the entire campus as a whole—in order to create a strong sense of place and an inclusive sense of community. Based on these criteria, the new UCD Student Centre facility is an unequivocal success, forming a vibrant social, sports and creative “campus heart” for the benefit of students at UCD.
Moore Ruble Yudell’s other recent campus work in North America is exemplified by our award-winning Steger Student Life Centre at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts , and the Student Community Centre at the University of California, Berkeley, which provides a rich, diverse mix of activities and program elements very similar to the UCD Student Centre project. Our design approach emphasises a commitment to the creation of campus places that celebrate and inspire human habitation and participation, seeking design solutions that are unique responses to their context, culture, and the aspirations of their communities.
In this regard, it was a pleasure and honour for me to be invited as a participant on the UCD Gateway Project Competition jury panel assembled by President Hugh Brady in 2006. During the process of this competition at the highest level, I was delighted to meet and get to
know Aidan Kavanagh. FKP (in association with Behnisch Architekten, Stuttgart) were the only Irish architectural firm included in a shortlist of 5 comprising the top international firms of Zaha Hadid, Michael Hopkins, Ingenhoven and Snøhetta invited to prepare design proposals. During the design and jury process, the FKP team clearly demonstrated a thorough understanding of Hugh Brady’s vision and aspirations for the Belfield Campus. FKP was advanced to the short-list of 3 finalist Teams, after an impressive presentation and interview during which Aidan Kavanagh’s passion for the UCD Belfield campus was most apparent.
In 2008, I had the pleasure to meet Aidan again at the opening of the Arup Design & Research Headquarters in Dublin Docklands—an elegant project also designed by FKP. In the same year, our relationship with Aidan and FKP was further strengthened when FKP with the UCD Estates team travelled to Cincinnati University in Ohio, USA on a visit to experience the establishment of the iconic “Signature Architects” precinct of new buildings in the centre of the campus, as part of FKP’s development work at project commencement with UCD on the Student Centre design. Cincinnati University’s dynamic ensemble of new projects by internationally known designers includes the Steger Student Life Centre by Moore Ruble Yudell, the Campus Recreation Centre by Morphosis, the Richard Lindner Athletic Centre by Bernard Tschumi, the College Conservatory of Music by Pei Cobb
Freed & Partners, the Aronoff Centre for Design and Art by Peter Eisenman, and the Vontz Centre for Molecular Studies by Frank Gehry.
Among these projects, two in particular—Moore Ruble Yudell’s Steger Student Life Center and Morphosis’s Campus Recreation Centre, anchoring a newly-created “Main Street” pedestrian spine through the heart of the University of Cincinnati campus—were seen by the participants to define an attractive centrepiece of campus life which became a Belfield project ideal, now brilliantly delivered by FKP with the new UCD Student Centre.
With the opening of this remarkable facility, Aidan Kavanagh and FKP have met and exceeded the challenge of providing 11,000 square metres of student-identified needs, by completing an outstanding ensemble of facilities—seamlessly connecting the existing Student Centre and the 1980 RIAI Triennial Gold Medal-winning A&D Wejchert-designed 1964 Sports Centre. Creating a compelling new focus for student life at UCD with an engaging combination of scale, colour and fun, the completion of the UCD Student Learning Leisure & Sport Complex is a unique achievement worthy of celebrating and commemorating in the Fitzgerald Kavanagh & Partners publication A Day in the Life. It is a spectacular, inclusive building that is most worthy of becoming a multi award-winning facility for UCD.
James Mary O’Connor, AIAMoore Ruble Yudell Architects & PlannersDublin Institute of Technology Grangegorman Urban Quarter masterplanner
ON THINKING BIG Dublin Institute of Technology Grangegorman Urban Quarter by Moore Ruble Yudell
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cleaning staff arrive. Newspaper delivery. Pool opens. Front of house staff and Lifeguards arrive.exhibition stand in lounge area. School children arrive for sw
imm
ing lessons.
bread delivery. Waste disposal firm arrives.
first film showing of the day. Local com
munity gym
mem
bers. Radio station broadcasting.
Peak
gym
and
poo
l use
for l
unch
time
work
out
. Pea
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. Car
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. Stud
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Peak afternoon coffee demand. Film ends. Facilit
y entering the ‘calm period’
Preparations for evening shows in film, drama, debate and music practice. Spinning class. Evening aerobics in studioAudiences arrives for evening viewing in drama and film theatres. Busy gym and pool
Last medical centre appointment. Peak tepidarium use. Evening shift begins
Sub aqua club in pool. Canoe polo match in pool. Peak gym use. Debate begins
Drama group rehearsing and developing script. Meetings unwinding. Socialising in small groups
Public access to building closed and sections alarmed on a phased close down
Student technical staff work in drama theatre
deliveries for newsagents, vending, bar and retail. Students in drama theatre working on production. Aerobics class commences.
administration staff arrive. Societies arrive to use meeting rooms. Medical centre first appointment.
duty manager and a selection of house staff arrive. Retail units open.
the Clonskeagh Gate opens. Milk delivery arrives. Staff set up rooms for scheduled activities.
a day inthe life
Midday
Midnight
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In late 2007, the Sunday Independent ran an article in which incoming students detailed their reasons for choosing their respective universities, focusing particularly on the character and facilities of the campuses. Interviewed students summarised the UCD campus as ‘cold, too homogeneous, and lacking in colour’. This terse but insightful article became emblematic of the architects’ journey towards the development of the new UCD Student Centre.
Fitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners commenced design in early 2008, conducting research of our own into UCD students’ perceptions of and aspirations for their campus. Students were invited to add an empirical rigour to the inherently speculative design brief; their interviews recorded and published online to open the discussion yet more widely. The UCD student body has been, from the very inception of this project, the decisive design generator.
This body of research became known as ‘A day in the Life’ because it revealed the fascinating diurnal cycle of use, reinterpretation and reuse unique to UCD’s shared spaces: how the same room hosts a very diverse range of uses during the course of a single day. As our design work progressively synthesised this new understanding of life on campus, a functional, sensual and conscientious architecture with individuality and personality emerged as our ultimate goal.
UCD originally conceived this project as a modest 7,000 sqm extension to the
existing student centre, which was built in 2001, and called an EU-wide architecture competition to appoint a design team. FKP’s winning entry revisited the original masterplan for UCD, penned in 1964 by Andrzej Wejchert. His concept would place the new Student Centre project at the centre of a complete sports precinct, surrounded on three sides by playing fields and on the exact site of a fifty metre swimming pool. After this discovery, the design team pursued a programme which was much more than the leisure facility described in the competition brief, additionally adopting the vision of sporting excellence in the original masterplan. For the design scheme which FKP presented in August 2008, all our research had coalesced into a building which is the new epicentre of social, creative and sporting activity in UCD. Standing on a granite-paved plaza at the intersection of existing sporting, academic and leisure facilities at the westernmost boundary of UCD, adjacent to the iconic water tower, the FKP proposal joined the neighbouring UCD Sport and Student Centres to create a combined 22,000 sqm destination for everyone in UCD. Construction began in earnest in November 2009, after a conclusive cycle of design development lead by students, teaching staff, administrative staff and local residents.
The final Student Centre, as now built, reinvigorates the urbanism inherent – but oft ignored - in Wejchert’s original vision. The disparate collection of functions it hosts – swimming pool, debating chamber, gym, seminar room, café among others –
function as a city in microcosm, unified under a bird-wing glulam structure which soars outwards to embrace its newly-interconnected neighbours. Each function is expressed as a self-contained volume with its own unique spatial and material character. The resulting voids and spaces in-between make the building a navigable, corridor-less public playground.
The exterior is composed primarily of monochromatic volumes with discreet shots of colour in reference to the materiality and colour of the wider campus. Inside, however, colour comes to the fore. The interior is a commensurately vibrant, playful and fun backdrop to student life, expressed through apposition of strong colours and haptically rich materials. Slips of flamed textured limestone versus large-scale polished black granite; grit-blasted black concrete versus smooth white corian and tiling; exposed services adjacent to dropped white ceilings; white terrazzo versus electric green flooring pursue the vision of vibrancy through diversity.
The architecture is founded on precepts of legibility, commutativity and universal access. The Student Centre can be defined as the ‘sensitive container’ described by Zumthor (1999, p. 13), enriched by the infinite variety of human activity which will take place within. The manifestation of this vision is most perceptible in the absence of corridors in the new building, which have been replaced by interconnected volumes and Gallery Walk, the largest indoor public space on the UCD campus.
A sense of order is maintained through
a complex set of visual rhymes, where colours are used at different scales in symmetry across a single space. Visual interconnectedness means that the most conspicuous volumes, (namely the yellow radio pod, red fitness studio and green changing rooms) can be used to easily orient oneself from anywhere in the Student Centre. Subtle distinctions in finish and texture are a recurring theme in marking the transition from one place to the next. This intuitive architectural legibility subconsciously fosters understanding and a welcome sense of ownership.
After nightfall, and the general closure of the Student Centre, the architecture re-emerges anew as a festival of colour across the public squares. Floodlighting dematerialises the glass and steel mesh façade to bring the large coloured volumes to prominence as a fun, charged backdrop to the nightlife of the campus: evening training sessions, students leaving the Clubhouse Bar, media teams working late and other activities yet to occur. As UCD itself grows ever more diverse and diversified, so too must its facilities. Conceived as UCD reflects on 50 years at Belfield, and plans for its future there, the Student Centre embodies this paradigm shift in the institution’s history: this building is the legacy of a period of very high achievement, and the means by which UCD can continue to lead the pack far into the future.
Aidan KavanaghFitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners
DIVERSITY, DIVERSIFICATION AND THE GREAT LEGACY
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UCD students have always considered themselves proud to be a part of Ireland’s largest and finest university. With this pride comes an ambition to meet and exceed expectation.
Importantly, this ambition and passion for the University are matched in reality by the drive of its students. The completion of the Student Centre project is a testament to this drive and determination.
Today, the entire UCD community can be proud of the fact that we are now home to the most complete student facility of any university in Ireland. For years to come this magnificent complex will stand as an enduring legacy to all that is great about this University, its students.
Planned with sustainability excellence, this, to my mind, has added to the building design quality. Of significant importance is the use of the energy recovery systems and the focus on climatic change which means the building is designed for the present but prepared for the future (essential in Ireland!), all of which has been achieved with architectural elegance.
FKP’s master planning of the sports precinct as preliminary work to the building design has proven to be a most valuable exercise and a useful tool in the successful collaborations between our building team and the design team as a whole. A key element to the success of the project has been the ‘client focused’ approach by the team and although often used as a cliché in this instance it rings true, simply because the building works. The juxtaposition of bold architectural elements with functional design is a credit to the designers and reinforces the new Sports and Leisure complex as a flagship building on the University’s Belfield campus.
There’s a great satisfaction amongst students that this is their building in every sense. They ‘informed’ the design via the consultation process, they are paying the entire cost of the building through their levies and now they get to use it, one of the finest student leisure facilities that I’ve seen as Students’ Union President. The architecture ensures longevity and this building is going to be used and enjoyed by generations of UCD students to come.
The scale and magnificence of the completed structure is testament to the vision, foresight and commitment of the students of UCD, who voted to construct & fund the Student Centre in a referendum several years ago. Every aspect of the project had a huge amount of consultation with the student body and that has culminated in a new heart of campus that each and every UCD student can feel ownership of and be proud of.
Dominic O’KeefeDirector of Student Services and Facilities
Lorcan SweetmanUCD Buildings and Estates Project Administrator
Pat de BrúnPresident, UCD Student Union
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catholic university established
1854
catholic university medical schooluniversity education act
Jesuits assume managementearlsfort terrace expansionjames joyce enrolls further city centre expansion attempts
44 acres acquired at belfield
77 acres acquired around Belfield
university park terenure sports base merville campus expansion
woodview campus expansionroebuck grove campus expansion
byrne’s fields campus expansion
dr michael tierney appointed president
faculty of commerce first expansion attemptseaster rising
ballymun towers opennational university of ireland established
university church opens
trinity merger proposed
water tower completedscience block groundbreaking
roebuck castle expansion
arts and law move to belfieldIDA founded
dana wins eurovision
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roebuck grove campus expansion
ballymun towers open
2006
UCD Student Centreproject begins
trinity merger proposedrichview expansion
blackrock campus opens
conway institute established
student club opens
sports centre opens
novaUCD opens
architecture moves to belfield
library openswater tower completed
science block groundbreaking
engineering building opens centre for synthesis and chemical biology founded
irish times debating victoryagriculture transfers to belfield Dr Hugh Brady appointed president alliance with NCAD150th anniversary of UCD
gateway masterplan
roebuck castle expansionbelgrove residences completed
arts and law move to belfieldwejchert masterplan commerce moves to belfield
erasmus exchange programme beginsDr Brady elected chair of universitas 21
the university observer wins newspaper of the yearhorizons modularisation introducedhealth sciences complex opens science south completed
earlsfort terrace relocation completesutherland school of law opens
global lounge completed
o’rielly hall opens NIBRT opens
fall of the berlin walliPhone launched
luas begins operations
ireland’s economic growth reaches 11%IDA foundeddana wins eurovision
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morning08:00 - 11:59
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SWIMMING POOLAT FULL LENGTH
The pool hall is the centrepiece of the Student Centre’s sporting provision. In addition to FINA compliance (so it can host international competitions), a system of movable floors and dividing booms allow for multiple simultaneous uses. The university’s diving, canoe and water polo clubs can adjust the depth and length of the pool to their requirements, without encroaching on lane swimmers.
Technically, the volume is among the most sophisticated in the Student Centre. High performance materials included in the pool enclosure completely obviate the booming
echoes and leaking chlorine odour which beset other swimming pool complexes. In service of the building’s sustainability goals, the swimming pool is used as a natural heat store: circulating the warmth generated as the water is heated to neighbouring spaces, thereby offsetting their need for artificial heating.
The three-storey pool volume is visually linked to the other sport facilities, and also to the academic wing. One of the biggest design challenges was permitting warmth and natural light to flow from the pool volume to the neighbouring spaces without
encroaching on the privacy of the pool users. Ultimately, a series of bespoke display screens along Gallery walk were developed to partially occlude the view paths into the pool hall without sealing it completely.
A sense of human scale is preserved through the use of distinct materials on either side of a two metre height boundary. Low bands of black ceramic tiles and black sandblasted concrete, which contrast ostensibly with the vitreous reflectivity of the water and glass, mediate between the enormity of the structure and the relative size of its users.
Right The swimming pool, view from spectator entrance
Above right Section through café, fitness studio and swimming pool
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Above The swimming pool, view towards Gallery Walk
Above right Starting platforms, spectator stand and fitness studio
Opposite View from spectator stand
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FITNESS STUDIO The appearance of the south façade is defined by three large volumes: the Fitzgerald Chamber (polished basalt), the fitness studio (red aluminium) and the spinning studio (black basalt). Seen together, rhythmic variations in their scale and finish have created a visually exciting but well organised elevation which represents the breadth of activity within.
The fitness studio permeates the boundary between the sporting and academic wings: it looks upon the swimming pool and playing fields, and also neighbours the Fitzgerald Debating chamber. This intermediary positioning of such a recognisable component serves to underline the inclusive spirit of the Student Centre as a whole. The Centre is visible to everyone and everyone is welcome.
The carmine red cladding developed from students’ complaints about the lack of campus life after dark, and universal requests for a foil to the alienating grey architecture elsewhere in Belfield. By day the fitness studio is a fun and lively place which shares the energy of its activity with the wider sports precinct; by night, the building’s floodlights reinvent it as a glowing beacon for the social life in the Student Centre after dark.
Above Visual connection to swimming pool and gym.
Right Stretching bar and view onto playing fields.
Opposite Viewed from the swimming pool.
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There is deliberately no large central foyer in the Student Centre; instead, a continuous public route connects its spaces and levels.
The creative and academic side of the Student Centre is accessed from entrances marked by the dark stone of the Fitzgerald Debating Chamber and performance theatre. The polished basalt is at once dark and light-absorbing yet almost mirror reflective:
a complex surface which perceptibly alters the behaviour of natural light which touches it and reflects the primary colours in nearby finishes.
This light-dark-light transition marks the threshold between the outdoor public spaces and the dramatic volume of Gallery Walk, and thereafter the progressively more private volumes beyond.
GALLERY WALK ENTRANCES
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The irregular geometry of the Student Centre building, coupled with the multiple requirements for open internal spaces has demanded a sensitive and varied approach to the design of the building structure. The material choice has been driven not alone by the structural requirements but also responds to the internal environment of the pool hall and the associated spaces.
Structurally this is a complex building, incorporating the use of a variety of materials and structural systems. It is also a building where the structure is an integral part of the building architecture and as such required a high level of detailing to achieve the required effect. The building structure needs to accommodate a significant amount of technology, from moving booms and floors in the swimming pool to the stage and lighting systems in the drama theatre. The interface with the abutting Sports and Student Service buildings also needed careful consideration, with the irregular geometry of the Sports building in particular providing a significant challenge.
Probably the most distinguishing structural feature of the building is the extensive use of glue-laminated (glulam) timber elements. This is evident from the moment you enter the building but is at its most dramatic in the pool hall. Here the profiled timber frames rise from a reinforced concrete wall at the western side of the pool to span the 33.5m width of the hall, where they are supported on inclined steel columns on the opposite end. These columns, which are inclined in two directions, are supported in clusters of four off shorter reinforced concrete columns, replicating branches extending from the trunk of a tree to give a striking visual effect. The timber glulams cantilever from these supporting elements to form the roof of the circulation space that divides the swimming facilities from the eastern wing of the building.
The profiled glulam frames, which are typically at 5.50m centres in the pool hall and measure up to 2200mm in depth, are designed to provide structural stability in
the direction transverse to the pool. In the longitudinal direction stability is provided by the diaphragm action of the roof coupled with vertical bracing elements. A profiled steel service gantry is suspended from the apex of the frame, which is incorporated in to the overall structural system by means of tensioned cables which connect it to both ends of the rafters.
The glulam structure is continued in to the Gym and the associated changing facilities, which are located to the west of the pool hall. Here smaller glulam frames rise from the first floor concrete structure to span the 19.5m width of the room. Again, stability is provided in the direction of the glulam by the frame action, with vertical bracing elements providing stability in the other direction. The structure up to first floor level, at which point the glulams are supported, comprises in-situ concrete walls and columns and precast flooring elements.
As the glulam elements extend to the front of the building into the circulation spaces, the form changes. Here the internal leg of the frame cranks and extends to ground floor level to dramatic effect. At the secondary entrance to the building, the form changes further as a additional timber element is introduced which cantilevers over pairs of inclined steel columns to support the entrance canopy.
The nature of the spaces created on the eastern side of the building is altogether different from a structural viewpoint to the rest of the building. The three primary spaces, i.e. the drama theatre, cinema and debating chamber are formed using a combination of reinforced concrete and steelwork elements.
The debating chamber is of particular interest structurally. The walls enclosing the space are constructed in reinforced concrete which cantilevers at first floor level a distance of approximately 5m over the Gallery Walk entrance to create the desired architectural impact. The structural design was further complicated by an extensive
array of openings in the concrete structure to accommodate service routes. The lightweight roof is supported using a steel structure spanning the full 25m width of the chamber.
The structure of the drama theatre is similar to that of the debating chamber, without the complexity of the cantilever. Reinforced concrete walls create the form of the theatre with a steelwork structure at roof level supporting a precast concrete roof slab, which is required for acoustic reasons. Steel gantries are suspended from the roof structure to accommodate the operational requirements of the theatre.
The cinema is accessed at ground floor level and is constructed part underground. Again it is built using reinforced concrete walls with precast concrete slabs supported on a steelwork structure forming the floor over. Indeed this form of floor construction is utilised throughout the east wing of the building to create the spaces between the three primary spaces.
The radio and dance pods are also interesting features structurally. The radio pod is an isolated steel framed structural element supported on four inclined columns and acoustically isolated from the rest of the building. Similarly the dance pod is a steel framed structure, in this instance integrated with the façade of the pool hall.
The careful attention to detailing of the structure continues externally with the formation of cleverly conceived spaces and views. The structural concrete retaining walls and terracing form links between the various spaces at different levels. The high level of coordination with the landscaping has also minimised the presence of manhole covers and drainage breaks on the finished surface, with access chambers restricted to specifically design “green” islands that break up the mass of hard-standing.
STRUCTUREin detail
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GALLERY WALK Gallery Walk is the Student Centre’s main thoroughfare, and one of the largest indoor public spaces on campus. A triple-height linear volume composed of black concrete walls, white terrazzo floors with shots of primary colour; Gallery Walk is a charged backdrop to social, creative and academic life in the Student Centre.
Bespoke lounge seating, televisions and internet access points line the ground floor of Gallery Walk. Overhead, a row of illuminated display screens show news updates, event bulletins and student work. The swimming
pool can be glimpsed through narrow windows, maintaining privacy but reinforcing the idea of interconnectedness. Gallery Walk is not an ordinary sunlight atrium. It is the generous, joyful and sociable intersection of all activity in the Student Centre.
Sunlight flooding in from the roof lingers on the polished surfaces and accentuates the flashes of colour. This interplay of energy from nature and man-made design to celebrate it elevates Gallery Walk to the uplifting, worthy centre of the student life.
The architecture of Gallery Walk shares with Italian Futurism a fascination with movement and multiple perception: the bold volumes of the emerald green changing rooms, chilli red dance pod and traffic yellow radio pod are all visible alternately as one passes along Gallery Walk. Ascending the two upper levels brings infinitely more new encounters with these volumes within the same space: the building becomes an architectural adventure.
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CAFÉbreakfast service
The café sits under the red aluminium awning of the main dance studio, at the confluence of the sporting and creative wings of the Student Centre. It is, ideologically and architecturally, the intersection of the complex’s otherwise discrete functions.
Alongside Gallery Walk, the café is the main social venue in the student centre. The seating opens onto a landscaped, south facing café terrace facing the playing pitches. Deep window alcoves, finished in yellow aluminium, offer insular, individual spaces.
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THE ORIGINAL UCD MASTERPLANin detail
By the mid 1940s, UCD’s buildings in the city centre had reached their capacity and the decision was made to move to the present 300 acre site in Belfield, south Dublin. An international competition to select the masterplan was held in 1963, attracting 105 entries from 64 countries and won by Polish architect Andrzej Wejchert (1937-2009).
Wejchert’s scheme displayed extraordinary foresight, in that it planned for the protracted, irregular development of the campus by multiple architects. Six hundred
metres of covered walkways continue to ingeniously unify Wejchert’s Modernist masterplan and the patchwork of different architectures which now populate it.
Conceived in the era of misguided social experiment in architecture (most conspicuously in the tower blocks for mass housing), the legacy of Wejchert’s masterplan is its true insight into the life of students in an emergent Ireland, and the enduring quality of the architecture he has derived from that. The masterplan is further
laudable for the emphasis it places on landscaping and pedestrianisation: two ideas which were only to become hegemonic in following decades.
FKP’s Student Centre can also attest to the timelessness of the original idea, realising as it does the fifty-metre pool on the exact site which a 26-year old Andrzej Wejchert identified at his mother’s kitchen table in 1963.
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1. Administration2. Aula Maxima3. Library4. Student Facilities5. Arts
6. Agriculture7. Architecture8. Biology9. Chemistry10. Physics
11. Engineering12. Medicine13. Chapel14. Swimming pool15. Gym
16. Changing rooms17. Plant18. Maintenance19. Stadium20. Playing fields
21. Halls of residence22. Gate Lodge
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THE RED ROOM Academic seminars and public talks take place in the Red Room, which is located on the ground floor overlooking Bridge Street.
The Red Room design started as an investigation of architecture’s role in creating effective spaces for learning. Lauded and groundbreaking examples around Europe, North American and Australia were analysed for their successes and opportunities for
further evolution. The resulting design prioritises high comfort in a neutral setting; where the focus is always the speaker.
Heavy, stable materials, including flamed limestone, arranged in a regular grid pattern give the Red Room its air of order and focus. The originally Georgian device of raising the main floor above street level has been used to further improve the privacy of participants.
Acoustically dampers embedded in the walls obviate the distracting din of group discussions and air conditioning, while a glazed wall admits natural light and fresh air.
A wall of bespoke cabinetry invisibly accommodates all the technological provisions and conceals the audience seats when not in use.
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Address Discussion Reception
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NEWSPAPER EDITORIAL SUITE The new Student Centre establishes a ‘media district’ within UCD, which clusters both campus newspapers, Belfield FM and the Campus Television Network alongside the Student Union offices.
Below Sky-lit passage through media suites and society rooms.
Below right View onto Gallery Walk from meeting rooms.
Opposite Interconnected offices to support collaboration.
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THE FITZGERALD CHAMBERBY DAY
The debating chamber is among the Student Centre’s distinguishing features. The need for a world class debating venue in UCD became ever more apparent as their teams achieved international success despite not having a dedicated facility in which to practice or host.
The UCD Debating Chamber takes as its precedent the historic spaces which grew from the rich dialectic tradition at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. These spaces are defined by an insular atmosphere and very high standard of finish. In the Fitzgerald Chamber, iroko panels line the walls and ceiling, complemented by red velvet upholstery. A network of hidden staircases and leaning rails provide routes for the spectators and hecklers who have always formed part of competitive debating.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple in Chicago was another very important inspiration
for the design. The small suburban church shares with the other precedents a perceptible introversion and use of precious materials, but exhibits a unique geometric rigour and understanding of the human experience of its inhabitation. These latter traits have been explored in the Fitzgerald Chamber through careful regulation of light ingress, a clear distinction between interior and exterior and a haptic richness of the individual finishes.
Technical performance and material characteristics have been considered carefully in terms of their versatility, specifically in the chamber’s acoustic isolation and low reverberation time, which also lend it to musical performance. Tiered seating for opposing debating teams can retract automatically, creating a modest proscenium for private rehearsals and intimate performances.
Above The spectator balcony which encircles the chamber.
Opposite Bleachers retracted to provide space for individual music practice.
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Above View onto the stage created when the seating tiers are fully retracted. The balcony
seats and leaning rails around the upper level can accommodate a small audience for intimate
performances, workshops and demonstrations.
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GYMMORNING SESSIONS
The gym’s cycle of daily use is inversely related to UCD’s academic schedule, with highest levels of use before and after general teaching hours. Occupancy of the 150-machine gym fluctuates significantly during the course of the day, with multiple periods of peak use. Team training sessions also cause surges in use.
This has significant implications for the gym’s mechanical services, particularly air conditioning. Rather than rely on energy-intensive air conditioning during quieter periods, natural ventilation helps cool the gym to the optimal 19°C. As the gym gets busier, and there is more heat from the occupants to remove, the air conditioning is then put to use.
Opposite The gym grows steadily busier as the day goes on, reach-ing peak use in the late evening.
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STUDENT HEALTH CENTRE The healthcare needs of a thriving and active student population are accommodated in a new suite of treatment rooms on the top floor of the Student Centre.
The spatial character changes significantly in the medical centre: it is a more introverted space; courtyard gardens connect visually with the sky rather than the surrounding campus. A unique selection of finishes further differentiates the health centre from
the rest of the Student Centre. In this way, the highly specialised medical, psychological and psychiatric needs of the student body can be addressed in an atmosphere of confidence and clinical rigour.
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GÜNTER FRUHTRUNK
COLOURin detail
Günter Fruhtrunk (1923-1982) was a German abstract painter and printmaker. His work explores the tension between contrasting colours as their interrelationship shifts. Early paintings are recognisable for their sense of movement and restless mood, whereas his later works exhibit more rhythmic, vectorial geometries with a punctilious use of contrast. His choice of colour, and more specifically
their adjacencies, challenge our visual acuity and try to activate a new way of seeing.
Working with the same palette, the perception of colour in the Student Centre mediates between Fruhtrunk’s two resolutions: it is always harmonious, but never static.
The student advisory panel was unanimous in its calls for a foil to the alienating grey architecture which defines the UCD campus. The earliest design concepts are recognisable for their primary colour scheme, which was subsequently developed into a multifaceted system providing orientation, spatial definition and a vibrant backdrop for student life around the clock.
Colour is treated as a building material, regarded as equally important to the architectural vision as the concrete or steel.
The green changing rooms, red fitness studio and yellow radio pod are the most recognisable volumes in the centre, and form a key element in its easy navigation. During the day, they occupy a discrete position in the greater volume; the user’s relationship to them changing constantly as they traverse spaces and levels. By night, when they will primarily be viewed from the outside, the colours form a unified abstract plane of colour and light: a vital and animate backdrop to the nightlife on campus.
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STUDENT SOCIETY ROOMS
The easy informality and open design of the Googleplex in California was the starting point for the design of new workspaces and meeting facilities for UCD’s societies and Union officers.
Very flexible spaces with an industrial material palette foster the collaborative and empirical spirit central to a productive, inventive Student Union. The inherent durability of materials originally designed for factories encourage open, uninhibited use and an instant sense of ownership. Visual connections within the suite, combined with the service conduits visible overhead, are analogous to the greater system which the Student Union officers serve.
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2006\06_47 UCD Student Centre\CONST/sheets
10@A1 , 20@A3 , 50@A1 100@A3
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November 2009
Student Learning Leisure & Sport Complex
Belfield CampusUniversity College Dublin
UCD
Hanging screens Gallery walk2nd Floor Balcony ScreenMedical reception screen
06-47-C-725
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DETAIL 1 - Section K - Elevation Hanging Screens - Scale 1:50
DETAIL 2 - Hanging Screen - Plan Scale 1:10
DETAIL 4 - Polycarbonate Screen - 2nd floor BalconyScale 1:10
(DETAIL 4) IS TO BE READ IN CONJUNCTION WITH SHEET 06-47-C-705
GALLERY WALK HANGING SCREENSin detail
The intuitive navigation of the student centre became an imperative in the earliest design concepts. Transparency and visual connections link spaces, with the coloured volumes serving as beacons by which visitors can orient themselves.
In places where some opacity is required for the sake of privacy, in particular at the boundary between the swimming pool and the academic wing, the architects proposed a row of custom-designed illuminated display screens.
The final proposal was for white polycarbonate screens with embedded LED lighting. The rectangular panels are five metres tall, and hang slightly forward of the glass wall between the swimming pool and Gallery Walk. The pool is thereby visually separated from the neighbouring offices but natural light can still flood into Gallery Walk from both sides.
Above Elevation of hanging screens along Gallery Walk.
Right Detail section through a hanging screen.
Above right Screens, lit in blue, as visual barrier between the sport and academic wings.
Far right Screens, lit in pink, hanging over Gallery Walk
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2006\06_47 UCD Student Centre\CONST/sheets
10@A1 , 20@A3 , 50@A1 100@A3
JK / SS / AH
JK
November 2009
Student Learning Leisure & Sport Complex
Belfield CampusUniversity College Dublin
UCD
Hanging screens Gallery walk2nd Floor Balcony ScreenMedical reception screen
06-47-C-725
A
DETAIL 1 - Section K - Elevation Hanging Screens - Scale 1:50
DETAIL 2 - Hanging Screen - Plan Scale 1:10
DETAIL 4 - Polycarbonate Screen - 2nd floor BalconyScale 1:10
(DETAIL 4) IS TO BE READ IN CONJUNCTION WITH SHEET 06-47-C-705
TENSILE STEEL CABLES FIXED TO GLULAM BEAMS
50 X 50 STEEL SQUARE HOLLOW SECTION
POWDER COATED ALUMINIUM BOX SECTION
STAINLESS STEEL PLATE
TWIN LAYER POLYCARBONATE PANEL
ROWS OF LED LIGHT
FLUORESCENT LIGHT WITH OPAL COVER
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Above Pink illumination.
Opposite Green illumination.
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DESIGN DEVELOPMENTin detail
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RADIO POD Situated prominently over Gallery Walk, the Student Centre’s yellow aluminium-clad radio pod is the backdrop for daily life along the building’s main thoroughfare. It works alongside the other media operating from the Student Centre: The University Observer, The College Tribune and Campus Television Network.
The radio pod’s irregular volume developed from the highly specialised acoustic considerations required for recording,
production and broadcast. The angular form has been adjusted to reflect noise from passersby, and conceals the intricate structural details which isolate the studio within. The radio pod is one of the most recognisable components in the centre, to be used as a means of orientation visible from almost anywhere around the building.
Left The radio studio occupies a two-room pod lifted over the north end of Gallery Walk. Opposite The yellow aluminium clad pod, viewed at first floor level.
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Left The crystalline volume is designed to reflect the noise of passersby away from the microphones with the radio studio. Opposite top The radio studio is located among the other print and broadcast media societies which have their facilities on the first floor of the Student Centre.
Opposite below Multiple layers of acoustic deflection and insulation completely isolate the radio studio’s recording equipment from outside noise.
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Left The café, prepared for the lunchtime rush.
Few places in the Student Centre will experience as constant and manifold an occupancy as the café. In between the rush at mealtimes, the café is the venue for internet surfing, study, debate, leisurely social encounters and individual escapism. The architecture used variations in scale to provide a place for everyone. The floating fitness studio implies a more human scale over the smaller tables, and extra deep bays seat one or two people in thoroughly individual spaces.
Glass doors between these bays open onto the café’s furnished terrace, which faces south across the playing fields. When these doors are open, continuous floor finishes obviate the threshold between inside and out.
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13:00 The sculpture is movement, it is activity, it is vitality. This sculpture was designed to be accessible and playful in its simple pleasing modern shapes and primary colours. It features a figure caught in an outstretched free gesture leaping over an arch. The figure is thrown in a balletic pose capturing both athletic exuberance and agile grace. The arch was conceptualized in an exercise of geometry with circles and varying symmetry to represent the roads and ways in which students and faculty travel to make their way to University College Dublin. In surmounting the arch, the figure represents a victory over challenge.
The sculpture captures the essence of the myriad of activities that will take place in this Student Learning, Leisure, and Sport Complex: sport-energy, dance-grace, joie de vivre-vitality, thought-creativity, freedom-playfulness.--Jill Pitko
JOIE DE VIVRE BY JILL PITKO
PUBLIC ART
Top left Concept sketch drawing of arch showing geometric basis. Bottom left Sketch model of leaping figure. Left Final sculpture in workshop before painting. Opposite Final sculpture in situ, as seen through the café’s deep window bays.
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Principles of linear pathway gardening, of which the Promenade Plantée in Paris and High Line in New York are the most important recent examples, have been developed in the narrow passage between the new and original Student Centres. A meandering public walk enhances the opportunities for spontaneous social encounters inherent in such a condensed volume.
After descending from the southern entrance, the landscape assimilates into the industrial material palette of the Student Centre’s interior – most perceptibly in the self-weathering COR-TEN steel planting beds and streetlights around which the path serpents. At the northern end, the path opens onto the campus’s new ceremonial square.
BRIDGE STREET
PUBLIC SPACES
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Student Centre (2012)
Student Centre (2001)
Health Sciences Centre (2006)
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Right Bridge Street streetscape with custom designed planters and lights. Opposite Plan for the landscaped public square adjoining the Student Centre.
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CAMPUS URBANISATIONin detail
The architects interpreted the UCD campus as a complete town in microcosm. Indeed, with a population of over 25,000, the Belfield campus is larger than Mullingar, Athlone, Wexford and Tralee. UCD’s population is an ephemeral one, however, and spread thinly over its 370 acres, an urban condition hostile to UCD’s potential as a thriving place of life and learning.
Fitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners’ Student Centre represents a new point of density in Belfield, reorienting the sprawl around a new epicentre of campus life. Rather than spread the Student Centre’s new spaces over the entire site, they have been stacked into dense academic, sporting or leisure ‘neighbourhoods’. Together these will foster a self-sustaining urban vivacity predicated on
openness, interconnectivity and diversity.
The Student Centre’s unifying element is its soaring gullwing roof: its long overhangs embrace the 1984 Sport centre and 2001 Student Centre and, symbolically, the wider campus. Aerial walkways within unite the three buildings to create the largest, and only truly universal, public space on campus.
Below The Student Centre’s integration into the existing pedestrian network.
Opposite top Impression of new covered walkways.
Opposite bottom left Plan views of possible curved and linear configurations.
Opposite bottom right Assembly diagram of proposed covered walkways.
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1. Walkway form2. Steel upright3. Foundation4. Structural joint5. Drainage channel6. Concealed drainage downpipe7. Concealed electrical conduit8. Integrated lighting9. Resin bound gravel footpath
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SPORT ENTRANCE
Left Entrance into swimming pool spectator area.
Above Sport foyer, viewed from café.
Opposite Sport foyer, viewed from entrance to fitness studio.
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15:00 Top Archive drawing showing potential for a diving pool to be added in the future by extending the Student Centre’s modular structural system.
Above right Impression of the diving pool addition.
Below View from spectator stand, with Gallery Walk visible along the right side and the gym along the left.
Opposite Spectator stand underneath the fitness studio.
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STAND UP AND SURF It is anticipated that up to 5000 people – or one-fifth of the student population - will use the Student Centre every day. For many, it is as much a route as a destination, so the architecture provides for its visitors to plan their onward journeys with internet access worktops along Gallery Walk.
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SUSTAINABILITY The Student Centre is one of the most energy efficient buildings in Ireland. An all-encompassing approach to sustainability has been developed in close collaboration with a team of technical specialists lead by Arup. The following key features collectively result in a building which consumes over 33% less energy than similar buildings.
PASSIVE ENERGY EFFICIENCYThe architects worked closely with specialists to find opportunities to save energy which arise during the Student Centre’s daily use cycle. As much heat from the sun and occupants as possible is retained by high performance glazing and thermal insulation which far exceed official requirements. The roof in particular is designed to retain 33% more heat than regulations require, to minimise heat loss and efficiently preserve a 29°C internal temperature in the pool hall.
Roof overhangs and steel mesh screens are used to minimise excessive solar heat ingress during summer while also allowing useful solar gains in Winter and maximising natural lighting.
The double glazing on external façades and around the pool was tested for air tightness to further ensure minimal infiltration. The Student Centre achieved an air leakage rate which is thirty percent below the most
stringent requirements. This significantly reduces the Student Centre’s dependence on artificial sources.
Optimal floor-to-ceiling heights within the Student Centre promote natural daylight penetration and reduce the need for electric lighting during the daytime.
ACTIVE ENERGY EFFICIENCYA Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant meets a substantial proportion the Student Centre’s thermal and electrical supply needs. Co-generation is among the most efficient options yet invented, in this case using almost 50% less energy that separate heating and power plants would. For example, the considerable exhaust heat from electricity generation is recycled to warm the swimming pool. Specific algorithms have been developed to optimise the plant’s efficiency in response to constantly changing demands, with surpluses exported to UCD’s campus electricity network.
Low energy, demand-based ventilation systems which incorporate energy recovery are used throughout the Student Centre. All systems employ heat recovery devices to extract useful heat from the outgoing air, and recycle it to preheat fresh air. This technique is particularly effective in the swimming pool hall, which is maintains higher internal
temperatures than the rest of the Student Centre.
Modern control routines for the Pool air systems optimise the use of outside air for humidity control to minimise energy usage throughout the year.
An intelligent lighting control system operates to minimise electricity consumption by the Student Centre’s complex lighting arrangements. A network of occupancy and sunlight sensors adjusts lighting levels based on available daylight and whether the room is occupied.
A rainwater harvesting system has been installed to gather rainwater from the Student Centre’s extensive roof. This water is then used for toilet and urinal flushing, which will reduce by half the amount of fresh water needed from the public water supply.
Every environmental control in the Student Centre is linked to a central Building Management System which monitors the building’s performance as a whole. This system constantly adjusts internal temperatures in response to climatic and use conditions, and provides statistics on energy consumption. This system further permits future targets for energy reduction to be set.
HEAT DEMAND
{
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Left The efficiency of the Combined Heat and Power plant versus separate on-grid sources.
Opposite Summary of the design and lifestyle features contribut-ing to the Student Centre’ssustainability.
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1 Minimised heat loss through outer skin, achieved by:
1a Central placement of the warmest spaces1b High performance, low u-value thermal
insulation 2 Minimised heat loss through ventilation,
achieved by:2a Airtight façades2b Centralised entry and exit routes with
revolving doors prevent drafts.
3 Controlled use of natural solar heat: 3a Projecting louvres on glass façades
deflect solar heat when it is strongest3b Steel mesh brises soleils on south- and
east-facing façades 4 Minimum dependence on air
conditioning due to:4a Natural heat convection from the
warmest areas to the coolest 4b Use of the swimming pool as a thermal
store.
4c Universal natural ventilation.4d Exposed concrete acts as a thermal
mass, absorbing heat and releasing it when temperatures drop to prevent fluctuations.
5 Maximised use of natural daylight.5a Rooflights and glazed walls.5b Narrow plan for maximum sunlight
penetration5c Motion detector activated lighting in all
offices and hallways.
6 Additional features6a A highly efficient Combined Heat
and Power Plant which cogenerates electricity, heat and hot water.
6b Automatic computerised Building Management System which adapts to climatic conditions.
6c Local, ecological, recyclable, reusable and biodegradable building materials.
6d Grey water recycling: rainwater is gathered on the roof and used for flushing toilets.
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TEPIDARIUM The tepidarium houses the sauna, steam bath, ice fountain, vitality pool, Kneipp walk and experience showers in an enclave next to the main swimming pool hall. The space is recognisable for the luxury of its finishes. Golden mosaic tiles, mood lighting and aromatherapy diffusers foster an atmosphere entirely distinct from the bustling pool outside.
The tepidarium is central among the Student Centre’s facilities for propagating
sporting excellence in UCD. Its physiotherapy applications and role in recovery after exercise complement the gym, aquatic facilities and playing fields which neighbour it.
The tepidarium adheres to Sebastian Kneipp’s hydrotherapy system, which involves the application of water at varying temperatures, methods and pressures as one progresses through the six functions.
Below Scent chamber. Opposite Ice fountain and recovery lounge beyond.
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Above left Recovery lounge.
Above right Red & brown mosaic tiles along the Kneipp Walk.
Main image View across tepidarium from recovery lounge.
Opposite Cross section and plan of tepidarium.
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1. Children’s pool2. Spa pool3. Steam room4. Experience showers5. Ice fountain 6. Kneipp Walk 7. Scent chamber8. Recovery area
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CHANGING VILLAGE The swimming pool changing village is a self-contained essay on the colour theory which appears at a larger scale elsewhere in the Student Centre.
The three scheme colours of red, green and yellow are used here as a much more intuitive, universal alternative to the familiar system of orientation by locker numbering. The colours are given due prominence by a white ceiling and reflective white floor tiles.
Below One of the members-only changing rooms.
Above Grooming area in the changing village.
Opposite Orientation by colour in the changing village.
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GYM The gym’s position as the ideological and architectural nucleus of sporting endeavour in UCD is reinforced by the transparency and interconnectedness of its new, open-plan volume. The swimming pool, hockey stadium and original UCD Sport building form the commensurately energetic backdrop to the new gym floor.
The gym’s glazed length opens onto the roof of UCD Sport, which has been redesigned as a sheltered venue for internal martial arts.
Below Ascending from the sports foyer to the green aluminium clad gym changing rooms.
Opposite Cardio equipment with views over the swimming pool and fitness studio.
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GYM
Above Cardio machines facing the roof terrace hosting martial arts.
Right View from gym entrance towards mirrored free weight area.
Opposite top Trainer station.
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MATERIALSin detail
Polished basalt The Fitzgerald Chamber is clad is highly polished black gabbro, a coars-er-grained variant of basalt. The colour and reflectivity change mark-edly during the course of the day.
Irish limestoneSmooth, flamed slabs with visible fossils are arranged in an undu-lating, staggered bond to visually break up the larger surfaces.
Sambesi wire mesh Structur-ally similar to Lago mesh but more transparent, Sambesi is used on the south-facing façade to regulate control the ingress of solar heat. With an open area of 42%, the mesh admits more heat when the sun is lowest.
Resin bonded gravelA coarser texture to complement the varying scales of smooth granite paving which mark different outdoor spaces.
Granite pavingVarying sizes of sett are used to identify changes in use. The lines of the paving also align per-fectly with those of the swimming pool, uniting inside with outside.
White terrazzo A durable and beautiful composite of white Car-rara marble set in white cement and inlaid with mother of pearl.
Terrazzo tiles (red/yellow)Vivid accents to the white and grey terrazzo floors, made from crushed glass set in pigment-dyed resin.
Grey terrazzoAn aggregate of Bardiglio Imperiale grey marble set in light grey cement, polished to a vitreous finish.
Aluminium cladding (green/red/yellow) A highly reflective surface (85% gloss) which encases the most distinctive volumes and contributes to their acoustic isolation.
Lago wire meshAnother particularly industrial material, this stainless steel mesh has a dense geometric layout which oscillates between reflectivity and opacity depending on light and the viewer’s position.
Board-marked concreteA material which visually expresses how it was made: an organic effect achieved in a man-made material.
COR-TEN Used in the external landscaping, COR-TEN is a steel alloy which strengthens and develops a stable reddish patina over time. The colour and weathering process is analogous to the autumnal shades of the planting scheme.
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Norament rubber floorA 3mm thick vulcanised rubber surface is used on the upper levels along Gallery Walk. The strong colour emphasis-es the circulation routes through the Centre’s academic functions.
Sandblasted black concrete A limestone aggregate and black pigment are used to create a light-absorbing concrete with an even texture.
White corianSmooth, matte corian television bezels along gallery walk highlight the coarseness of the black concrete walls behind.
Self-finished renderThe projecting volumes of the medical centre are finished in a crisp, white render to preserve the discreteness of their planes and angles.
Glulam Multiple layers of pine glue-laminated togeth-er and finished with clear lacquer. A much more sustainable and chlorine-resistant solu-tion for the main roof structure.
Polycarbonate A light, strong and semi-translucent thermoplastic polymer, used in the medical centre to maintain privacy while admitting daylight. The pro-jection screens suspended along gallery walk are also made from polycarbonate.
Iroko A very distinctive and sus-tainable hardwood, with much greater natural varia-tion in texture and grain than oak. Chosen for the Fitzgerald Chamber due to its warmth, intensity and historicist character.
Embossed aluminiumA thin but extremely durable sheet material, used in the roof to foster a sense of levity as it sails over the Centre’s most voluminous internal spaces.
Tesseræ in primary coloursIn a recurring theme, red and green mosaic tiles echo the colour and proportion of the larger volumes they are facing.
Tensile cable webnet A very tactile material typically used in indus-trial settings and chosen here for its durability and transparency.
Black tilesA visually and haptically rich finish to the lower walls in the pool hall to imply a human scale.
An industrial material vocabulary was chosen for the Student Centre as its inherent, perceptible durability fosters uninhibited and creative use of its spaces: a sense of ownership.
Variations on textures and scales is a recurring theme, with the interplay of rough and smooth, large and small, light and dark serving to subtly distinguish different zones.
This architectural device is most prevalent on Gallery Walk, where the coincidence of a large number of disparate functions necessitated a sophisticated visual syntax to give each its due legibility. For example, the two theatres are identifiable by their black stone cladding which wraps the entire volume from outside in, but the divergence in their finishes - polished gabbro for the drama theatre and flamed limestone for
the multimedia theatre - representing their commensurate functions while maintaining their distinction.
The changing character of materials during the course of the day and night was also an important consideration for the Student Centre. The aluminium, terrazzo and polished stone reflect sunlight by day, and then glow warmly under artificial sources at night.
The behaviour of the façades is particularly noticeable at different times. Controlled floodlighting is used to render the steel mesh sunscreens almost completely transparent, thus allowing the bold volumes of the changing rooms, Studio 2 and radio pod to provide a lively backdrop to sporting and social life in UCD well into the night.
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SPORT CENTRE LINK The Student Centre serves as an important catalyst to the urbanism of the UCD campus, not only adding new facilities, but also enhancing the experience of the existing ones.
Aerial walkways to UCD Sport and the original student centre embed the new building into the established sporting and social activity, and encourage new use combinations across new and old. For example, the new tepidarium can play an important physiotherapeutic role after
exercise, so its ready accessibility from around the wider sports precinct was a design imperative.
The interface between UCD Sport and the Student Centre encloses part of the distinctive board-marked concrete of the 1981 building’s façade behind a new glass wall. This long and tall space is pierced by a bridge leading directly from the new gym to the indoor courts. An angular plan blurs the threshold between new and old, reinforcing the unity of the old and new buildings.
Below Bridge linking UCD Sport to Student Centre, enclosing part of the outside wall.
Opposite Arriving in Student Centre from UCD Sport.
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Above Polished black granite encases the reception to the sports wing, and lines the route from the original UCD Sport building to the Student Centre.
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COMMUTING FACILITY WEST The ongoing densification of the Belfield Campus has added significantly to the challenge of an appropriate commuting strategy. Existing surface car parking has expanded over the years in response to surging demand, but the Belfield estate has suffered as a result. Fitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners were asked to develop a design for facilities to encourage more sustainable alternatives to travelling to UCD by car, particularly cycling.
It is envisaged that a set of ‘commuting facilities’ will be strategically located
across the campus, the first of which will sit alongside the new Student Centre. The multi-storey buildings will include secure parking for over 600 bicycles with managed changing, shower and locker facilities; dedicated coach parking; a bike sales and repair shop, motorcycle parking and 580 car parking spaces, ten per cent of which will be equipped to charge electric vehicles. A new terminus for Dublin Bus is also integrated.
As a building to encourage sustainable lifestyles, wall and roof photovoltaic panels embedded in the façade provide up to 40%
of the building’s energy requirements, and a glazed exterior admits sunlight deep within so that artificial lighting is unnecessary for most of the day.
As the Belfield campus develops to provide new and existing commuting facilities, the availability of surface parking spaces will continue to be reduced. The height models of the new commuting facilities will be very important in the public transport connectivity strategy of UCD.
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Below Impression of the completed commuting facility, showing photovoltaic facade.
Above Study of a typical elevation showing access and landscaping around the facilities.
Opposite Community Facility West on the UCD campus development model.
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CONSTRUCTION PROGRESSin detail
April 2010
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MULTIMEDIA THEATRE The academic wing of the student centre is anchored by a series of cuboids containing the theatres, debating chamber and lift. The smallest such volume is the multimedia theatre.
An intimate scale is well suited to focussed academic workshops, film screenings and webcasted tutorials. In order to provide for both general and academic audiences, the
projection room has been equipped with a particularly broad range of projection equipment, from the latest 3D-capable systems to a 35mm reel-to-reel projector for the classics. The theatre is also equipped to record and broadcast live events via the internet.
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THE FITZGERALD CHAMBER The debating chamber is among the Student Centre’s distinguishing features. The need for a world class debating venue in UCD became ever more apparent as their teams achieved international success despite not having a dedicated facility in which to practice or host.
The UCD Debating Chamber takes as its precedent the historic spaces which grew from the rich dialectic tradition at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. These spaces are defined by an insular atmosphere and very high standard of finish. In the Fitzgerald Chamber, iroko panels line the walls and ceiling, complemented by red
velvet upholstery. A network of hidden staircases and leaning rails provide routes for the spectators and hecklers which have always formed part of competitive debating.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple in Chicago was another very important inspiration for the design. The small suburban church shares with the other precedents a perceptible introversion and use of precious materials, but exhibits a unique geometric rigour and understanding of the human experience of its inhabitation. These latter traits have been explored in the Fitzgerald Chamber through careful regulation of light
ingress, a clear distinction between interior and exterior and a haptic richness of the individual finishes.
Technical performance and material characteristics have been considered carefully in terms of their versatility, specifically in the chamber’s acoustic isolation and low reverberation time, which also lend it musical performance. Tiered seating for opposing debating teams can retract automatically, creating a modest proscenium for private rehearsals and intimate performances.
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Above View across Fitzgerald Chamber from balcony.
Opposite View upon audience and team seating from balcony.
Left Structural detail of leaning rails, balcony and retracted bleachers.
Below Entrance to concealed corridors and staircases for hecklers.
75 x 275mm IROKO LEANING RAIL
10mm STAINLESS STEEL ROD
25mm SOLID IROKO PANELS
60 x 120mm STEEL POST CLAD IN IROKO
25mm SOLID IROKO PANELS
COLOURED RUBBER FLOOR WITH HAMMERBLOW SURFACE
EXPOSED CONCRETE FINISH
100mm STRUCTURAL SCREED and 100mm WIDESLAB
457 x 191 x 89 mm STEEL BEAM
12.5 mm PLYWOOD
EX. 175 x 50 mm TIMBER FRAMING
RETRACTABLE SEATING
SPRUNG FLOOR WITH TIMBER FINISH
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DESIGN PRECEDENTS FOR THE FITZGERALD CHAMBERin detail
The Fitzgerald Chamber shares with its Oxbridge counterparts a material richness and strong sense of the dialectic tradition which it perpetuates. Rejecting the superficially historicist character which some contemporary debating chambers are adopting, the architects studied a variety of buildings which are equally warm, functional and sustainable but which also readily assumed their place in the context in which they are built.
Unity Temple (1908), a Unitarian Universalist church in Chicago by American architect
Frank Lloyd Wright, pursued similar anti-imitative ideals and became the most influential precedent for the Fitzgerald Chamber in UCD. Wright persuaded his clients to abandon the familiar little white New England steeple in favour of a Modern solution which celebrated the value of gathering. Unity Temple is at once introspective and communal, monumental and human.
The basalt-clad exterior of the Fitzgerald Chamber reads as a heavy, solid volume, but this encases a light and intimate interior.
No visual connection to the outside places human activity at the heart of the space, while the concealed windows and rooflights create a sense of levity which belies the volume’s modest proportions. In common with Unity Temple, the finishes are arranged geometrically and symmetrically. This serves to lend a sense of order and balance to what will, at times, become the tempestuous and frenetic venue for elite debating.
Right Main facade of Unity Temple.
Far right Pulpit and balconies.
Opposite View from the pulpit of Unity Temple.
Overleaf View from the pulpit of the Fitzgerald Chamber.
LIBR
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SWIMMING POOLIN 25-METRE SECTIONS
Below Canoe polo club practice in the divided swimming pool.
Opposite The pool in use in two 25m sections.
Overleaf With the dividing boom raised, the pool can host two uses simultaneously.
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night21:00 - 23:59
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THE FITZGERALD CHAMBERDELIBERATION LANDING
Teams regularly spill from the Fitzgerald Chamber during the course of debating competitions to prepare their counter arguments. The large, furnished mezzanines outside both levels of the chamber provide space for groups to gather in relative seclusion to research and prepare for their next round.
At other times, these balconies also provide a new vantage point of the campus with views over the playing fields to the south of the Student Centre.
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THE GOLDEN RATIOin detail
Golden proportion is a ratio defined by the number φ (1.618033). It arises from the division of a straight line into two unequal parts so that the ratio of the whole to the larger part is the same as the ratio of the larger part to the smaller. In other words, so that A is to B as B is to C in the diagram below.
This simple ratio was first documented in the 4th century BC and its occurrence has since been discovered in a wide array of biological settings, including the branching of trees,
arrangement of leaves on a stem, the spiral of a nautilus shell and the structure of a pine cone. Also known as Divine Proportion, the Golden ratio came to be interpreted as the basis of beauty and harmony in nature, and since the Renaissance it has dominated notions of correct proportion in painting, architecture, music and, most recently, plastic surgery. Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, Claude Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau and the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris all use golden proportion.
A
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THEATRE FOYER A subtle change in material, level and light marks the foyer of the Student Centre’s performance theatre. As it will primarily be used in the late evening, a material palette which retains its warmth in the absence
of sunlight was developed. The yellow aluminium underside of the radio pod levitates as a canopy overhead, contributing to an atmosphere of unfamiliarity to prefaces the audience’s suspension of disbelief.
This separate entrance was also designed for round-the-clock access to the backstage areas and media suite upstairs.
Above Audience entrance to performance theatre.
Right The radio pod as canopy over the theatre foyer.
Opposite Direct entrance to theatre foyer from Bridge Street.
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CLUBHOUSE BAR The Clubhouse is UCD’s great social condenser. It offers a place for all the university’s clubs and societies to come together in a sumptuous and informal social venue. The Clubhouse is organised over two floors in the original Student Centre building: the larger sports bar on ground level and the more formal Clubhouse upstairs. An aerial walkway over Bridge Street links the bar to Gallery Walk in the Student Centre. There is also a direct entrance on the northeast corner of the original Student Centre.
The Sports Bar is divided into different areas by trophy cabinets, televisions and panels of American walnut. The space becomes very flexible, with café-style seating, lounges, pool tables and display cabinets celebrating UCD’s sporting achievement each offering opportunities for different social encounters.
The Clubhouse Bar upstairs combines simple forms with finely detailed, opulent materials to give a modern, rich impression. This space shares the public spirit of the Sports Bar downstairs, but is also equipped to fulfil more ceremonial functions.
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PERFORMANCE THEATRE Since its establishment in 1926, the UCD Drama Society has grown to become one of the university’s most active, performing forty plays per year. The new drama theatre is a prototypical black box theatre with a proscenium layout and a dedicated green room.
The performance theatre is recognizable as one of the stone clad volumes lining the east side of the centre. To underline the theatre’s
elevation from the day-to-day drama outside, it is expressed as an independent and insular volume. The stone cladding envelops the entire outer surface, from which the dark auditorium within appears to have been excavated.
The backstage prop preparation areas are accessible around the clock through a staircase and entrance separated from the rest of the Student Centre.
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PUBLIC SPACES AFTER DARK
The Student Centre has been placed on a granite square between the 1964 UCD Sport complex and the original Student Centre from 2001, among the playing fields at the western edge of Belfield. By day the area is vital and welcoming thanks to this dense mix of sport and social facilities. In the evening, however, there is little to attract people and the area quickly becomes alienating and lifeless.
The ‘A day in the Life’ research highlighted this disparity, and presented an opportunity to catalyse a 24-hour vibrancy in and around the new Student Centre complex. The new programme concentrates extensive new facilities, which will attract users around the clock, across the formerly daytime use only buildings. Conceptually, the new building and its surrounding plazas echo the
infinite range of human experience they are designed to house. The complex composition of textures, materials and scales define the perceptive journey through the precinct, and it is the inventive application of light which seamlessly transfers their daytime interest into the night.
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When lit directly, the glass and steel mesh facade dematerialises to accentuate the polychromy and reflective surfaces within. The brightly aluminium-clad volumes are given new prominence; the glow of the red fitness studio tints the granite pavement outside. Gallery Walk’s display screens further illuminate this mesmeric backdrop to
UCD nightlife. The Student Centre’s nightime guise casts the campus in a fun, lively new light after dark.
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AFTER GENERAL CLOSURE
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Above Colour from within the Student Centre enlivening its surrounding public spaces.
Below The lounge at the Southern end of Gallery Walk. Opposite DramSoc and the news media societies are granted 24 hour access to their prop prepa-ration, editorial or production facilities via an independent entrance route within the performance theatre block. Opposite above The combina-tion of street lights outside and floodlights inside the Student Centre create a lively atmosphere for the many people who will pass through after dark.
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Left The swimming pool.
Below The lifeguard leaves the pool hall after all the swimmers have returned to the changing village. Opposite View across Gallery Walk and the radio pod at first floor level.
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Above The multimedia theatre after the last daily showing.
Below Colour and light preserve the safe and fun atmosphere around the Student Centre. Opposite The Fitzgerald Chamber after the debating teams have left.
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FITZGERALD KAVANAGH AND PARTNERS_
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DESIGN PHILOSOPHY & APPROACH
Maurice Fitzgerald and Aidan Kavanagh have been practicing together since 1982. We believe professionalism and ethics have been at the heart of the success of Fitzgerald Kavanagh & Partners, where it is conveyed through our principles to staff that the opportunities of all our projects must be realised and completed with responsibility.
Fitzgerald Kavanagh + Partners establish objective criteria from which to assess quality of design. Subjective aesthetics apart, the context in which design decisions are made is a good guide to the decisions themselves. Careful study of the brief, research into user requirements, limits of cost and construction timing, the organisation of skills and their efficient management all contribute towards a high design standard.
Architecture is first a visual experience, then an environmental one. All Fitzgerald Kavanagh & Partners principles of sound practice have one objective - to continually improve the quality of design. The practice has delivered projects in a wide variety
of environments; urban, rural and conservation areas. Consequently, Fitzgerald Kavanagh & Partners has developed a reputation for producing elegant solutions to any client’s brief.
It has been a privilege to lead the Design Team and the construction team on the UCD Student Centre project. Fitzgerald Kavanagh & Partners are particularly proud to have collaborated as a practice of committed individuals to design and deliver this piece of creative architecture. We endeavour to foster a spirit of team work and cooperation within our practice, to ensure that we strive to achieve the optimum design solution for our clients and their project needs. This project is a realization of this work ethos, led by Aidan Kavanagh, with Gerry Murphy, one of our founding directors, responsible for the conceptual design and strategy; John Thomson, Director; and Andrew Howley, Associate and Project Architect, responsible for the delivery of all technical and design production, supported by a dedicated and talent design studio. We believe it is a fine legacy to the student funding of the project and a testament to the abilities of Fitzgerald Kavanagh & Partners.
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FKP’S OTHER PROJECTS WITH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
UCD GATEWAY MASTERPLAN_
Program: 100,000 sq.m masterplan for landmark academic precinct. Designed in collaboration with Behnisch Architekten, Stuttgart.
Status: Competition 2006; finalist.
MICHAEL SMURFIT GRADUATE BUSINESS SCHOOL LIBRARY_
Program: 900 sq. m university library in former chapel.
Status: Completed 2007
CLINTON CENTRE FOR AMERICAN STUDIES_
Program: 1,500 sq. m of research, lecture and reception facilities in a restored 19th century estate house.
Status: Completed 2006
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POSTGRADUATE STUDENT RESIDENCES_
Program: 4,600 sq. m of student halls of residence incorporating the restoration of a 19th century estate house.
Status: Completed 2004.
GLEESON ZEN GARDEN_
Program: Zen garden situated outside the Global Lounge.
Status: Completed 2009
GLOBAL LOUNGE_
Program: Interior fit-out providing new social space for international students and societies, including meeting rooms and offices.
Status: Completed 2010
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RIAI REGIONAL AWARDS Ligouri House, Proby Student Residences, DublinSelected for Exhibition
RIAI REGIONAL AWARDS Whites Pharmacy, KilkennySelected for Exhibition
RIAI REGIONAL AWARDSDepartment of Regional & Urban Planning, U.C.D.Selected for Exhibition
RIAI REGIONAL AWARDSFood Production Facility, EnniskillenSelected for Exhibition RIAI REGIONAL AWARDS Prices Medical Hall, 26 Clare Street, DublinSelected for Exhibition
ATHLONE RIVERSIDE COMPETITION Library and Catering Management Training Centre1st prize
BUILDING EXCELLENCE AWARD European FoundationBuilding Excellence Award
PUBLIC BUILDING DESIGN COMPETITIONKilkenny Government Offices1st Prize RIAI CITY QUAYS COMPETITIONCity Quays Urban Quarter, DublinPremium NATIONAL HOUSING COMPETITIONAward: Premium RIAI REGIONAL AWARDS UCD Urban Planning BuildingSelected for ExhibitionRIAI REGIONAL AWARDS3 Mews Houses, Pembroke Place, Dublin 2 Selected for Exhibition
RIAI REGIONAL AWARDSNew Ward Block, Orthopaedic Hospital, ClontarfSelected for Exhibition
RIAI REGIONAL AWARDSParish Church, Confey, LeixlipSelected for Exhibition
DESIGN COMPETITIONCliffs of Moher Interpretative Centre, Cliffs of MoherEntry Commended
DESIGN COMPETITIONFingal County Council OfficesEntry Commended
DESIGN COMPETITIONThe Liffey Bridge CompetitionPlaced entry
DESIGN COMPETITIONWestport Civic OfficesPlaced entry
RECOGNITION
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PROJECT CREDITS
ARCHITECTS DESIGN TEAM LEADERS
Fitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners
Aidan Kavanagh (Managing Partner)Gerry Murphy (Design Director)John Thomson (Technical Director)Andrew Howley (Senior Project Architect)Karen Hassey (Project Architect)Chris Doorly (Site Architect)Maurice FitzgeraldJan KukulaSusan TigheRonan Cosgrove
PROJECT MANAGERS QUANTITY SURVEYORS
Davis Langdon
CIVIL/STRUCTURAL ENGINEERSSERVICES CONSULTANTS
Arup
FIRE CONSULTANTS White Young Green
ACOUSTIC CONSULTANTS Allegro Acoustics
FAÇADE ENGINEERING Billings Design
LANDSCAPING Stephen Diamond Associates PROJECT SUPERVISOR DESIGN PROCESS
Atkins
POOL CONSULTANTS Devin
GCCC EMPLOYERS REPRESENTATIVE
Fitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners
CLIENT UCD Property Development Company
Martin Butler (Vice President for students)Eamonn Ceannt (Director of Development)Dominic O’Keefe (Student Centre Director)Brian Mullins (Director of Sport)Pat De Brún (Student Union President)Aidan Grannell (Director Building & Estates)Lorcan Sweetman (Building & Estates Project Administrator)Enda Conaty (Project Engineer)
MAIN CONTRACTOR Walls Construction
Eugene O’SheaAdrian CorcoranRob FoxBernard GreenJoe HanlonBrendan Darcy
Commencement on site November 2009
Substantial completion March 2012
Project value €50 million
Built floor area 11,000 sq. metres
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This publication owes a debt of gratitude to:
Donal Murphy ...without whose tact and talent, our vision for this book would not have been realised.
Karen Hassey, Gerry Murphy, John Thomson, Maurice Fitzgerald, Colm Redmond, Philip Pettit, Paul Sweeney, Peter Fitzsimons, Ann Fitzgerald, James Glancy, Margaret Glupker, Anas Alakkari, Tara Brown, Janet Keoghegan and Stephen Fallon ...for creative thinking at FKP.
James Mary O’Connor and Dr Hugh Brady ...for sharing their time and insight.
Maryanne Doyle ...for her tenacity and perseverance in the pursuit of someone else’s goal.
James Caulfield ...for his generous contribution from across the Atlantic.
Jill Pitko, Joe Burns and Paul Dunne ...for their conscientiousness and collaboration.
-The Editor
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UCD STUDENT CENTREFITZGERALD KAVANAGH AND PARTNERS
ARCHITECTSWITH ARUP
a day inthe life
A DA
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