Mayo school design shortlisted for major architectural award

With offices in Mayo and Galway, local architectural firm, Simon J Kelly Architects (SJK), have once again been shortlisted for the RIAI Public Choice Award. Each year the RIAI Public Choice Awards celebrate excellence in design and project delivery and gives a unique opportunity for us, the general public, to choose our favourite project of the year, inviting us to recognise the buildings and places that enrich our everyday lives.

Simon J Kelly Architects have developed a strong reputation for their award-winning work in the education sector, having recently featured in national awards for their vernacular inspired school design at Scoil Mhuire, Monviea, Co Galway, and winning the accolade of best education building, for their historically sensitive design at Scoil Phádraig, Westport.

The recent announcement of the RIAI Awards shortlist reaffirms the quality of work being produced in the West of Ireland, and creates awareness of the important role that architecture plays in delivering local societal and economic infrastructure which affects us all.

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Simon J Kelly Architect’s most recent shortlisting relates to their design for the new 14-classroom Primary School building at Culleens, Ballina. The school design responds to an exposed context through a simple courtyard form, with the larger volume of the school hall signalling and sheltering the canopied main entrance from its prevailing winds.

As with all of Simon J Kelly Architect’s primary schools, colour has been carefully integrated, with each of the classrooms identified by its own distinct colour through matching ‘shopfront’ doors and benches, windows, furniture and floor colours; strips of these classroom colours are integrated along the corridors leading the way to each classroom. The colours are repeated externally in bespoke coloured mosaic signs and cast concrete paving strips leading to the front entrance concourse, and within the courtyard, reinforcing the sense of belonging for all of the classes within the school’s community.

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Voting for the 2025 Awards, runs until June 16, with the winners being announced shortly after. See www.sjk.ie/vote.