Kilmeena project wins architecture award

Kilmeena Village wins architecture award


Edwin McGreal

The Kilmeena Village project won a prestigious Irish Architecture Award last week.
The project, designed by Westport firm Cox Power Architects, won the award for Best Housing project at the ceremony held at Dublin City Council’s Wood Quay venue.
The village is constructed close to the local church, school and GAA grounds in Kilmeena. There is a variety of house designs and, to keep the new buildings in context with the surrounding countryside, the layout of the village centre is based on a traditional clustered layout of grouped farm buildings known as a clachΡn.
The houses are traditional in form but are modern in detail. The community centre which is typically a bulky building type has been successfully re-modelled and sited to reduce its impact on nearby houses and other neighbouring buildings. Landscape elements have been successfully detailed to provide screening, shelter, visual interest and enclosure.
The jury commented that ‘the challenge of sustainable rural development is successfully addressed in this thoughtful nucleus of houses and associated facilities. The balance of site strategy and formal language is deceptively simple but yields significant environmental and architectural rewards in this fully-realised piece of place-making.’
Another Mayo building was among the nominees in the awards. The ‘Edge of Town’ building in Claremorris, which houses the local offices of Mayo County Council, was designed by Simon J Kelly and Partners Architects, based in Westport and Galway.