These Irish architects are known for being successful in major international competitions. They won a competition from hundreds of rivals to design a new Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and it was exactly the same with the "Giant's Trail": in 2005, 201 offices from around the world tried to design a visitor center for it. heneghan peng architects won then thanks to the laconicism and tact of their project.
The Giant's Trail, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a cluster of 40,000 hexagonal basalt “columns” on the coast of Northern Ireland, created during prehistoric volcanic activity. It is a popular tourist destination where the environment is of utmost importance: "authentic" nature serves as a necessary backdrop for a geological attraction.
In this part of the coast, cliffs run in a continuous strip along the sea. The "trail" is located near the water, and the visitor center was placed in the same place, but behind the rocks, on the land side. Using the relief that descends from the cliff ridge, the architects hid the building and parking lot in two folds of the landscape they created. Basalt columns are placed along their edges and along the facades of the building, the material for which was mined in the quarries nearby.
The visitor center has earned its resource efficiency certificate "Excellent" in the British eco-scale BREEAM: it uses geothermal cooling and heating systems, "gray" and rainwater, has a green roof, etc.
N. F.
