The University of Limerick is one of the most renowned institutions of higher education in Ireland. Its ensemble stretches along the Shannon River, the widest and longest in the country, and gradually develops the territories of both its banks. On its northern bank, connected to the center of the campus by a footbridge, the School of Medicine and three student residences were built. The architects were challenged not only to design the iconic volume of the new academic building and comfortable housing, but also to think in detail about the public space between them, which in the future should become the core of the new part of the university campus.
New buildings were erected adjacent to the existing buildings of the university - the sports center, the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance and the building of the Faculty of Health Sciences. In fact, the architects managed to reorganize the general plan of this part of the university territory in such a way that it was the new Medical School that became its compositional center. By their own comparison, the rest of the volumes "freely rotate" around it. A pedestrian plaza that Grafton has inscribed between existing and new buildings helps achieve this effect. And if older university buildings and new residential buildings surround this piazza from different sides, then the building of the Medical School becomes its main and integral part. The corner of the building, facing directly onto the square, at the ground floor level has an open gallery, which actually makes the public areas of the complex a continuation of the city-wide space.
The school building is faced with limestone, which, according to the architects, emphasizes its belonging to the County of Clare, where this stone is traditionally mined. True, the facades are quite different from each other: the new educational building is facing the square with large-scale glazing and rectangular columns that seem to push its walls apart, while from the opposite side the building looks much more closed and modest.
Residential buildings with similar plastics (in which the architects also use rectangular portals and deep window niches with inclined slopes), due to facing with dark bricks, look completely different. Different materials, according to the authors, underline the different functional purpose of these buildings in the best possible way: the light walls of the educational building symbolize its "sociality", while the hostels are interpreted, rather, in the mainstream of "my home is my fortress."
The small height difference in the territory is compensated by wide steps laid out of stone. A kind of transitional link from the new landscaped area to the sports center is a concrete "pergola" that serves as a bus stop and a parking lot for bicycles. The architects turn the space between the residential buildings into a lawn that can be used for recreation in the warm season.
A. M.
