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Marmion Court

• Location: HARP Area
• Architect: Shay Cleary Architects
• Completed: 2004

This project comprised the refurbishment of 84 flats in existing 1970’s blocks along with the provision of 46 new units and the general reconstitution of the urban fabric for the city block.

The proposal for the site  can be summarised into a number of overall objectives as follows:

• To integrate the existing blocks in a meaningful and sympathetic way into a coherent arrangement of public, semi public and private spaces.
• To re-establish the building line on both Queen Street and on Blackhall Street in order to form a proper approach to Bluecoat School.
• To provide an architecture that would nave some relationship with the language of the existing, so that the overall scheme when completed would present a cohesive and unified image to it’s surroundings and to the city.
• To expand if possible the other non-residential uses which already exist in the city block.

The specific aims of the architectural proposal were as follows:

• To re-establish Queen Street with a series of new buildings which vary in layout from four to one storey as they relate to both the existing blocks and the proposed new spaces.
• To create new pedestrian streets for new private shared access to existing blocks and also establish semi-private common gardens that relate to particular groups of dwellings.
• To create a new three and one storey terrace to Blackhall Street which establishes a new street edge and creates an axial relationship with the important approach to the Bluecoat School.
• To create a small recreation area for all the residents and to propose appropriate uses for the existing halls in consultation with residents. 
• To provide dwellings which have generous private outdoor space in the form of terraces, balconies or roof gardens, and also benefit from the use of the common gardens and the proposed public park.