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Reuben Street Apartments

• Location: Cork St., Liberties Coombe
• Architect: FKL Architects
• Completed: 2006

This prominent inner-city site, on the corner of Dolphin’s Barn Street and Reuben Street, marks the threshold of the city centre on one of its principal access routes – Cork Street. The building is proposed as two unequal L-shaped blocks, taking the scale from the two adjoining streets and stepping up to twelve floors at the corner. The two blocks, containing 70 apartments, frame a multi-storey entrance to the courtyard with a dramatic lightweight bridge by artist Corban Walker at seventh-floor level.

The building draws on Dublin’s two great architectural traditions: the planar brick of Georgian façades with carefully incised openings, and the more willful and decorative Victorian. A binary system has been used to disorganise the pattern of the window and balcony openings, producing the maximum variety from a minimum number of window and apartment types, instilling a sense of individuality and ownership in a potentially repetitive commercial development.

The two apartment blocks sit on an articulated podium containing support facilities and retail units, which mediate between the semi-public realm of the courtyard and the city. The materiality of the podium – granite and mosaic – continues into the shop-front and the foot path surrounding the building, keying into the immediate surroundings. The contrast between the simple brick planar form and complex base highlights and articulates the concept. The offsetting of window openings on the façades, based on a binary system, addresses the issues of personal identification for residents and the stimulation of variety within a generic apartment layout. Dual aspect apartments – where living spaces and recessed balconies are orientated south or west, and where natural light to bathrooms and kitchens has been prioritised – ensure these will be spaces people can live in.