design + energy + excellence

Tag: Architects (Page 2 of 13)

Your First Meeting With an Architect

You’ve decided to build. Congratulations!

Starting this process can be daunting and stressful, the most important thing is to not get overwhelmed and take this process step by step. To help we have put together a few tips to prepare you for your first meeting with an Architect.

Property Information

Make sure you provide the location of your property to the Architect. A site in a Special Area of Conservation will have different demands than a site in the middle of Wexford town, for example.

It is also important that the Architect knows about the topography of your site, is it sloped?, is it flat? In reality, we have to design around what is existing on the site or around any existing properties. If you have photos of the site please bring them to the first meeting.

Provide as much site information as you can at the beginning, this will assist the Architect in having a good first impression of the challenges involved. If you have survey drawings, ordnance survey maps, or existing plans, please bring them to the first meeting.

Brief

One of the best things you can do to ensure a successful first meeting is to spend time thinking about what do you want. This would be your wish list and Architects call it the ‘Brief’.

The brief describes the requirements you have – the Architect will endeavor to fulfill the brief during the design process. The brief does not need to be fully developed for the first meeting but it is helpful that you can give the Architect an overall indication of what you are trying to achieve.

Don’t be afraid to bring example pictures of designs you like – explaining and showing what you like will give your Architect direction and inspiration. What you don’t like is also important, make sure you share this with your Architect.

Pre-Planning Consultation

The planning stage can be confusing if you are not familiar with the process.

The Planning and Development Act 2000 introduced the convenience of Pre-Planning consultations between potential applicants who have an interest in the land and the planning authority. This is a service free of charge.

Having a Pre-Planning consultation with a planner will give clarity on what can be achieved for your proposed development. This is not an absolute requirement for your first meeting with an Architect but it could be helpful to have it done as it may speed up the process.

You can follow this link to the Wexford planning department explaining everything you need to know about Pre-Planning Consultations:

https://www.wexfordcoco.ie/planning/planning-applications/preplanning

Budget

Before starting anything it is important to look at your finances and have a clear set budget. Your Architect will need to know this as early as possible to design within your financial limits. Having a budget in place early in the process will set you and your architect in the right direction from the word go. When dealing with a tight budget be clear in explaining what is most important to you. The architect can take this information and priorities into your design.

If setting a budget is too difficult just let the Architect know this. Architects can work without a budget, and as soon as the Concept Design is developed they can estimate what budget you will need.

Be Prepared With Questions

Ask as many questions as you can to make sure you leave the meeting satisfied, leave no stone unturned as they say. As Architects, we listen and answer a lot of questions, no question is too silly when it comes to this industry.


Hopefully, this information will put you on the right path when beginning your new project.

Get in touch with us by email at office@isabelbarrosarchitects.ie or phone 053 916 8942 to schedule your first meeting with an Architect.

Irish Women Receive the 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara were awarded the 2020 Pritzker Prize. It is the first time that two female architects receive this prestigious prize. They make the 2nd and 3rd Pritzker awardees to have been graduated from UCD – University College Dublin, Ireland.

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, the 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureates

The Pritzker Architecture Prize is awarded annually to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision, and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.

Universita Luigi Bocconi, 2008, Milan, Italy

The pair established Grafton Architects in 1978 in Dublin, where they continue to practice and reside. In just over forty years, they have completed nearly as many projects, located in Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Peru.

Offices for the Department of Finance, 2009, Dublin, Ireland

Farrell and McNamara have designed and built several schools and architectural works for institutions and universities. They have won many international competitions and awards.

University Campus UTEC Lima, 2015, Lima, Peru

Their buildings consistently remain purposefully rich, yet modest, enhancing cities and lending to sustainability while responding to local needs.

Offices for the Department of Finance, 2009, Dublin, Ireland

As architects and educators since the 1970s, Farrell and McNamara create spaces that are at once respectful and new, honoring history while demonstrating a mastery of the urban environment and craft of construction. Balancing strength and delicacy, and upholding a reverence of site specific contexts, their academic, civic and cultural institutions, as well as housing developments, result in modern and impactful works that never repeat or imitate, but are decidedly of their own architectural voice.

Solstice Arts Centre, 2007, Navan, Co. Meath,Ireland

Their approach to architecture is always honest, revealing an understanding of the processes of design and construction from large scale structures to the smallest details.

UL President’s House, 2010, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

The architects are continuously conscious of the dialogue between the internal and external, evidenced by the mingling of public and private spaces, and the meaningful selection and integrity of materials.

For their integrity in their approach to both their buildings, as well as the way they conduct their practice, their belief in collaboration, their generosity towards their colleagues, especially as evidenced in such events as the 2018 Venice Biennale, their unceasing commitment to excellence in architecture, their responsible attitude toward the environment, their ability to be cosmopolitan while embracing the uniqueness of each place in which they work, for all these reasons and more, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara are awarded the 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Pritzker Architecture Prize, Jury Citation

A Reminder to Young and Not-So-Young Architects

 

There is something very contemplative about looking back at the reasons why we wanted to be Architects and what guided us throughout our Architecture Education.

The text below dates from 1993, it is a translation from an interview or lecture (?) by renowned Portuguese architect and professor Fernando Távora. It was never meant to be secret but it has been hidden in a folder for 25 years – it is now time to share it as reminder to young (and maybe not so young) Architects.

 

The awareness of an Architecture of excellence, of quality, must always be present in every project. The Architect cannot take insecure positions, the Architect must be aware of his/hers responsibility as creator of a space that it is wanted with quality.

All Architecture must be a construction with quality, a construction of quality spaces because these spaces will shape the human behaviour.

From here we can discuss the education of the Architect; what shall this education consist of for Architecture students…Fernando Távora argues the education of an Architect, or future Architect, cannot lack PASSION, CONFIDENCE and INTENSITY. With wisdom these 3 characteristics must not be abandoned, and this will not be an easy task.

Fernando Tavora 3 characteristics for Architects

The Architect must be passionate about the projects s/he creates, be tireless, and always endeavour that they satisfy the required needs without compromising their quality.

Confidence must be the starting point, the Architect must create roots, must sustain deep reasons about what s/he does, must make sense, not be carried away with the easy success to satisfy the less affirmed taste of his/hers clients.

The intensity is linked to the other two characteristics… the Architect must deliver him/herself intensively to his/her project, and not passively!

 

Fernando Távora participated in several Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and Team 10 meetings, he became a key person in the modernization of the Porto School. Two of his former students, Álvaro Siza (who also worked in his architecture office) and Eduardo Souto de Moura, have been awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

 

 

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