As Ireland’s capital, Dublin is not only an historic city popular with tourists from all over the world, it is also a thriving business centre and offers internationally renowned universities along with other outstanding teaching institutions,  demanding the provision of high-quality accommodation for the thousands of students attracted by the educational opportunities. 

Against this backdrop, the developers and their project teams responsible for building new halls, hubs and contemporary apartment buildings, must comply with all the technical codes and cost constraints that will ensure these homes-from-home appeal to people with differing budgets, as well as diverse backgrounds, while also respecting the city’s architectural history.   

These challenges were encapsulated by two neighbouring developments envisaged for a vibrant and bustling area of Dublin known as The Liberties, where the existing streetscape consists of many different, but predominantly brick-built properties. These older buildings are also generally low in scale and crowd around narrow streets known as ‘laneways’.  

The city’s planners were known to be averse to render finishes, while the use of traditional red brickwork dominant amongst so many Victorian age examples could have been considered to constitute a pastiche; and one which would not appeal to a younger generation seeking somewhere to reside while they study and enjoy a modern student experience.

Situated on the corner of Cork Street and Brickfield Lane, the two buildings now named The Loom and From Here, have been created to accommodate students studying at the BIMM, National College of Art & Design, the Royal College of Surgeons and Trinity College. 

Designed by different architectural practices but built in parallel, the two structures boast a host of amenities for student residents including a cinema room, gym and rooftop terrace, as well as a high standard of security with CCTV and concierge staff available around the clock.  Everything is easily accessible, where the old market streets offer up interesting architecture, craft distilleries, cafes and restaurants – vital to students and ensuring a bustling nightlife.  

Part of a wider regeneration of this area, the overall architectural strategy was to retain the established building line of Cork Street and form a new edge to Brickfield Lane, which also facilitates the widening of the space to provide an improved public realm.

Brickwork is the primary material expressed across the new exterior envelopes, using Wienerberger’s Con Mosso and Platinum White brick on the ‘From Here’ building and Wienerberger’s Marziale brick on ‘The Loom’.  These brick types successfully integrate into the eclectic architectural context of Cork Street, while also managing to provide a contemporary urban vibe.

Crucially, the brick types chosen along with other elements to the façade present a palette of colours and introduce textures which gained the approval of the planners, as well as meeting the commercial and practical considerations.

The strikingly modern six-to-seven storey facades of The Loom and From Here on Cork Street in Dublin offer a new perspective to the famous thoroughfare’s junction with Brickfield Lane, where the contrasting colours to the three Wienerberger brick variants employed for the neighbouring structures help to break up the massing of the elevations, while adding significant visual interest. 

The cream multi-tonal Con Mosso stock brick and Platinum White* were chosen by O’Mahony Pike Architects (OMP) to articulate the frontage to From Here, framing the high-performance glazing elements and aluminium infill panels.  

Utilised in far greater quantities across the elevations, including for all of the street level brickwork where there are retail units, the darker brown shades of the Con Mosso echo the colour of the window frames. Then the much paler Platinum White creates isolated vertical panels of masonry rising across the first and second floor levels; with the strongly visual joint presenting a far sharper aesthetic.       

Produced at Wienerberger’s Thorn plant, Con Mosso’s creased brick face provides additional expression to the laid brickwork, which is manufactured to standard dimensions along with a traditional frog.  

Alongside, ‘The Loom’ is much more monolithic in appearance, with Henry J Lyons Architects employing the mellow, weathered appearance of Wienerberger’s Marziale clay facing bricks, which have also earned acclaim for their appearance on other commercial and residential projects elsewhere across the Irish capital. 

Marziale has a slightly distressed appearance which observers read as representing a traditional brick, while developers consider the face as being forgiving of minor damage. 

John MacPolin, the project architect for OMP, commented:  “Although there are rendered elevations to the internal closed courtyard, brickwork was chosen for all of the public facing elevations to the structure and was always the preference for planning: there is a general push back from the local authority against finishes like render because they feel it is less durable and will deteriorate more quickly.

 “Our initial thoughts were to develop façades which were sympathetic when viewed from the streetscape, rather than just dropping in a very large dominant looking building - generally the scale of buildings along Cork Street is much smaller – so we looked at how we could divide up the facades into areas of a more relatable scale. We paired windows across two storeys to reduce the impression of height, while highlighting different areas around the windows further tends to break down the scale.

“Then we wanted to avoid a red brick or to reference anything existing because of the great variety of architectural styles along Cork Street. There is though, a predominance of brick, so rather than adopt a red coloured Victorian style brick, our preference was for something more neutral; and we initially looked at the greyer shades available in the Wienerberger range.  

“However, having constructed a large number of sample panels on site, together with the client we opted for the Con Mosso as it has a great variety of colours and tones within it, including red. The brick also complements the gold colours of the aluminium infill panels set alongside the windows.”

“We prefer bricks which have a pronounced texture rather than looking like a solid panel, but the bricklayers seemed to have no issues with the tolerances on the Con Mosso. No specials were included, but we created a subtle corbel detail within the larger areas of solid brickwork - in excess of three metres by three metres - while a lot of relieving angles for support are included at alternate storeys.”