Gilroy McMahon

Kilmallock Fire Station, Limerick

The design is driven by the idea that the building can be clearly and simultaneously understood and experienced at both functional and archetypal levels. Functional challenges range from operability and energy efficiency to conflicts of scale between large industrial type volumes and small human scaled spaces. These are resolved in a sensitively sited and clear planning organisation whose emerging forms are engaging, simple and direct. Wrapped in charcoal fibre cement with galvanized drill tower in counterpoint the carefully crafted external materials give way to a warm humane interior. This is no-nonsense architecture, avoiding fashionable trends yet elegant and authentic