Competition entry - Caruso St John

Peter St John

Facsimile from Caruso St John Architects

Dear Peter
Thanks for your let1er asking questions aboul our entry for the competition for government offices at Phoenix Park. You asked why we didn't spend more time on the inside of the building. It was a 2 stage competition and we concentrated on the things we thought were most important. If we had had the opportunity to develop the design we would have probably proposed ideas around a civilised energy efficient environment that the shallow plan allows; openable windows for natural ventilation, maybe an exposed structural soffit to allow the mass of the building to assist in cooling, perhaps a secret garden of solar cells on the roof. But these things don't give you a meaningful architectural language, This competition was for a large repetitively organised office building in which only a measured aesthetic control over the Internal environment is possible or appropriate. Similarly, elaborations of section and volumetric complexity seemed to us irrelevant to the brief of fundamentally similar spaces.

We thought it interesting to regard the repetitive nature of the building as the theme of the project, dealing with the size of the building as a literal theme, where the extent of the building is almost indeterminate, but the presence of the faces of the building is precise, Like the long Georgian terraces of London and Dublin, where character comes from precise constructional rigour cooly repeated, we were proposing long textured facades with patterns changing subtlely with orientation, which would have a similarly austere northern character. When we talk about dignity we mean a quiet strength, cool and only made up of the basic facts.

Hundreds of individuals would work in this building and thousands would walk and drive past it daily, In our view the fine texture of this experience -people sitting at the big windows, rubbish on the pavement, sun and rain on the riven granite - is ampllffed by the quiet repetitive character of the big building.

A coolness is also present in, for example, office buidings from the 60's - with their shallow plans. thin metal windows and matter of fact arrangements - which the design also faintly resembles. But at the same time the arrangement of the extended plan of the building approximates to the symetrical and classical composition of a central pavilion with wings, giving the frontal aspect some formality which the site requires.

As you have suggested, we were of course aware of urban projects by Diener and Diener in Basle, particularly the office building on Picasso Platz:. Alsion and Peter Smithson's Economist Building, with it's central plaza surrounded by carefully scaled new and old buildings was also on our minds. Great claims for a design made quickly and in outline only. I'd be interested to see what other people did.

Regards Peter St John