grafton architects: university of limerick medical school and dormitory

dublin-based grafton architects has extended the university of limerick across the river shannon with a warm brick cluster of student housing as well as with the slate-colored monumentality of a new medical school. the program also includes a piazza and a bus shelter as part of an overall effort to create easy intersections of public space. learning and living spaces weave together in a masterplan that complements three existing buildings. while over the river the main campus is a decidedly orthogonal grid, the extension favors a more relaxed positioning of the architecture that grows from the physical and cultural environment of a collegiate place. architectonically, the structures prioritize permeability and a gradient of light, bright spaces.

image © dennis gilbert (also main image) / all images courtesy of grafton architects

three dormitories express the visual thickness and warmth of masonry but undermine the stark, rationalist materiality with angled, recessed apertures, lending the building an impressive ability to rhythmically orchestrate light across its faces. with a blue-tinged gray limestone, the medical school employs the same set-back glazing technique albeit more uniformly; however, the heavy, geometric top of the building is visually lightened by the double-height, colonnaded concrete walkway that creates a glazed band on the ground level. the effect is direct, the campus is place of energetic intellectual voraciousness and a space where meandering paths can balance focused study.

angled recesses characterize the glazed apertures
image © dennis gilbert