AtkinsRéalis provided PSDP for the conservation and restoration of the existing Lower house building in Grangegorman.
Once complete, the building will form an important part of the new University campus, ofering a range of services for the staff and student body. There will be a large catering facility and coffee shop while the building will also provide Student Union areas and facilities along with a dance studio and some indoor sports areas. There will also be a number of rooms for the Conservatory of Music and Drama. It will be linked by way of a landscaped walkway to the East Quad.
This 4,000sq.m. refurbishment project which also includes over 400sq.m. of new extensions has been extremely challenging due to the exposed nature of the structure, the significant structural works required, the extremely tight timeframe set out by the Client and all of this carried out on a protected structure in the middle of a global pandemic.
The Lower House is the name given to the former Richmond Asylum which opened to patients in 1814 and served over 2,000 patients at its peak. It is one of the 11 protected structures on the Grangegorman site.
It was designed by Francis Johnson, the leading architect of the day whose other work includes the GPO. It is the only remaining part of the large quadrangle complex that served as the original Richmond Asylum and later became part of St. Brendan’s Hospital.
Some stabilisation works were carried out in 2015 and a new roof was installed over the Central Block. The works undertaken were the start of a process to conserve the surviving fabric of heritage value, and to bring the structure back into use.
This phase of the project is proposed as a recovery phase, which includes adaptation conservation actions. The vision for this recovery is to deliver a robust, flexible social linchpin within the Grangegorman campus in 2020. This first phase of restoration is intended to return the building to occupation and use as a working building for TU Dublin
Client: LGA -Grangegorman Development Agency
Services Provided: PSDP
Project Status: Complete
