Buildings up for design awards

Buildings up for design awards

1 June 2016

THREE local buildings have won major design awards.

A family home at Maghera outside Newcastle, the Portico building in Portaferry and the Killynure Green social housing development in Carryduff were among the winners at the recent Royal Society of Ulster Architects awards ceremony in Belfast.

The home at Maghera won the top award of Northern Ireland’s building of the year, securing the Liam McCormack prize. The award is presented to the entry that best demonstrates design excellence in all its attributes.

The house is home to a couple and their three children and designed by the architecture firm McGonigle McGrath.

“This superb family dwelling exudes such excellence from the inspired development of the underlying concept through to the highly disciplined and detailed execution of the resultant design vision,” the judges said.

“This wonderfully crafted home evokes a strong sense of place, paying subtle homage to local traditional building forms, whilst also creating a strong visual link to the calm solidity of the back of the Mourne mountains.”

The Portico arts and heritage centre in Portaferry, which was officially opened last week by Prince Charles, won the award for the top cultural project.

Designed by Maxwell Pierce, the Friends of Portaferry Presbyterian Church group took action to save the grade A listed building and it is now used by the wider community.

“The Portico is a very beautiful building rescued from near death, a reinvigorated place of worship but now also a catalysing and inclusive cultural focus for the Ards peninsula,” the judges said.

The award for best social housing project went to Killynure Green in Carryduff, designed by PDP London Architects.

The judges said: ”A series of social housing clusters are carefully positioned in a landscape of private, semi-private and public open spaces. Enclosed south-facing winter gardens define the architecture of the housing clusters.”