UCD Chooses Winning Design For New €48m Campus

University College Dublin has chosen the winner of its Future Campus architectural competiton.

A design by Beijing and New York-based Steven Holl Architects (SHA) has been selected for the €48 million UCD Centre for Creative Design building.

Inspired in part by the Giant's Causeway world heritage site, UCD said the design will encourage creative collaboration and interaction with a “circuit of social connection” allowing students, faculty and visitors to peer into maker and classroom spaces through glass walls.

"It will display prismatic forms inspired by geology and feature an abundant use of natural light coming through two major vertical structures angled at 23 degrees, mirroring the tilt of the earth," UCD said.

"These two towers take their design cue from the pentagonal vertical pillar of the university's iconic dodecahedral 1972 water tower.

"The 8,000m² UCD Centre for Creative Design will foreground a highly visible and welcoming entrance precinct to the university covering some 335,000m² near the main N11 entrance to the campus.


"This entrance precinct includes seven new quadrangles of open green space, a new pedestrian spine, parallel to the campus' original spine, lined with weather canopies that double as solar connectors, forming the infrastructure of an energy network."

Further features will include cafés and social spaces located along paths for informal gathering, while landscape spaces will be animated by water-retention ponds. Rain- and wind-protected seating areas and preserved specimen trees are also included.

Professor Hugh Campbell, UCD Professor of Architecture, University College Dublin and member of the competition jury, said: "Holl's emphasis on daylight and social connection promises a building which will enable and encourage collaboration and interaction, a building which is open and welcoming, a building in which cutting-edge technologies and core creative practices can fruitfully combine.

"The Cntre for Creative Design will allow UCD to harness and develop the creativity of its students in responding to the challenges and opportunities facing society."

Steven Holl, Founder of Steven Holl Architects, said: "We are very honored to win. It's a very important and inspiring project for Steven Holl Architects and we look forward to working with UCD.

"Our masterplan and the new UCD Centre for Creative Design are not just iconic objects − they reflect on the history and quality of UCD's campus, responding to the particulars of the site to create place and space."

Concept Design, Steven Holl Architects: UCD Centre for Creative Design, University College Dublin.

(LM)