The brief for this project required the development of an Indoor Sports Centre and a new Public Entrance to the Trinity College Dublin campus from Pearse Street. The site is defined by Westland Row/Pearse Street and by the railway viaduct to the south. There was a particular brief requirement to maintain the existing Westland Row pedestrian bridge accessing the college residential accommodation on the far side of the street, which passes through the back of the climbing wall.
The large Main Hall established an orientation for the principal structure and a vertical or “stacked” arrangement of the principal spaces: Main, Ancillary and Swimming Pool Halls. These spaces are functionally introverted and are located to the rear of the site.
The other spaces are wrapped around these large “boxes” providing visible activity to the street frontage with the entrance/reception and fitness theatre at ground level and the three-storey climbing wall addressing the adjoining railway bridge and station.
The ground floor street elevation is expressed as a series of glazed screens in a granite wall. The upper level street elevation is expressed as a curtain wall screening a variety of uses from climbing wall to changing rooms, offices and stores.
The building responds to a variety of internal environmental conditions ranging from the swimming pool with air temperature of 29 degrees celsius to the Main Hall designed to be fully naturally ventilated at 16 degrees celsius. All spaces are naturally daylighted.
