University College Dublin (UCD) is commissioning an international search for an outstanding design team to devise an Entrance Precinct Masterplan and design a landmark 8,000 sqm building, the circa €48m Centre for Creative Design. The international competition will launch in early 2018.
Interested architects, urban designers and masterplanners can now sign up to receive notification of launch on the competition website’s holding page.
UCD benefits from a parkland and wooded campus close to Dublin’s city centre that has a serious architectural pedigree with a mid-20th-century core that was designed by Andrzej Wejchert.
Recent additions include the Student Centre, UCD O’Brien Centre for Science, and other world-leading facilities, notably UCD Sutherland School of Law and UCD Lochlan Quinn School of Business. UCD’s new Confucius Institute for Ireland, designed by Robin Lee in conjunction with Arthur Gibney Architects, is due to open next year.
UCD, known as Ireland’s Global University, plans to improve and develop its campus to reflect its 21st-century identity, and offer faculty and students exemplary facilities that raise the University’s profile internationally and give it greater presence within Dublin.
The University’s MArch is in the final stages of working towards SE (Substantial Equivalence) accreditation from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) – a rare achievement for an international university outside North America. UCD intends to run a forthcoming joint Master’s degree with the National College of Art and Design and Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology that will combine architecture with art.
University College Dublin President, Professor Andrew J. Deeks, said:
‘The architectural quality of our campus offers us an immediate way to communicate what UCD is about: an exceptional student experience, a productive intellectual exchange and an ambition to impact the world that draws students from diverse cultural backgrounds.
‘Holding an international design competition is a perfect fit with our day-to-day values of stimulating creativity, welcoming talent and rewarding excellence.
‘We’re very much looking forward to the competition launching in early 2018.’
Malcolm Reading, Competition Director, said:
‘This project has the potential to define UCD, the largest university in Ireland, over the next fifty years.
‘As the project has two distinct aspects, this could be a great opportunity for an emerging practice to collaborate with an established one.’
The competition will be run by international competition specialist, Malcolm Reading Consultants (MRC). MRC is currently running the high-profile Adelaide Contemporary International Design Competition and recently ran competitions for the Cambridge to Oxford Connection, the Royal College of Art, Homerton College, Cambridge and Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., in the US.
Future Campus – University College Dublin International Design Competition is a two-stage process. Initially, UCD is seeking expressions of interest from creative multidisciplinary teams organised under a lead consultant and including expertise in architecture, masterplanning, urban design, landscape, sustainability, engineering and transport planning.
The first-stage global search will culminate in the selection of five teams chosen on the basis of relevant skills and past experience. At the second stage, these teams will be invited to visit the site and receive further briefing, and will be asked to produce concept designs for the Entrance Precinct Masterplan and the Centre for Creative Design. International teams will be required to team up with a local executive team during the second stage.
The competition will be run in accordance with EU procurement guidelines and the Republic of Ireland’s S.I. No. 284/2016 European Union (Award of Public Authority Contracts) Regulations 2016. This competition will be advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU).
