County Council, Limerick, Ireland
County Council, Limerick, Ireland
Bucholz McEvoy Architects combine ecology and design with extraordinary solutions and have received numerous awards, including those of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Royal Institute of Irish Architects. For BMcEA, sustainability is much more than a buzzword – it is at the heart of all of their designs. And the company’s plans for the new headquarters of the local district in the County Council follow a comprehensive ecological concept: natural ventilation, intensive use of solar energy as well as a functional combination of different high-quality building materials – steel, glass and wood. The administrative building that arose in the midst of a vast park in Limerick, Ireland has become a new landmark that is in perfect harmony with its natural surroundings.
Buchholz Mc Evoy Architects placed a light-filled atrium in front of the elongated structure, which is closed off at both ends and on the sides with storey-high insulated glass windows. Steel, glass and wood elements combine to form an incredibly intricate structure, a unique blend of material and design. The glass façade, which has a slight rearward incline, is fronted by an enormous sunshade. Curved laminated timber beams made of pressure-impregnated pine are backed by strong round tubes from which louvers, adjusted precisely according to the position of the sun, extend to the adjacent laminated timber beam. The separation of the inner steel and glass façade from the laminated timber structure creates a spatial structure with a hybrid effect, which positions the laminated timber structure at a precise 30-degree curve and offers considerable protection from the sun. At the same time, the structure is rigid enough to bear the weight of the glass façade’s slope.
Buchholz Mc Evoy Architects placed a light-filled atrium in front of the elongated structure, which is closed off at both ends and on the sides with storey-high insulated glass windows. Steel, glass and wood elements combine to form an incredibly intricate structure, a unique blend of material and design. The glass façade, which has a slight rearward incline, is fronted by an enormous sunshade. Curved laminated timber beams made of pressure-impregnated pine are backed by strong round tubes from which louvers, adjusted precisely according to the position of the sun, extend to the adjacent laminated timber beam. The separation of the inner steel and glass façade from the laminated timber structure creates a spatial structure with a hybrid effect, which positions the laminated timber structure at a precise 30-degree curve and offers considerable protection from the sun. At the same time, the structure is rigid enough to bear the weight of the glass façade’s slope.
The entire façade is based on the “suspension” construction principle. “Hockey beams” anchored from the back spread out from the roof parapet to each of the neighbouring façade axes and connect to a 75-metre-long stable wind bracing. The glass façade is suspended from the lower deflection point of the hockey beam. The exterior upward-sloping “stick” upholds the wooden structure which is also held from below by the concrete supports on the ground floor via the V-shaped pressure struts. The glass façade itself is suspended via its continuous horizontal bars - from the front by the trussed segmental arches and from the top by stainless steel rods which run through the interior façade frame. As the load builds up from the bottom to the top, the cross section of the tie rods increases by up to 16 millimetres. The distance of the suspension from the glass level required by the structure creates increased downstream torque in the bars due to the façade’s weight. Depending on the rigidity of the steel bars, this is balanced by constantly narrowing the setting of the distance between the suspension and the glass level. Together, all these minor structural modifications create an enchanting façade design.
