The industrial studio by Irish practice Scullion Architects is robust and flexible – while publicly celebrating the work of university staff and students
Words by Francesca Perry
Scullion Architects, in collaboration with PLUS Architecture, has completed the Printmaking Workshop, a new studio for the School of Creative Arts at the Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin), in the Grangegorman neighbourhood of the Irish capital.
The 320 sq m structure, which comprises teaching and technical spaces for printmaking and screen printing, is immediately remarkable for its stark black exterior and sawtooth-profile roof. Inside, however, the space is painted white, and large expanses of glazing – including a series of skylights – fill the building with natural light, adding softness and comfort to an otherwise industrial aesthetic.
The structure comprises repetitive steel frame trusses on columns, and is clad in corrugated steel. The southernmost slope of the sawtooth roof is covered in an array of photovoltaic panels, thus harnessing solar energy to improve the sustainability of the project. As Scullion Architects describes, the focus was on ‘an economy of means’, and the building was designed to be constructed rapidly and efficiently.
Internally, there are moveable walls on castors and a fully glazed administrative annex to the south. The large main workshop is intended for non-chemical processes, whilst acid etching and aquatinting – requiring controlled environments – take place in smaller technical rooms adjoining the workshop to the north and south. Designed as a robust place of production, the building is also flexible, able to adapt and offer a range of uses over time.
The new building forms part of a wider masterplan for TU Dublin’s Grangegorman campus and overlooks a public pedestrian thoroughfare, St Brendan’s Way. Passersby can look in through a full-height window, seeing the activity and creativity taking place within the workshop.
Photography by Aisling McCoy
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