This project was a competition winning entry for an RIAI International Design Competition in 2008. The project centres on the design of new major local Government buildings, a new pedestrian bridge to link the town centre to a new town park, and also includes master–planning for the development of housing, offices, retail and new civic space for the town.

The site is located on the edge of a country town at the point where the town centre meets with a ring–road and its associated ambiguous territory. Through this proposal we sought to develop a building that provides and establishes its own public spaces; that creates its own townscape in the absence of any immediate civic context.

The loosely colonnaded character of the building’s facades speaks of its civic character – the language seeks a sense of dignity, gravitas and permanence. The close inter–relationships of the building’s elements recalls classical urban conditions characterised by density and adjacency, where the open gesture of the colonnade invited social vitality – just as we envisage the foyers of the building welcoming occupation for both formal and informal purposes.