Architect Here & Now: Notto Lotto Do?

A number of people have asked me why as a practising architect, I rarely if ever refer on my blog to architecture in general or my own work in particular. I could of course answer glibly that architecture should speak for itself and should require no explanation from me. However, this would in fact be an evasion of the truth on my part. The real reason lies with the general economic climate which has over the last 18 months decimated the building industry in general and my own profession in particular in Ireland. This in turn has lead to the closure of my own business office in Galway and a retreat to my private house where i have endeavoured to 'regroup' (if such a term can be applied to a small practice comprising only a few people) and refocus my business. I'm glad to say that our practice has now secured commissions for school, health and social housing projects which will hopefully allow my business to at least continue in existence.

Thus, i feel it is opportune for me to set down here a few samples of the work executed by my practice over the last 27 years in Galway City, including 13 years with my then partner John Yates. John has now retired but he was a great companion and talented architect during our time working together.

The motto of my own practice was & continues to be 'Managing Quality with Design' but until very recently because of the recession in the building industry, unfortunately I have not had much of an opportunity to realise this ambition. Thus, because of the amount of time on my hands i have had an opportunity to explore the Twitter social media site but I will soon have to reduce my time commitment to this tweeting activity.

Thus, the work load of my practice has gradually increased again in the last few months and I trust that those visiting this blog will feel that our practice has made at least a positive design contribution to Galway in particular and in the West of Ireland generally.

Some of our buildings are listed below:

1) The Town Hall & Black Box Theatres in Galway

2) The Galway Hospice Building in Renmore, Galway.

3) The Catholic Church in NUI Galway

4) The Cearnog Nua Shopping Centre, Moycullen, Co. Galway

5) Connemara Coast Hotel,Furbo, Co. Galway

6) Claremorris District Garda Headquarters, Claremorris, Co. Mayo.

and other churches,hotels, housing schemes and health care facilities.

It has certainly not been a boring experience to date and hopefully there is some 'water in the well' yet!