Cork's 'stealth-bomber' Dean Hotel wins international architecture award

Wed, 16 Aug, 2023 - 17:03

Tommy Barker

CORK-based international firm Wilson Architecture is the only Irish 2023 winner of a design award recognising over 100 of the best-designed buildings and landscapes from around the world.

The firm won the 2023 hotel design category for the “stealth-bomber”, all-black wedge-shaped Dean Hotel by Kent Rail Station operated by Press Up Group. It is located on the city’s emerging north quays campus which was earmarked for improved public transport facilities, offices, hotel/hospitality and apartments, with Apple a near corporate occupier on Horgan’s Quay in one of the completed mixed-design elements by BAM/Clarendon Properties.

The black colour of The Dean contrasts the white limestone of the adjacent Carriage Sheds in a symbiotic relationship where each compliments the other.

It’s the second year in a row that Wilson Architecture — which has offices in Cork, Dublin, and China — has been the sole Irish standard carrier in the prestigious International Architecture Awards, hosted by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

It won in 2022 for its Penrose Dock in the corporate offices category, for developers JCD. That development of cool colonnade glass and white stone also received national Irish ‘Building of the Year’ and ‘Best Large Office’ awards.

The two award-winning buildings, almost adjacent on the north quays, could hardly be more “chalk and cheese” — one pale and glazed, the other dark and angular. A company spokesperson said “bespoke design is at the heart of Wilson Architecture’s ethos and nowhere is that more evident than in the contrast between this year’s winning entry and last year’s, where two buildings in the same neighbourhood, designed at the same time, are so aesthetically different, yet complement each other so well.” The Dean is a 120-bed hotel with a rooftop restaurant. It marked the first stage of the Northern Quarter masterplan, anchoring the wider and continuing Horgan’s Quay mixed-use development.

The hotel’s striking black panels “alternate from tilting in at the top and in at the bottom in an apparently random pattern, creating alternate reflections in the light.

Wilson Architecture Managing Director and lead architect on The Dean Hotel Paud O’Mahony said the hotel’s striking black panels “alternate from tilting in at the top and in at the bottom in an apparently random pattern, creating alternate reflections in the light. The windows tend to blend with one or other of the reflections alternating as the sun’s direction changes throughout the day.

“The overall effect has the building appear as a single vibrant, constantly changing object, rather than a solid object punctuated by a rigid set of similar-sized and spaced openings. The black colour contrasts the white limestone of the adjacent Carriage Sheds in a symbiotic relationship where each compliments the other,” he added of the 2021-completed project by BAM Ireland for HQ Developments Ltd, which also featured the conservation of an historic rail carriage building and public plaza, to be followed by a 24-unit apartment building.

Wilson also won in 2022 for its Penrose Dock in the corporate offices category, for developers JCD.

The Press Up Group said the project “has been an incredible success and a great addition to the portfolio of the Press Up Group. The building not only looks impressive, but Wilson Architecture’s creative design demonstrates that form and function can combine to deliver a property that operates efficiently and exceeds expectations in all areas. We are thrilled to have this design recognised by the world’s foremost international distinguished building, landscape architecture, and urbanism awards programme.”

The winning projects will be honoured at a special awards ceremony in Athens mid-September, and this year’s award-winning architects include Steven Holl, Zaha Hadid, and Tonkin Liu, while winning projects range from museums, universities and libraries, to offices and hotels and other categories.

DETAILS: wilsonarchitecture.ie.