This is my final year thesis project involving the creation of a new community centre and public space in Limerick City on a site currently occupied by derelict structures. It can be explained under 3 titles. LEGIBILITY - It is an urban intervention that knits together some of the cities estranged public spaces creating a secondary route structure that reinforces the cities primary route. This will bridge a gap that has existed for a century between the main organisational systems of Medieval and Georgian Limerick; IDENTITY - This project is a symbol of the attempt to dissolve socio-economic barriers by providing facilities for the local community action groups. This also finds realisation in the reinvention of the typology to express a community centre on its own terms, based on how it is actually used. MEMORY - A richly layered local history has influenced the materiality: a brick skin of locally recycled Georgian bricks; an exposed concrete structure inspired by industrial buildings; maple linings reference the use of maple in Ireland’s original community centres.
