It’s a wonder that anyone at the new headquarters of Ireland’s Marine Institute does any work.
Situated on a headland in Galway Bay near the village of Oranmore, the building looks out to the cool waters of the Atlantic, where the seascape is broken by the shape of islands, and to the left and right of the bay, mountains sweep down to the water.
“It’s an ideal spot,” said Ciaran O’Connor, the Office of Public Works’ assistant principal architect, who led the design team. “You’d think you were on holiday.”
And one of the Institute’s directors had similar sentiments: he gave the 180 scientists and administrators two weeks to settle in to their new environment and then told them they would have to avert their eyes from the view.
However, inside there is just as much to captivate.
Everywhere you look, O’Connor and his team have countered the clinical environment of a research facility with the warmth and texture of wood. Of the many reasons for using wood, O’Connor cites its ecological credentials first, but says “the primary reason is its ease of use and flexibility in terms of shaping, moulding, and that it can be used for so many effects”.
And it has certainly been used to effect – from the floors, doors and windows, to panelling, furniture and ceilings – timber is always part of the internal view. In all, more than 50 containers of sustainably managed tropical and temperate hardwood joinery were delivered to site.
The building, a concrete block and steel construction, comprises a half crescent, which mirrors the curve of the bay, while behind there are the rectilinear laboratories, from where the scientists can also enjoy the views.
“It’s a combination of a very rational sort of structure and a more romantic layout for the areas that are less functionally defined or restricted,” said O’Connor.
While the specification for the laboratories was fairly rigid, O’Connor’s enjoyment of timber starts on the other side of the laboratory door. Here, relaxation areas, which feature American ash wall panelling on acoustic felt, solid oak flooring from Junckers and soft furnishings, provide a complete change of mood from the clinical, more monotonous environment of the labs.
“I did these areas in timber so that when the scientists come out of their labs they come into a space that is very contrasting. They’re still wearing their white coats but they have a much more pleasant environment,” said O’Connor, adding that there is also more light in these spaces.
The oak flooring and ash panelling are continued in other areas of the building and, where acoustic control is important, moulded ash – treated with DRICON to achieve fire class 0 – and acoustic felt also feature on the ceiling.
The rounded finish of the ash is a technique O’Connor learned some years ago when working on a church restoration in Germany. The church was used for baroque singing and it was crucial that the work did not disturb the building’s acoustic qualities.
“When we took down parts of the ceiling, we found the front face of the boards was curved,” said O’Connor. He likens the performance of the moulded timber to a curved mirror deflecting light.
“The ash has a rounded finish; it’s like a flat curve which works well acoustically because it deflects the sound in different ways. The sound doesn’t come belting straight á Ü back at you so you don’t get an echo,” he said.
The moulded ceiling has also been used to good effect in the main entrance where a granite floor, plastered walls and a lot of glass could have created an acoustically harsh welcome.
And the rounded profile had another, unexpected benefit. “We found that when we cut across the grain in that particular shape it brought out the figure of ash beautifully. It made it look completely different from if it was cut straight,” said O’Connor.
The doors throughout the building have also been used to explore and show off the wide variation in the colours and textures of different species. There is a sort of hierarchy to the doors and door design. The doors into the labs and other staff areas are simpler patterns of beech and cherry veneers, while the doors into other areas, such as the meeting rooms, are an elaborate patchwork of around 14 species.
The design team jokingly refers to these as the “Mondrian doors” after one visitor quite sincerely asked if the geometric design, with its dark lines of the African hardwood wenge, was inspired by the Dutch painter.
These doors feature veneers of ash, koto, maple, white beech, bird’s eye maple, wenge, red elm, cherry, steamed beech crown, Irish oak, sapele, teak crown, walnut crown and rosewood. The mix of native and exotic species reflects the Marine Institute’s work in Ireland’s own waters and its research links throughout the world.
As well as the large range of species, the doors feature a mix of rotary and quarter sawn veneers that each bring out different qualities in the wood.
“It was an exploration of the character of different timbers,” said O’Connor, and one that the design team seemed to enjoy developing as much as visitors to the Institute enjoy seeing.
“We looked at what colours and effects it would give you at different distances. If you’re walking up to it at say
15-20m away you read it as this abstract pattern, but when you get up to it there’s quite a lot of detail if you really want to look into the timber,” said O’Connor.
The “Mondrian doors” have attracted so much interest among visitors that O’Connor’s team has produced a drawing indicating the different species used.
This interest supports his statement that “people respond well to wood”. “It warms a building and, although light requires some other surfaces from which to reflect, wood then softens light.”
The passage of light was an important consideration in the design. “You only get about 30% of reflection of light off timber, compared with about 80% reflection off a white-painted plastered wall,” said O’Connor. “We always joke here in the office that if you don’t want it to look like a sauna you have to bring light in in different ways.”
With the ash panelling, the oak floors, the cherry, American white oak and maple joinery, the team’s anti-sauna tactic was to have light coming in from at least two directions in each space, much of it through the iroko-framed windows, some of which extend the full height of the wall. This durable timber is untreated and will be left to weather
naturally in the Atlantic sea air.
O’Connor and the OPW team have used timber in many buildings over the past 15 years, particularly honing some techniques with the EU Food and Veterinary Office in Dunsany, near Dublin. “We developed a lot of detailing in that job so these are cousins and grandchildren of those details,” he said.
Now that the building is finished and in use, O’Connor is pleased with the result, if not a little envious of its inhabitants. “It’s a remarkably beautiful place. I think we’ve done the site justice. I’d be quite happy to work down there.”
