BISHOP LUCEY PARK 

Type:                Competition

Status:              Unbuilt

Location:          Cork City

Joint entry with Jenny O’Leary of HOWFF Architects

Bishop Lucey Park occupies an historic site on Cork’s city centre island. We have read the historic context and studied its present urban condition. This is the starting point from which we hope to create an architecture that is deeply connected to this place. Our proposal engages the park’s potential as a vibrant, diverse, living place; connecting adjacent urban realms while recounting the story of a city.

We approach the park as if archaeologists. We lay a grid and begin our survey. Near the entrance, a pavementbound cannon recalls boats moored along Grand Parade. Fieldwork reveals the site where Hopewell Castle gate once loomed and the medieval city wall crossed. Here, two stone arches from Anglesea Street greet the visitor at the park’s civic entrance to the east. Maps trace an occupied urban block, hosting a school and Jenning’s Furniture Store, until the latter was ruined by fire and the block fell into dereliction. In that new clearing a park took hold. Along Tuckey and South Main Streets to the west, we uncover a muted, intimate edge, a place of gathering on Christchurch Lane. We invite the visitor to read this place as a palimpsest, its historic strata visible, made legible in the park today.

This invitation is extended through a porous boundary. At Grand Parade the fixed railings are removed and an open arcade forms the threshold, borrowing the scale and expression of the Anglesea Street arches. Through the old entrance, the medieval city wall is glimpsed from a viewing platform, and the story begins with maps of this place through time. A forest of trellised vaults extends from the grand arcade into the park at its south-east corner. This forms a covered performance and outdoor seating area in conversation with both park and street.

A new pedestrian avenue flows from Grand Parade into the park. It steps down to a sunken sunny space, in the midst of which we discover the medieval city wall. The enclosure displays historic information, telling the story of a city walled for defence. Stepping up to ground level, we rejoin the path and the present day. The avenue swells around grouped seating, a chance to grab some lunch and bathe in the life of the park. Further on, the shadow of an apple tree creates a room, gives privacy and shelter, on a park bench.

The avenue flows between lavender, bluebell, whitethorn, guelder rose, elder and blackberry planted to sate nonhuman appetites. Onward, at a point of intersection, jets of water intermittently pierce the avenue’s surface, a playful reminder that this is a city built on water.

At the western boundary the arched windows of the ruin are reproduced, their form traced across the elevation. They replace the railings, forming a new entrance opening the park up to the surrounding streets. At dusk a series of arching street lights illuminate the avenue. Lamps brighten on arrival and adjust their colour to the pace of movement. In intimate gathering spaces, visitors set table lamps to suit the mood.

Contractor:       N/A

Photography:    N/A