The buildings and site which forms the location of this project were known as ‘The
Grey House’, ‘The Novitiate/Management House’. It is situated on the Blackrock
Campus of University College Dublin, known as the Michael Smurfit School of
Business. The brief required to find a use for the ‘Grey House’, and in turn develop a
new scheme for Post-graduate Student Accommodation which would link between
the new-buildings and existing buildings, maximising potential use on this area of
the site. The new student accommodation provides for a total of 114 apartments.
The blocks are 4 storeys in height and each storey of each block has one separate
‘house’ unit, containing generally 6 individual study bedrooms and a common
kitchen/living spaces either face southwards and over look the park and the lake,
or northwards onto the management house garden. A new glazed entrance lobby
is provided at the node between the Grey house and Management house and the
new residential development. . All major vertical circulation is centred at this point.
It takes the form of a glazed four-storey atrium and thus reflects the importance of
its function. Extensive refurbishment works were carried out to the ‘Grey House’
– in order to protect and upgrade the fabric and structure as well as develop its use
as student accommodation on the upper levels, seminar room on the ground floor
entrance level and Drama Studies Department at basement level.