Craft Village, Roundstone, Ireland
Competition Entry : Quayside Craft Village, Roundstone, County Galway, Ireland. 1976.
How it might have been.! The two photographs are of the site today, the church tower remains, the remainder of the church has gone, and the potential for a compact quayside village with close-knit character, has been replaced by car park and loosely arranged buildings with no sense of place. The competition was sponsored by the Irish Industrial Development Authority for a series of craft workshops and associated houses and holiday village on a quayside site with an existing church with landmark stone tower. An old quayside settlement was in a state of ruin. The design idea was to rebuild on the footprint of the old settlement, keeping the church and tower as a focus, with new village houses, in a language characteristic of the region, as can be seen from the photograph of Roundstone. Two and three storey buildings, painted white, conservative traditional proportions, clustered around sheltered courtyards, with intimate qualities, appropriate to the wild exposed quayside. It could have been 'nice'!
