Green Acre Grange
The orientation of the apartment buildings optimises the availability of daylight to each apartment and to the outdoor shared spaces.
Located adjacent to Airfield’s urban farm and gardens, on the Upper Kilmacud Road in Dublin 14, Green Acre Grange will offer 307 apartments in three carefully arranged blocks.The site runs roughly north-south and benefits from views south over the Airfield lands to the Dublin Mountains in the distance.
The scheme creates a positive relationship with the Upper Kilmacud Road, the Airfiled Estate and the mature development and open lands at Drumahill, while maintaining the sense of buildings ‘nestled’ within a green/parkland setting. The blocks are arranged to maximize open space in the site and around the buildings. The stepped massing of the residential blocks as well as narrowing of the ends lessen the overall massing and the development and improve the relationship with the neighbouring houses.
The site is bound to the west and south by the gardens and farm at Airfield, and to the east by the Drumahill estate and its green space.
In response to this setting, the buildings at Greenacres are conceived of as pavilions in a landscape; placed to create a series of linked gardens, play areas and green spaces, each with a distinct function or character. Shared amenity spaces are provided to enhance this sense of community and to relate positively to the shared gardens and courtyards.
The garden character has been retained while providing an attractive, high quality living environment. The development benefits from a full green roof and is designed to provide a variety of high quality outdoor amenity spaces, maintaining the ‘green’ feel of the site. The gradual slope in the site from Kilmacud Road Upper to the south offers an opportunity to step the massing of the proposed buildings: enhancing views and providing good levels of daylight to the scheme.
The building’s palette takes cues from nearby residential buildings and is designed to set the buildings comfortably in the ‘garden’ site.
High quality residential amenity facilities are provided at highly-trafficked areas of the buildings, including bookable catering facilities, a crèche, a gym, meeting spaces, a multi purpose room as well as a cinema room and another outdoor gym space that makes use of outdoor courtyard space for outdoor classes and breakout.
The facade treatment to the cores and amenity spaces at Ground Floor is designed to allow views through from one courtyard to the next, creating a feeling of continuous flow between green spaces. This also serves to increase permeability across the scheme and encourage use and access to the various internal and external shared spaces.
