Cork: Adaptive Housing Reuse of Institutional Buildings

What is the main urban challenge(s) that will be tackled by the project?

The adaptive reuse of buildings on institutional lands for the purpose of social and affordable housing purposes is hindered by the significant financial costs associated with their adaptation, when viewed solely from the perspective of a financial return on investment.

 

Explain why you chose to address this challenge.

Throughout Ireland there is a large supply of institutional buildings and institutional landholdings that could represent excellent opportunities for such adaptation. These include, either currently or formerly, buildings or lands in the ownership of the Catholic Church or various arms of the state, former private estates from the colonial era and even bank buildings that have come available due to the closure of large financial institutions. A large proportion of these buildings, that could provide excellent candidates for reuse for social or affordable housing, currently lie idle due to a shortfall in the funding that could facilitate their adaptation.

 

Include a short description of the context of the urban area by describing the extent of the challenge to be addressed, its breadth and depth at local level and its different dimensions (social, economic and environmental dimensions of the challenge).

The St. Kevin’s complex is located approx. 2km to the west of the historic core of Cork. The St. Kevin’s building itself was constructed c.1893 and formed an annex to the wider Cork District Lunatic Asylum complex to the west. Prior to the development of St. Kevin’s complex, the lands were occupied by ‘Carrigmore House’ and demesne. As such, the form the lands took, and the wider social association of them (unintegrated with their surrounds) had been established long before they came to accommodate St Kevin’s.

It has remained an ‘island’ site, physically walled off and psychologically disconnected from the communities that came to inhabit the surrounding lands in the vicinity as they developed over time.  The challenge now is to initiate the ‘stitching’ into the surrounding communities, so it becomes a new part of a neighbourhood it never previously acknowledged. The accommodation of community uses on-site and their improved accessibility will be a magnet for this ‘stitching’.

The access to funding to fill a ‘viability gap’ is a key economic challenge for the St Kevin’s project while the adaptation and re-use of an existing building that has lain idle in recent decades and its associated embodied carbon will provide a clear environmental gain in the realisation of the project.

 

Please describe how the identified challenge(s) is/are relevant to the topic of the Call for Proposals.

The challenges identified are commonplace across the EU. However, it undoubtedly requires an innovative approach and designing a potential place-based pilot solution which, in whole or in the linking of its elements, would be truly ground-breaking and would potentially be transferable across all EU countries.

 

Describe the innovative solution you propose in order to tackle the main challenges identified above.

The innovative solution is centred on the process of engagement with the communities surrounding the lands to examine how the St Kevin’s lands can form a valuable and inviting part of their wider neighbourhood in a way that meaningfully serves their needs and aspirations.

This engagement process will be augmented by an academic study that engages with these communities and focuses on assessing and measuring the impact of the engagement process and on the eventual benefit to the surrounding communities of this piece of transformative placemaking.

 

Clearly describe the proposed solution (presenting the main strands of activities) and explain why and how it will address the challenge(s) in the urban area (place-based approach[1]).

This approach will address the aforementioned challenges by addressing the stigma often associated with institutional settings in Ireland, which is often reinforced by the physical manifestation of the place – high walls, single points of entry and physical separation of buildings and functions within the boundaries reinforcing institutional hierarchy.

This process will undertake to engage with communities to understand and develop the processes to facilitate this transition.

 

Please include reference on how the objectives and expected results of the proposal will lead to the desired change (i.e. tackle the challenge).

Following this process will yield the following expected results:

1. To understand and overcome stigma or negative perceptions/associations with places or buildings;
2. To form coherent ideas about potential community uses for old buildings on-site through engagement with local communities;
3. To articulate how dissolving physical barriers to the site and utilising the adaptive re-use of buildings can act as a mechanism for reimagining the relationship between former institutional lands and the surrounding communities; and
4. Acknowledging the memory of place and association with architectural/urban character while recalibrating traditional hierarchical dynamics to establish a more equitable relationship with established communities.

 

Describe how the proposed solution provides a significant and durable contribution (beyond project end) to address the challenges targeted in the relevant urban area.

The engagement process and resultant outcomes will bring about the following contributions:

1. The physical integration of the institutional lands into the surrounding neighbourhoods;
2. Transform the perception of these institutional lands within the minds of the surrounding communities to the point they are seen as a community asset and a part of their neighbourhood; and
3. The engagement process around the future use of the community buildings will be done with view to endowing the wider community with a sense of ownership and stewardship in their use.

 

Contact: Tadhg Daly (tdaly@lda.ie)