Galway Architect Firm Wins Award for Best Commercial Building

Congratulations to Galway-based, Paul Dillon Architects has scooped yet another a prestigious accolade from the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland. The 22^nd RIAI Irish Architectural Award for Excellence in Architectural Design in the Best Commercial Building category was awarded to Paul Dillon Architects for the drive through restaurant at Briarhill Shopping Centre, currently home to KFC Galway.

The drive through restaurant was selected in this particular category from 134 projects submitted to the RIAI.

The judging panel comments reflected an understanding of the site context “With the unlikely brief of a drive-through restaurant, this project has, through a thoughtful choice of materials; rigorous control of proportion and careful making of openings achieved a satisfying result in a fragmented and chaotic suburban location”.

Paul commented: “This is a simple, robust and local architectural response to an ordinary everyday building type on a site surrounded by the roads and car parks. The buildings design responds to this immediate environment with a solid local stone base at street level, anchored to the site, and a refined glazed first floor. Its serves as a stage above a modern Irish landscape.  Our client Liam Mulryan set us a simple but challenging brief when he asked us to incorporate a functional drive through restaurant on a narrow site in front of the existing Shopping Centre while at same contribute a positive public landmark on the edge of the roundabout. We achieved this through careful planning and detailing with excellent workmanship by Purcell Construction”.

Originally from Galway, Paul Dillon is a Registered Architect. He received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture  from New Your Institute of Technology and a Masters of Architecture from California State Polytechnical University, Pomona. He won the Richard Neutra Design Award for his Masters Thesis and has served as guest design critic at schools of architecture on a number of occasions. He established Paul Dillon Architects on returning to Galway, and the practice is currently working on a range of everyday projects. This commitment to the process of building had been previously recognised through numerous international publications, and a national award for Site 7, Briarhill Business Park.