A GALWAY master boatbuilder and a Dublin-based architectural firm have won a contest to design a pavilion for the Electric Picnic music festival in Stradbally, Co Laois in September.
Currach outlines moving on horizontal and vertical axes form the nucleus of the design by boatbuilder Jim Horgan and Bucholz McEvoy Architects.
The “Craftitecture” contest, as it is known, is hosted by the Crafts Council of Ireland and the Irish Architecture Foundation, in association with the Electric Picnic, Greencrafts and Cultivate, to mark the Year of Craft.
Foundation director Nathalie Weadick said the winning team’s entry “illustrates the very essence of the project – to experiment with materials and ideas, to fuse architecture and craft and to create an innovative and inspiring space that reflects the best of both worlds”.
The crafts council’s education and innovation manager Louise Allen said the design brings a very contemporary edge to the tradition of currach-making and would “result in a radically different and engaging space which we feel will contribute to the overall energy of the Electric Picnic”.
Two entries from Simply Architecture and Horizon Furniture were also commended.
Jim Horgan and his son Conall, who are based in Furbo, Co Galway, have maintained a family tradition of boat-building dating back to the 1950s in Youghal, Co Cork. Bucholz McEvoy Architects has offices in Dublin and Berlin and applies a “holistic ethos” to design and planning.
