MDO have developed the design of the Grand Canal Square Hotel and Residences in conjunction with Portuguese architects Aires Mateus & Associados. The luxury five-star development, with a 180-bedroom hotel incorporating spa, swimming pool, conference facilities, ballroom, restaurant and bar and an adjoining residential block with mixed-use retail and 105 apartments, plays a pivotal role in the Grand Canal Square, Dublin’s most dynamic new urban landscape.
McCauley Daye O’Connell were tasked with realising the unique conceptual intent and translating it into a hotel design suitable for the Irish context and climate. The key challenge was to achieve the design intent; a heavily sculpted, cantilevered dolmen aesthetic unlike any building seen before in Dublin. The design references the primordial rock landscape of Ireland, areas such as the Giant’s Causeway, the Burren and the Irish Coastline itself. This is best seen in the eroded spaces of the cavernous ground floor, which echo the action of water wearing down ancient rock formations to create a sequence of flowing public spaces from bar to reception to tea-lounge and restaurant, all facing out onto the Martha Schwartz landscape design for Grand Canal Square.
The apparently effortless open span nature of the hotel ground floor required the development of a complex cantilevering bridge structure spanning 80 meters and supporting the six floors of hotel accommodation above. A cutting-edge lightweight façade system was also used to further alleviate the stress on the structure and because it allowed the creation of complex three-dimensional forms for the sculpted areas of the facades along the top and bottom of the hotel block.
The facades of the residential block are entirely glazed to allow maximum light penetration into the large apartments, all of which are dual aspect facing either onto the street or into the courtyard reflecting pool.
Each apartment can fold back the full-height windows completely to open their living rooms to the outside and the façade is further enlivened though the use of sliding glass screens which are fritted to provide privacy. The screens can be moved along the length of each apartment, and together with the folding glass full-height windows create a dynamic, ever-changing façade as the residents interact with their building on a daily basis.
