The People's Park Pavilion and Park Keeper’s Lodge in Dun Laoghaire had fallen into severe disrepair over the years. The local authority sought to restore both buildings, to retrieve their original historic character while finding for each a new and viable purpose. The long narrow pavilion was conserved and extended to create a high quality restaurant, while the lodge was conserved and extended to provide a viable dwelling, public meeting room, park superintendent’s office and public toilets. Having been created on an in-filled quarry, the two buildings in the late Victorian park had been subjected to severe settlement and structural damage, due to poor ground conditions, exacerbated by crude alteration and repair during the 1980s.
The pavilion was extended by adding a large, new glass box, in a sensitive contemporary language of glass, brick and copper edging to the oversailing green roof, which introduced south light into an enlarged and airy dining space. Set into the formerly blank rear wall of the pavilion the new extension opens up a new “public window” into the park. Specialist conservation works included – brick and stone repairs, cast iron and joinery repairs, and new clay tile and lead sheet roofing. We designed all of the interiors, lighting and fittings for the restaurant operator Fallon & Byrne, together with the hard landscaping around the pavilion and to its roof, that will be once again open to the public.
Set into the formerly blank rear wall of the pavilion the new extension opens up a new “public window” into the park
