A Cork practice working across residential, commercial, education and healthcare. Founded 2015 by Paul Butler and Lorenzo Cammoranesi, with a particular record in sensitive environments and complex urban conditions.
Most of the work on a difficult site happens before anything is drawn. Each project below is shown the way it actually arrived: the condition that had to be solved, and then the response to it.
An under-utilised former car showroom on a 0.29 hectare site, in a part of the city under real pressure for student housing.
A redevelopment providing 78 student apartments, from single-bed studios up to eight-bed apartments, totalling 206 bed spaces.
A city centre infill site, the tightest kind of urban condition, where every decision is constrained by what is already standing on either side.
Fifteen dwellings and eighteen bed spaces arranged in three to four storey volumes, the massing worked out against the existing street before the architecture was resolved.
A corner site addressing two very different streets at once: the scale and traffic of Western Road, and the quieter pedestrian character of Mardyke Walk.
A linear building along Western Road with a short return block onto Mardyke Walk. Fourteen dwellings over three storeys on a raised podium, ground floor apartments with duplexes above.
A 0.74 acre greenfield site on the edge of an established coastal village, where new housing is judged first on whether it sits properly beside what is already there.
Up to eleven new houses in two distinct terraces, generally three storey, with the amenity space planned as part of the layout rather than left over from it.
Anyone can draw a building. The work is getting it to sit properly on a site that has already made up its mind.
Established in 2015, the office in Cork is international in outlook and staff composition. The design team take a sensitive but efficient approach to site and place, with a concern for the social, economic and environmental aspects of architecture.
To the core services of architecture, interior design, urban design and master planning, the practice bring the same attention to detail. The work is underpinned by a rigorous approach and close engagement with each site.
Paul focuses on design and communication, working closely with clients, and is involved in every project from inception to completion. Before founding the practice in 2015 he was a Director and Associate at a major Irish architecture firm, responsible for the design and delivery of key projects.
He has run a degree year design studio unit at Cork Centre for Architectural Education since 2007.
Dipl. Arch., University of North London, 1997
B. Arch (Hons), University of North London, 1994
Dipl. Arch. Tech., CIT, 1991
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Lorenzo is responsible for creative design and client liaison, and jointly for the design direction of the practice. He leads its academic work and competition entries.
A native of Rome, he gained professional experience in Italy and Ireland and has taught at Cork Centre for Architectural Education since 2009. His interest is in the flexibility of the urban environment when it meets industrial, economic and social change, and particularly the role of typology within it.
Arch (Hons), University of Rome “La Sapienza”, 2003
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If there is a site, a brief or a planning question you want a view on, that is the useful place to begin. The studio is on George's Quay in the city.
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