Interview: Jan Frohburg, University of Limerick School of Architecture

Jan frohburg is Lecturer at the Architecture Faculty at the University of Limerick. This semester at the college, third level students at the School of ARchitecture have been set the task of coming up with a design for a youth and community centre for Castletroy. The twenty different designs will be competing for five prizes which will be announced at a public meeting on Wednesday at 1900 hrs at the Architecture School.

Mr. Frohburg was kind enough to give a brief interview on the project and how it is hoped that Limerick County Council will realise, through this project, the demand for such a centre in the Castletroy area.

The interview is below.

Why did you decide on a competition to design a youth cafe?

The school was always very interested in getting involved in Limerick City in a wider sense, and deal with relevant projects, We had been approached by Trish Forde-Brennan, pointing out that there was an action group at Castletroy College that is pushing for the idea of a youth centre, and if we’d be prepared to submit designs for it. We looked into that and felt that it was a relevant idea to deal with. It is very suitable for third year students in that it provides a degree of complexity in the programme, and we wanted our students to work on things that can draw motivation out of realising how important or relevant it is to other people in the community so they don’t feel they are simply working for us, or for filing it away afterwards. That is why we decided to take on the project. We are still an educational institution here so we had to find a way to educate our students through that project. At a point we had to make it clear that we won’t come up with a design that will be built straight away, but we are happy to put forward those twenty designs, let those fuel a discussion of what is possible, what would be asked for in a building like this, what’s reasonable,what’s possibly unreasonable to include, where do possible conflicts arise, and how could seemingly conflicting ideas be successfully merged through clever design.

Have you identified a potential site for this cafe and what did location on?

When we started on the project, we went out to the Castletroy area. A site was suggested, but we weren’t too happy with that suggestion, so we took the decision on choosing a different location that seemed more suitable for us. It is right next to the Castletroy College, right next to the newly constructed skate park, it has road frontage, it also has the chance to relate back to what seems to be emerging as the neighbourhood centre around the shops along Vivo and Synott’s Pub, and the college. There is also a childcare facility down there as well. We felt that a youth centre should help to reinforce that emerging neighbourhood centre rather than being tucked away in fields. We felt access was a very important point. To provide easy access for people, coming by bike, walking there, hopefully getting the bus and we wanted to make sure that it wasn’t reliable on car traffic.

What did the cafe design design have to include?

We’ve given them a site, and we have given them a brief. That brief was based other successful community and youth centres recently completed in Ireland where some of our colleagues have been involved, for instance Grainne Hassett, who teaches here has recently won the AAI’s Downes Medal for Hassett/Ducatez’ youth centre in Tallaght, so the brief we gave our students was based on similar projects. They were asked to include a community hall, a number of function rooms to hold classes for instances, and a youth cafe with games facilities and internet facilities, a library,plus a number of services that need to go along with that, such as offices, some back rooms, toilets, changing rooms things like that. Then we had a meeting with that Action Group from Castletroy College that again illustrated what they were hoping to find in such a project, and it was actually that meeting which inspired our students to get into the project. Getting real people, a real client, the real needs involved made a real difference to the students.

Picture: Third year architecture students at UL put the finnishing touches on their designs for a youth and community centre in Castletroy

This is a hypothetical contest, would you like to see Limerick County Council do it for real?

I hope they do. I hope they take on ideas that have been developed through our student work here, and I hope they use those in developing a real community building for the Castletroy area, that we feel, and that the Castletroy College students felt is highly in demand. Again,it was hypothetical in our choice of site, it was hypothetical in our choice of programme, but with that, it’s now more tangible and Limerick County Council should ask what it is it we really need, and the local community might have a wider idea of what they could and should be asking for, what a community centre could provide and we hope that an architects competition should be held to find the best design for that.as we feel this would be the appropriate way to ensure quality in such a design.

Were the Castletroy College students involved in this project?

We had one meeting with that action group of Castletroy College students very early on in February when we got started here. We based some of the brief on a questionaire they had prepared to determine what they wanted by the local community. During that meeting we also discussed their wishes and desires, what was missing, and why they had started that action group in the first place. It became clear that rather than looking for an exclusively youth orientated cafe and hang-out space, they were well aware and open to the idea that a facility like that should be open to more members of the community, not just students, that they should be able to bring their younger brothers and sisters along, and as well provide facilities that could be used by other groups in the community. I was quite impressed at how community minded those students were and how they were open to incorporate facilities for many more in the neighbourhood.

Have you had any response from Limerick County Council

Yes we had. We met with Anthony Coleman [Development officer, Limerick County Council] and he was very interested in learning about this project, and he’ll be coming back to be a juror to select the five most successful of the entries.

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