Grafton Architects to receive the inaugural Outstanding Achievement in Architecture award

We are thrilled to announce that Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara directors at Grafton Architects will be receiving the Outstanding Achievement for Architecture at this year’s Building and Architect of the Year Awards 2017 (BAYA) at a black tie ceremony in the Mansion House on the 8th of June.

The winning entries are now available to view in the video below.

Earlier this year Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara were appointed by Paolo Barrata, President of La Biennale, to be the Curators of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2018. The appointment is being recognised as a seminal moment for contemporary Irish architecture, because they are the first Irish architects to be invited in the biennale’s forty-year history. The 16th International Architecture Exhibition will take place from Saturday, May 26 to Sunday, November 25, 2018 in Venice.

They are being awarded Outstanding Achievement for Architecture because Grafton Architects have designed buildings of note both in Ireland and abroad; including the Solstice Arts Centre, Meath; the Parson’s Building, Trinity College, Dublin; the Government Department of Finance for the Office of Public Works in Dublin; a new building for the Università Bocconi in Milan, Italy.

"We are honoured to receive this award in recognition of our work" Shelley said when asked about the event.

When asked about her reaction to the announcement they were to be receiving the award Yvonne said "this has been an exciting year for myself and Shelley, being named curators of the Architecture Biennale in Venice was a tremendous honour and now we are delighted to be acknowledged by the jury of the inaugural Building and Architect of the Year Awards in Dublin."

The two architects founded Grafton Architects in 1977. The firm have been exhibitors in three previous biennales and in 2012 they won The Silver Lion Award at the Biennale, where they presented their Project for the UTEC University campus in Lima, Peru, together with the work of Paula Mendes da Rocha.

They won the competition for the ESB Head Office, with OMP Architects on Fitzwilliam Street Dublin, and together with Shaffrey Associates, they won the New City Library for Dublin. They have won many international competitions including the School of Economics of the University of Toulouse; Kingston University Town House; Institute Mines Telecom campus in Saclay, Paris. Last year they were selected to design a new faculty building for the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in Holborn, London.

In 2008 they won the World Building of the Year Award for the Università Bocconi in Milan. They were finalist for the Sterling Prize for the University of Limerick Medical School and Student Accommodation and in 2016 UTEC University in Lima, Peru won the inaugural RIBA International Award.