Details from the Fingal County Hall in Dublin, a project by Western New York native Merrit Bucholz, who speaks about his work with partner Karen McEvoy at UB's Crosby Hall on Wednesday, November 1 at 5:30pm

“Buffalo, from post-industrial urban wasteland, has gone through a tremendous creative transformation,” says Merritt Bucholz as he relates the urban revitalization of Buffalo to the dramatic globalization of Ireland. “Particularly interesting is how you can mobilize people with a vision of a different way to live, especially in the way of becoming more environmentally aware.”

Ireland, once considered the most impoverished of European nations, now has the second highest per capita income in the European Union. The founders of Bucholz McEvoy Architects, Merritt Bucholz, a native Western New Yorker, and partner Karen McEvoy, a native of Ireland, will be coming to Buffalo early November to discuss their work and recent projects. Between architectural practice, teaching and creating discourse and collaboration, they have actively engaged Ireland’s unique changes between urban and rural with a strong environmental consciousness.

Ireland’s economic explosion has generated tremendous opportunities for Bucholz and McEvoy early in their careers. The Irish-American couple has designed an extensive list of public buildings that began with the competition to design the Fingal County Hall. In order to regain control of its incredible growth, Dublin, the capital of Ireland, was redistricted to create four new administrative areas; each held a competition for the design of a new county hall. Bucholz McEvoy Architects, with no previous track record, won the design for the Fingal County Hall in 1996 with a budget of £13.6 million (more than $25 million).

The design for the Fingal County Hall integrated collaborative efforts between architecture, engineering and environmental design. The growth of the city has generated an active environmental initiative in Ireland, as Bucholz points out: “People have been very convinced by problems presented by the destruction of the environment.” Bucholz also engages growing cities on a broader scale: “Recently, over half the global population now lives in the city. We need to find new approaches in the design of buildings and architecture.”

The Fingal County Hall is naturally ventilated while aluminum and glass sunshades offset solar heat gain. Light is integrated throughout the structure maximizing daylight through glazed areas and the use of custom light fittings within concrete slabs. The building is an excellent example of green architecture. “Ireland, despite huge economic success, is still managing to be environmentally conscious,” Bucholz says.

Completed in 2000, the Fingal County Hall is a balance between a large, new, prominent civic structure with local traditional streetscape. The atrium façade, curves and embraces gently around a 150-year-old Himalayan cedar tree. The entrance atrium is a curved glass curtain, supported by a series of cable trusses, and reflects the open exchange between interior and exterior of an accessible government.

Bucholz also brings the collaboration between architecture, environmental design and engineering to the new school of architecture at the University of Limerick. The school, the first to open in Ireland for more than 50 years, began this fall. Other programs offered at the school are in engineering; not much is offered in the humanities and the arts. Bucholz, with degrees from both Cornell University and Princeton University, has been working to build and develop the program: “I do what any architect would do, which is organize the school around the design studio.”

Bucholz has also been instrumental in bringing to the University of Limerick international practitioners: “The goal was to bring people in and to create a mobile group of teachers. The idea of the school is discussion. Engineers, historians, architects, voices from different parts of Europe. We are trying to invite different professionals to come.”

Architecture is also not limited to the design of buildings, he says. “Architecture schools should not only be structural or limited to buildings. Environmental studies, engineering, history—there are no separate barriers. This is taught through design studios. Emphasis is on practice, where we work through all these issues.”

Further discussion on Ireland’s current economic and physical state is generated with Bucholz McEvoy Architects representing Ireland at the Venice Architecture Biennale. On their second participation, they presented a grid of old historic schoolhouses that are spread throughout Ireland’s rural landscape. Learning Landscapes, as their project was entitled, explores possibility in these abandoned structures: “This was not about developing projects but much more about the current state of cities. We were looking at what was already there, and something that already existed. These abandoned old schoolhouses were a part of the landscape and now raise questions: ‘What do we use it for?’ We focused on the sheer fact that the lush rural has become an urban place.”

There is a wider context behind Bucholz and McEvoy’s practice: “Our environmental work in Ireland demonstrates that working from a small place can translate broadly, can change things, and can be influential. As a Western New Yorker, I have a strong interest in promoting this idea, and seeing how future places can learn. I hope to open that door.”

Bucholz’s experience teaching in Limerick is actually not too far off from his memories of Buffalo. “People in Limerick, like Buffalo, are open-minded, and don’t have pretensions. These are environments of possibilities. These are environments fostering good ideas.”

Merritt Bucholz and Karen McEvoy will lecture at the University at Buffalo’s Crosby Lecture Hall on Wednesday, November 1 at 5:30pm.

Design Matters is presented in association with the UB School of Architecture and Planning and supported by a fellowship endowed by Polis Realty.