Mulgrave Street, Limerick

Commissioned by Limerick City & County Council, PKA’s Mulgrave infill development brings this prominent brownfield site back into the life of the city by continuing the existing terraced housing that bounds the site between Greenhill Road and Mulgrave Street on the eastern edge of the city centre. 

PKA’s masterplan proposed a completion of the urban block with a three-sided block, comprising two rows of terraced housing, culminating in three-storey duplex units fronting a landscaped public space onto the Ballysimon Road approach to the city centre. To date, PKA’s scheme is only partly completed - an existing fast-food outlet remains in place at the apex of the site. 

Designed in the context of Limerick CCC’s design codes, the terraces are of brick to continue the continuous Victorian terraces: all houses are provided with a three-metre privacy strip, for privacy and to separate them from the public footpath; the fenestration is vertical in emphasis; and the tall two-storey porches achieve a balance between the expression of the individual house and the collective architecture of the terrace. 

Comprising a total of 14 units and 53 bedspaces, the development is designed to a net density of 72 dwellings per hectare, in a mix of two-bedroom townhouses and one / two-bedroom duplexes, all of which have private and own-door access from the street. 

Designed within government cost limits for social housing development, a restrained palette of brick walls, metal windows, and slate roofs is composed into well-proportioned elevations that refer to Limerick’s heritage, and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s memorable quote on Irish Georgian architecture: ‘The people who built these houses had the good taste to know they had nothing very important to say.’ 

Client: Limerick City and County Council
Value: €3,450,000

Size: 14 units
Reference: Mr. Aidan Doyle, Design and Delivery, LCCC
Design: 2017
Completion: 2021