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Joe Daly Cycles

In a dramatic move from a modest single-storey over basement shop to a modern high-tech facility, Deaton Lysaght Architects transformed Joe Daly Cycles in Dundrum.  A landmark building was required on the site which is overlooked by the new Luas Bridge.

The form of the building is entirely dictated by the nature of the site, with its curving boundary to the Dundrum Road and the need to provide a simple high tech landmark building in this important location.  The structure consists of a ground floor shop over a basement workshop and stores and offices at first and second floor level. The project encountered a number of serious technical challenges. The main Dundrum drain runs under the building and this had to be enclosed in an accessible shaft. The riverbank wall had disappeared and had to be re-built with sheet piling. The site is effectively below the level of the main road which had to be sheet-piled to facilitate the construction of a basement. The building is reinforced concrete with in situ concrete floor slabs and a central concrete block lift shaft all founded on piles and reinforced concrete ground beams. The geometry of the external wall is based on two intersecting curves. It was set out on CAD and while the supporting structure and block walling was being constructed on site to the agreed set out line the metal panelling was being made in Scotland to the same line. A tolerance of 75mm was allowable on the depth of the fixing brackets for the cladding but effectively, as the cladding was almost a complete circle, the tolerance for the circumference was virtually zero. The walls were insulated externally and then fitted with enamelled metal rainscreen cladding. These consist of factory curved pans, secretly fixed. The glazing was part of the skin although from a separate glazing system. The entire roofing, glazing and cladding package was undertaken by one sub-contractor, avoiding the normal problems of interface between contractors. The signage tower serves as a conduit for the single rainwater pipe and provides a focal point for the building avoiding excessive on-façade signage. The roof is a raised seam aluminium sheet with one central gutter and a silver clad lift shaft. It is designed to be seen from Luas trams passing on the adjacent cable-stay bridge.