Photo by Johan Dehlin
Thursday September 25th, 2025, 19:00
Trinity College, Dublin 2
Tickets on Eventbrite
Systems and Selves
The AAI is thrilled to welcome Clancy Moore Architects as the first speaker in our Systems and Selves lecture series — an exploration of the qualitative significance of design in the public domain within the contemporary built environment. This series will present a curated selection of Irish and international case studies, highlighting the cooperative, experimental, and socially enriching potential of design.
With thanks to Trinity College Dublin for their valued collaboration on this series.
Established by Andrew Clancy and Colm Moore in 2008 the practice seeks to understand the context of each project in its fullest sense. The practice enjoys the contingencies of the various physical, historical, social, environmental, legislative or economic aspects which offer fertile ground if attended to with care. It is in the abrasion of these pressures that projects frequently find meaning and clarity.
It is an aspiration that the architecture is not imposed top down, but is drawn from congruencies and contradictions in this broader conversation that might allow each work to speak about the place it stands in, the people who use it, the techniques and people that made it, and the broader society it is a part of.
Arklow WasteWater
Arklow Wastewater Treatment Plant is the first time an architect has been a part of the design team for such a building. Here, a small architecture practice won an invited competition and worked alongside the engineers to instrumentally direct and shape the plant’s design. Arklow has been without wastewater treatment for its entire history. Its badly polluted river and sea act to prevent the town’s ability to grow, and badly impacts ecologies and the amenity value of these water bodies. Previous attempts to build a plant had failed repeatedly, as previous designs did not meet planning approval on sensitive sites.
An Open Conversation
The site here was selected as it sat at the centre of gravity of the town and offered the lowest carbon and energy profile for the plant. This site was also highly visible, and close to sensitive ecological sites. A conventional low-lying and open plant was not appropriate. The architects used a design method based on an open conversation with the town, the engineers, the planners and more. Proposing that the design would find its expression in the multiple contingencies of these diverse inputs.
Photo by Johan Dehlin
Civic Infrastructure
The result is a compact, low-energy approach, instead of excavating to sink tanks it was proposed that all works be placed on the land. This both avoided confronting pollutants in the ground (a legacy of the site’s pervious industrial use) and avoided the removal of any soil from the site. The architects then stacked the processes to involve less site coverage. Unlike a conventional plant, which pumps many times from tank to tank, here there is one pump, with the remaining flow assisted by gravity, dramatically reducing energy needs. These stacked forms need servicing, so a roof was made with robotic gantry cranes. The roof holds a solar farm, using PV generation to offset the plants’ energy use. The main functions of the plant are held in two primary forms, each held with a louvred skin which distributes air, assists with odour control and hides the operation of the plant from view. This screening allows the plant to continue to change and develop internally as required in the future, to a town size of 36,000 people, three times its current population. The louvres are also seen as habitats for bats and nesting birds. Operation of the plant will provide access to, by remediation of, the currently highly polluted Avoca River and the town’s coastline, providing an immeasurable uplift in the health and well-being of the town. The compact form of the plant allows much of the site to be re-wilded.
The louvred skin was calibrated so that it would be a caricature from a distance, and characterful in closer proximity – changing its atmosphere in rain, sun and at night. The two major built forms are held to present a choreography to the wider landscape, while a smaller laboratory building holds the street and sets up a more urban future for the immediate context.
Figure, Memory and Form
This site contains a strong memory of industry and employment in the town, and it was proposed that the plant might represent a new piece of civic infrastructure. The design that emerged in conversation between the people of the town, its history, form, ecology and environment was a radical reinvention of a typical water treatment plant. The result is civic infrastructure, a building that speaks of the public good. The design is innovative in how it configures itself to reduce energy use, enable adjacent ecologies and embody local narratives and memories. Its completion now allows for a sustainable development of the town alongside clean waters (river and sea). It sets an optimistic future for Arklow, and the potential for Ireland’s urban and infrastructural development to deliver care, excellence and innovation.
Photo by Johan Dehlin
Photo by Johan Dehlin
Clancy Moore Architects
The practice designs cultural, infrastructural and residential work in Ireland and elsewhere.
The practice has been extensively published in places such as A+U, the AR, Casabella, AMAG and has been exhibited in the Venice Biennale. Both partners research and write critically about architecture and a book authored by the practice about the Danish architect Kay Fisker has been published by Lund Humphries. The practice has been voted the AR Peter Davey Award winners 2019, the BD Young Architects of the Year 2018, and has been twice awarded the AAI Downes Medal. Both partners value teaching as a fundamental part of their practice. Andrew has been a guest Professor in Aarhus, and is currently Professor in the Kingston School of Art, London. Colm directs the M.Arch programme in Queens University Belfast. The practice runs a guest studio in the Academia di Architetturra in Mendrisio where Andrew is a Guest Professor.
The current team is Colm Moore, Andrew Clancy, Tobias Beale, Camilla Crafa, Piera Bedin, Joe Franklin and Larissa Lopes.