O'Mahony Pike Architects, in collaboration with McCormac Jamieson Pritchard, won the international competition to design a Masterplan for the regeneration of Ballymun.
Planned in the 1960s according to mid-century modernist ideals, within four years Ballymun was one of Europes’ largest high-rise public housing estates. By 1997 it was home to 20,000 people but was synonymous with social deprivation in Ireland. The masterplan provides a roadmap for the transformation of the estate and its surrounding context into a vibrant town for 30,000 people, with the existing community rehoused in low rise, high density, family orientated dwellings.
The challenge was to heal the urban environment and create functioning, humanly scaled neighbourhoods around a town centre. At the heart of our response was the transformation of the dual carriageway into a tree-lined Main Street, which stitches together five new neighbourhoods. The period from 1998 to 2017 witnessed the transformation of Ballymun, during which O'Mahony Pike Architects designed two areas of housing within the masterplan - Balcurris and Coultry. The regeneration is ongoing with future developments planned to further enhance the quality of life in the area.