Mountain View Court Primary Health Care and Housing

Mountainview Court in Summerhill was a competition-winning project that was halted by the recession. It took up a whole city block on a steep escarpment looking southwards over the city - formerly the site of a unified Georgian terrace, which stayed like a ghost in the machine - and whose gradual demolition had been recorded. The scheme was a proposal about how to live well in Dublin, making a building with the mix of functions and apartment types and sizes needed to sustain difference, balancing the collective with the individual, the public with private.

The design included a Health and Day Centre, with a crèche, and apartments for older people and a mix of dual aspect social, affordable and private apartments ranging from single bedroom to large family units. Architecturally, it built the whole block, accepting of mass on a specific site, with the Health and Day Centre in a block at one end, sharing an entrance courtyard, a community space for social interaction. The remainder evolved as a series of brick blocks around common cores eroded to form generous balconies and open space looking Southwards over the city, rising to common roof gardens above. Senior citizens were threaded through the plan, with a dedicated core rising to a garden with three units and seven above.