Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey on settle bench

Design :  The new buildings at Letterfrack represent a rethinking of the relationship of the former penal institution with its place. Ireland’s Pavilion recasts elements of the architectural project to suggest characteristics of confinement and release, closed institutions and frameworks for change. Under the roof trusses of the abandoned Artiglierie munitions factory, separate structures confront one another in an analogous composition. Principles of form and construction, abstracted from the built reality of a contemporary college, evoke memories of chapels and shrines, lobster pots and the skeletal carcasses of upturned boats.