‘Exploring how to make better homes, building them as often as possible’, JFOC Architects is a design-led, award-winning practice with strong technical competencies specialising in large-scale private and social housing.
Founded in 1987 by John F O’Connor – who remains involved in a consultancy capacity – JFOC Architects is a 15-people practice fronted by Dominic Stevens and Claire McManus. The Harold’s Cross, Dublin 6-based firm has delivered over 9,000 high-quality units to date for clients who are a mix of private developers, local authorities and approved housing bodies. Its other specialisations include commercial, public and religious buildings.
The practice is involved in ongoing research projects as well as guiding the profession. Claire is the RIAI Spokesperson on Housing and is a sitting member of the RIAI Council. She holds an MBA and is involved in the research and development of RIAI policy with respect to Housing and Building Control. Dominic lectures in the Dublin School of Architecture (formerly DIT) and is a member of ARENA, the European architectural research network. He was a member of the Steering Committee for Government Policy on Architecture and was awarded the Kevin Kieran Award by the Arts Council and the OPW.
“We specialise in large-scale private and social housing. Our work is tailored to achieving high level results for private developers, local authorities and housing bodies. Our aim is to offer the best and more innovative solutions possible,” Dominic explains.
JFOC Architects’ current portfolio includes housing developments in Roscrea, in Co. Tipperary, Ballymany in Kildare, Hacketstown in Skerries, Castletroy in Limerick and Castle Street in Ashbourne.
The practice was delighted to win the Roscrea commission through the RIAI Town Centre Living Competition, being one of four projects selected from over 100 entries. This project serves to tidy up a slightly ragged edge of town condition in the spirit of an existing masterplan. JFOC is proposing a ‘mini-landmark’ on this prominent corner, a destination on a sunny day, connected back to the main street down existing pedestrian routes. Three new public spaces are created – an active street on Gantly Road with trees and places to sit; a new urban plaza at the corner of Gantly Road and Chapel Lane. This plaza provides access into the centre of the courtyard, a small public open space.
This project in Roscrea is responsive to the existing architecture of the town, learning from the large inset porches on Limerick Street, the oblique corner buildings and under-croft access to laneways that are typical characteristics of many Irish towns. It is a medium density low-rise proposal of 58 dwellings per hectare while offering its own door access to all.
Their housing proposals have focused on creating integrated neighbourhoods and a sense of place and identity through the creation of urban set pieces, while knitting back and connecting into adjacent developments.
Always Inspired by housing from an earlier time, JFOC identifies the quality of space created by the formality and ordered geometry of Georgian Squares and the efficiencies of Victorian redbrick workers’ housing.
Many developments have a danger of being very car dominated if careful design isn’t done. JFOC have done considerable research into the most recent thinking about car management, so that cars can be close to houses yet not dominate the street. The ambition is always to make a pedestrian and play friendly public realm. Strong building lines, a very carefully considered car parking strategy and a high regard for the role of landscape design and planning in the urban realm has created the vision for all their developments that encompass an appropriately high design density of mixed-scale development within a green streetscape. Proposals that seek to create lasting pieces of the towns where community can happen fuelled by the density of inhabitants, a place that feels urban while providing usable shared green spaces.
Ballygossan Park in Hacketstown is a high-quality addition to the highly attractive and self-contained seaside town of Skerries to the north of Dublin. JFOC Architects has been involved in this site since 2005, and has completed the first phase of the development. Located to the south of Skerries, and within walking distance of Skerries Railway Station, the development of the site offered the opportunity for a diverse, sustainable and characterful residential community. This planning permission consists of 149 dwellings (houses and apartments) along with a creche for this second phase of development. This is a medium density development within a landscaped suburban setting adjacent and overlooking a large public park, it is under construction.
The slope of the site has been a major factor and influence in the design of the proposed development. The central apartment building has been designed to engage with the slope of the site. The stepping of the building down the slope has been used as a means to express the rhythm and grain of the building while concealing the car parking without resorting to costly underground car parking. The scale of the block is similar to the scale and grain of Skerries. The central court is a private garden for the residents, all units are entered through this garden and it contains a bike shed and gym. Many of the units have balconies overlooking it. In this way, it will be actively used and enjoyed by the residents.
The main access to the site is from the Golf Links Road. The first phase of development at Ballygossan Park frames the northern side of the entrance road, with a mix of three and two-storey houses. The proposed development provides for two blocks of three-storey duplex apartments facing onto the Golf Links Road and the main access road.
The creche is located at a key fulcrum of the development, at the junction between the main part of Phase 2, the existing Ballygossan Park development, and beside the connection to the proposed new residential area to the south. It is designed to engage the street, the public spaces, and the imagination of the child, while discretely ensuring safety.
On the periphery of Limerick, the Castletroy site lies at the heart of the Castletroy commercial centre, and strongly ties into the future Castletroy Urban Greenway: a proposed pedestrian and cycle path that connects various local amenities in the Limerick city suburb.
Planning permission has been received, and construction commenced for a residential development of 200 units with a mix of housing types predicated on a strong, distinctive urban basis and a pedestrian friendly urban realm. It proposes clear urban blocks and emphasises connectivity and permeability with the adjoining area. This is emphasised with the incorporation of the Castletroy Urban Greenway through the site.
The proposal is formed of a series of legible spaces: strong urban blocks and streets which have a clear and contained linear form and respect the importance of the pedestrian. There are a large range of unit types across the proposal, and all of them have their own door access. This serves to diversify the existing context of primarily four-bed houses while maintaining the quality they provide.
The proposal is of a much higher density than its surroundings, yet feels contextual. It isn’t a development that sits apart from the context, rather it becomes enmeshed, providing new green routes and parks for the existing inhabitants that are protected from the main road to the north by the new apartment block. The car parking which is traditionally located to the front of the unit is relocated to the side. The result is discreet which minimises the impact on the public realm and reduces the interference of parked cars with pedestrian enjoyment of these streets and public spaces. On-street parking is largely reserved for visitors with an adequate provision for private parking in curtilage
Castle Street is a small urban set piece created with traditional urban forms, the street and the square. It is designed to have a strong ‘sense of place’. Particular attention has been paid to a car parking strategy that visually removes cars from the urban realm, making it people friendly. Overall, it is simple and formal. Materials and expressions used are traditional.
JFOC was part of a select group of architects who carried out research for the recently-published Sustainable and Compact Development Guidelines (SCSG) in relation to low-rise, medium / high density housing aimed at solving the Irish housing crisis.
In their analysis of the potential for low-rise, medium / high-density housing for Ireland, JFOC had identified that the current formula, whilst achieving the required density, did not generally produce the high standards of sustainable residential communities to which architects, urban designers and the general public aspired. The result was that low density areas of houses with high-density enclaves of apartments have been common solutions as opposed to sustainable integrated neighbourhoods and communities.
The SCSG outlined that the continued application of suburban housing standards dating from the early 1900’s was hampering innovation in the housing sector in Ireland. In particular, a reliance on suburban housing standards is precluding compact housing models that have the potential to offer a broader range of housing options in urban areas and provide for the more efficient use of zoned and serviced land.
The result of this work is the new Development and Compact Settlements Guidelines for Planning Authorities published in January 2024. These are a game changer in being able to design high quality neighbourhoods. Low-rise medium density housing models are common in the UK and Europe and offer significant potential to contribute to compact urban growth when applied at the right locations. JFOC believes that a more sustainable, affordable and integrated solution that provides housing at an appropriate density can be achieved on new sites with the considered implementation of the new guidelines.
The key design principles that alter previous norms we are working with are as follows:
• Firstly, a reduction in back garden dimensions between opposing first floor windows from 22m to 16m. This most powerful of changes reverses a century of low-density suburban policy and recognizes that adequate privacy is much more a function of design than of distance per se.
• Secondly a change to private open space to provide in each case: 1 bed house 20 sq. metre min, 2 bed house 30 sq. metre min, 3 bed house 40 sq. metre min, 4 bed + house 50 sq. metre min.
• Finally, a reduction in car parking provision in accordance with the National Sustainable Mobility Policy 2022 and in CAP23 for reduced private car travel.
Quality of Design and Placemaking are emphasised in the document. These proposed changes allow for a neighbourhood that is not dominated by the car, has a rich and diverse spatial experience, is safe for play and for socialising with your neighbours.
JFOC Architects’ previous work in medium density low-rise development was selected for inclusion in the Housing Agency/Irish Architecture Foundation Exhibition ‘Housing Unlocked’ in 2022. In it, the practice proposed economic, practical and desirable homes in a wonderful open green setting, while having the high density required to support local services and viable communal amenities, making a strong argument for a low-rise, high-density form of development. Continued engagement with this research led to it winning the aforementioned RIAI Town Centre Living competition for the site in Roscrea.
As JFOC Architects continues to go from strength to strength, it would like to take this opportunity to thank its clients and suppliers for their unwavering support as well as its exceptional team for their hard work, dedication and expertise.
JFOC Architects
3&4 Greenmount House,
Harold’s Cross,
Dublin,
D6W X008.
Telephone: 01 453 0277
Email: [email protected]
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, August 2024, Vol 10 No 8
