Founded in 2010 by Michael O’Carroll and Ralph Bingham, MOLA Architecture has been involved in many high profile projects including the recently completed 16,000sqm 1WML development for Hibernia REIT, the masterplan for Cherrywood for Hines Ireland and the Cherrywood Town Centre planning application, the award winning Diving Bell project, EMEA office fit-outs for Dropbox, Avolon Aerospace, Stripe and Google, winning Best Design Practice 2015 and 2016 in the Fit-out Awards. The company specialises in architecture, interior design, master-planning and urban design in the public and private sectors.
The success of the company can be gauged by not only their client list which includes multi-national companies as well as the majority of the main developers in Ireland, but by the awards they have picked up over the years.
At last November’s Fit-Out awards held in the National Convention Centre, the Donnybrook based company walked away with no fewer than four awards.
Best fit-out design practice 2018, which was their third success in this category in the last four years. Best young fit-out designer for Paul Finnegan and Best large office fit-out for Avolon and Excellence in Collaboration award for MOLA Architecture/Bakkala consulting Engineering.
For Paul, winning the Best Young Fit-Out designer comes on the back of being nominated for the award on five previous occasions, so to finally get the recognition he deserved was something special.
“It was a great night for the company to win four awards and I was delighted to receive an award. It was my sixth time to be short-listed and at 33 years of age, I was running out of time to be included in the category,” joked Paul.
Early last year MOLA Architecture announced the appointment of seven Associates in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the success and growth of the practice, one of which included Paul, while Niamh Curtin, Kieran Fitzgerald, Stephanie Fy, Sinead Hughes, Naomi Lloyd and Brian McCarthy were also recognised by the company’s directors.
The new structure was created to give the Associates greater involvement in the management and strategic development of the company, playing key roles in determining its future direction.
“Being named an associate was a great honour and the aim now is to bring the company forward and enhance its glowing reputation even further. We would consider ourselves as one of the top five architectural companies in Ireland.”
A qualified interior designer, Paul focuses on fit-outs for the company where he and Niamh Curtin are heading up this department with the support of experienced Senior Interior Designer Ela Walkowiak.
“We have been involved in some prestigious projects that we are very proud of as a company and these projects have been recognised at national level.”
MOLA Architecture provides a diverse range of architectural services ranging from Residential, Urban Design, Masterplanning, Education, Health Care, Hospitality, Civic, Cultural, Interiors, Infrastructural and Mixed-Use Developments.
“We work very closely with our clients and listen to their ideas, we then give our own ideas as professionals and come up with the best solution to meet the clients’ needs.”
The design stage has seen dramatic changes in recent years where BIM is now taking over from CAD.
“BIM has certainly been embraced by MOLA. We have a BIM manager here and although it is taking time to implement it in all projects, we are certainly getting there and seeing the benefits of this design package. We have full BIM capability to provide BIM Level 2 from concept design to client handover. BIM provides our clients, and their facility management teams, with a lifetime building database to better manage their valuable asset.”
MOLA is growing and expanding all the time and Paul is confident that the future is bright for the company. “There is no doubt that we are heading in the right direction. The company is branching out more into residential work and that sees us grow our portfolio even more.”
“One of the projects that everyone on the team was involved in was Windmill Lane where we were appointed by Hibernia Reit to act as Project Architects to deliver a mixed-use development at Windmill Lane, Dublin Docklands comprising 15No. apartments; 11,000sqm of Office space and 850sqm of retail space.
Contact Details:
MOLA Architects
2 Donnybrook Rd
Dublin 4
D04 NN50
e-mail: [email protected]
Tel: +353 1 218 3900
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, February 2019, Vol 5 No 2
