One of Ireland’s top property developers, Eastwise Group is delighted to be shortlisted for an Irish Construction Excellence Award in the ‘Residential: Private up to €50 million’ category for Daneswell Place, which is regarded as one of the most prestigious locations on the northside of Dublin in Glasnevin.
The Irish Construction Excellence Awards (ICE Awards) are the original and premier recognition of performance excellence for the contracting sector in Ireland, and provide an opportunity for the industry to showcase and reward best practice across the full range of construction disciplines and project categories. The nomination is a tremendous honour for Eastwise Group whose principals have over 40 years’ experience in the construction and property development industry.
Established in 2015, Eastwise Group prides itself on the creation of outstanding quality and sustainable developments in great locations. The company’s in-house professional skills include design, development, project management, construction, quality assurance, marketing, sales, financial and contract management.
Eastwise conducts business across all stages of the property life cycle, including acquisition, investment management, planning permission, development management and all the way through to final completion. It takes an ethical position on all matters and is transparent throughout its business process. Staff experience on previous projects include many residential and commercial developments in Ireland, the UK and other international markets.
“Our first major development was Kellett’s Grove in Dunshaughlin which consisted of 47 high-quality homes with five different house types,” Eastwise Group general manager Fergus Lynch explains.
“We then built 117 houses and a creche at Rahillion in Donabate, and 35 houses at Daneswell Place where we have plans for further development. We are about to build 443 apartments over seven blocks in Hartfield Place on the Swords Road, Drumcondra. We’re actively looking for zoned land to do joint ventures with landowners with a view to securing planning permission for development.”
Daneswell Place consists of 35 contemporary A-rated four and five-bedroom three-storey homes in the heart of Glasnevin, and adjacent to the architecturally sensitive area of Iona Road. The design of the houses was paramount in order to satisfy the stringent planning criteria for introducing new homes within such a historically established residential community. As such, the project met with unique design challenges in order to successfully integrate the development to its new environs while respecting the surrounding conservation area of Glasnevin and De Courcy Square.
“We went the extra mile on the design side of things and were very pleased with how it turned out. Daneswell Place is close to both Drumcondra and Phibsborough, and is only a short stroll to Dublin city centre,” Fergus adds.
Arranged in six terrace blocks, the orientation and massing of the buildings successfully transitioned from the adjacent established residential two-storey houses and gave rise to a new internal city street on what was once a large printworks factory site. Eastwise Group carried out the planning process of the houses which were successfully delivered to their new owners. These large and stunning modern homes have their own garden and private parking spaces. With contemporary inspired design and superb craftsmanship, they are perfectly in keeping with the unique character of one of Dublin’s most sought-after neighbourhoods.
Construction of Daneswell Place began in 2019 after a period of on-site enabling works and considerable planning compliance with respect to the materiality of the proposed dwellings. About 95% of the site was covered in a concrete slab with remnants of the previous factory structures, some of which were shared boundaries. All of the in-situ concrete had to be removed with 80% being reused on-site to facilitate the construction process.
Modern methods of construction are always in demand so modular light-gauge steel frame was used to achieve the best quality standards for construction, reduce project waste, duration, costs and environmental impact. This enabled Eastwise to ensure that the quality of workmanship was to the highest standards possible, fully air-tight, reduced thermal bridging and structurally superior than anything that could be achieved over traditional on-site construction. The modules were shipped to site by truck from Co. Cavan and assembled on-site.
In addition to using highly-insulated and air-tight wall and roof construction, all homes were fitted with air-to-water heat pumps, premium thermally-broken alu-clad windows and doors, PV solar panels and EV charging points, which yielded an A2 energy rating throughout. As the homes were largely constructed in the factory, site waste was greatly reduced and made for a much safer delivery of the project as prolonged working at height was significantly reduced for the construction of the structural thermal envelope.
Compliance with building standards were controlled in the factory, from the structural design through to thermal bridging, airtightness tests and fire regulations. Specific design details for fire regulations were developed in a previous development which Eastwise completed using the same modular off-site construction.
Once the modules were placed on-site, with necessary connection details, airtightness and fire stopping operations ongoing, it made this operation significantly easier for the building control inspectors as all items were readily exposed for inspection with easy access to the same. With off-site modular construction, the level of site staff was significantly reduced, as was the requirement for welfare facilities, management and supervision.
With less operatives on-site, and significant reduction for working at height, the management of on-site Health & Safety noted a reduction of risks and hazards over traditional construction methods. As the type of MMC used presented some new challenges such as heavy craneage, transporting issues owing to wide loads and traffic congestion, and rescheduling of the delivery programme, most were overcome with staff training, scheduling out of hours transportation and employment of competent / experienced crane controllers and lift supervision. While cost savings were negligible, the overall product quality, sustainability, accuracy and finish throughout was significantly improved over traditional construction methods.
The key lesson learned with respect to adoption of any MMC is planning, planning and planning. The homes at Daneswell Place can be suited to large, single-family homes, multiple family units or even segregated to provide smaller individual homes in the future without any major changes required to the structural thermal envelope.
Situated only 2km from Dublin city centre, Daneswell Place is where international standards of design and luxury come to Ireland. It is an ideal place to call home.
Eastwise Group
Station Mews,
Lindsay Grove,
Dublin 9,
D09 W8W8.
Telephone: 01 443 4442
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.eastwise.ie
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, June 2023, Vol 9 No 6
