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Southsider wins competition to build pedestrian bridge

Wednesday, 24 September 2008

A young Southside architect has won a major national competition to design a bridge for the River Dodder.
Alan Dempsey, a 34-year-old Irish architect from Rathfarnham, who is based in London, impressed the judges with his proposal for the Dodder Pedestrian Bridge in Ballsbridge.
The bridge project forms part of what competition organisers the Mountbrook Group has described as its package of ‘social and community gain initiatives’ for the local area, arising from the proposed Ballsbridge Jury’s Berkeley Court development.
If the scheme gets the go ahead the new bridge would be located at the rear of the new Oval development to link the proposed Jury’s/Berkeley Court and Veterinary College sites to the AIB Bank site and the RDS.
Mr Demspey said the competition demanded some special requirements because of the River Dodder’s flood potential.
“The brief itself was quite challenging from a restraint point of view because there was a requirement set by Dublin City Council that related to the flood levels of the Dodder,” he explained. “That was one of the real challenges. They required a large gap of clearance underneath the bridge.”
He added that the new bridge would provide a worthwhile public amenity for the area.
“It is intended to be the last piece of a revamped pedestrian network connection,” he said. “I think it will make a big difference because right now there is only one connection across the river and that is a vehicle bridge. So the new bridge will provide a nice way for pedestrians to cross to the DART. It will also provide some public amenity and civic infrastructure in the sense that you can sit and spend some time there on the riverbank.”
Mr Dempsey graduated from the Dublin Institute of Technology in 1998 and in August of this year, on foot of winning this competition, established his own architectural practice, NEX Architecture, in London.
His winning design was chosen from 43 submissions by a panel of experts from the worlds of architecture and engineering, including the design architects of Jury’s/Berkeley Court – Henning Larsen Architects.
As the winning entrant, Mr Dempsey received prize money of e50,000, in addition to a fee for the commissioning of the project.
Sponsored by the Mountbrook Group, the competition was organised by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) and was specifically aimed at Irish architects under the age of 35.
Commenting on the winning entrant, Sean Dunne, managing director of Mountbrook Group, said: “For the panel of judges, Alan Dempsey’s design stood out as a sleek, modern and elegant architectural creation.
“Mountbrook Group was delighted to provide a chance for young Irish architects to express their innovation and imagination through what will hopefully prove to be a landmark piece of civic infrastructure.”

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