Matrix Partnership’s submission was one of the winning entrants for this international design competition. The scheme sought to express the idea of peeling away different historical layers of the city, with the aim of referring back to the original city wall. The first layer is the river wall. The second layer is a transparent five-storey building, which will contain an exhibition space and café on the ground floor, offices and residential on the next three floors and a restaurant on top. The third layer forms a semi-transparent central section, which forms an extension to Dunne’s Store at ground level and provides offices on the first floor with flats above. The fourth layer is a heavy masonry walled building, housing live-work units, that seeks to imitate the underlying original wall running down the street.

Landscape design complements this concept of layering. Two new urban squares have been created: Kyrl’s Quay Square includes a centrally placed pool of shallow water that will act as a reflective surface, fibre-optics, below the surface span across the landscape creating ‘lines of light’ which, can be controlled by interactive sculptural beacons. A diagonal cut-through links Kyrl’s Quay Square with Dunne’s Yard: an intimate public place that displays the original city wall and includes a new entrance into Dunne’s Store.