Eye Line competition 2013 - Commended
Niall McLaughlin Architects
Alzheimers Respite Centre, Dublin
Similar games seem evident in an image that Niall McLaughlin architects created to convey its Dublin Alzheimers Respite Centre, the drawing almost defying the logic of simplistic representation. But here, the sense of feeling ‘at home’ is conveyed through more sensory means. Dunlop knows the completed building and likes it, but had to ask: ‘Is this a drawing or an American quilt?’ Sagoo felt it almost suggested the confused state of Alzheimers, saying: ‘As a drawing it’s quite hard to read; it seems to have all different kinds of colours and layers – it clouds your mind.’ Pearman remarked that it is the kind of drawing that draws in the client and ‘sweetens the pill of the actual design’. Perhaps conceding something to the fact that the technique was deliberate, Parker claimed the drawing was ‘like a Rousseau painting – it’s the kind of image that takes you down a lot of different avenues’. What the judges did all agree on was that the drawing’s simultaneous complexity and naivety gave it a layering worthy of recognition.
