Seven firms of architects are in contention this year for the coveted RIAI Gold Medal - and, for the first time, we know who they are, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

Hype has long been associated with the BAFTA awards, the Booker Prize and, more recently, the Stirling Prize for architecture awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Now its Irish counterpart, the RIAI, has joined the media circus by issuing a shortlist for its 2005 Gold Medal.

And just like all the other major gongs, the winner of this coveted award won't be known until a sealed envelope is opened at the formal presentation on November 10th, by President Mary McAleese. So there is ample time for the bookmakers to offer odds on which of the 10 shortlisted buildings might win.

Today's announcement of the shortlist also marks the launch of the Loving Architecture Festival, which runs through October and November, with up to 60 events all over the country, including almost 30 lectures and more than 15 exhibition openings. It is being organised by the new Irish Architecture Foundation.

This year's triennial RIAI Gold Medal is for the design of a building of "exceptional merit", completed between 1998 and 2000. The elapse of time is intentional, because it allows works of architecture to be judged properly, long after the snag lists have been addressed. Thus, it is in a different class to the RIAI's annual awards.

All but two of the 10 buildings in contention are located in Dublin. But the wide range includes public and private sector offices and apartments, a mixed-use residential and work building, cultural and educational buildings, new urban public spaces and a monument that is a mélange of art and architecture.

Two firms of architects, deBlacam and Meagher and McGarry Ní Eanaigh, are nominated more than once for the RIAI Gold Medal - the former for three buildings, two of which have already won RIAI silver medals, and the latter for two urban design projects: the Liffey Boardwalk and the re-making of Smithfield.

Shane deBlacam and John Meagher are laden with more RIAI accolades than they can count, having won the conservation medal for the Dining Hall and Atrium in Trinity College (1986), the gold medal for the Library and Information Technology Building at Cork Institute of Technology (1997) and two silver medals for housing.

The first of these was awarded in 2002 for 1 Castle Street, Dublin, which is now on the gold medal shortlist. Described by the jury as "a modest infill development on a small, neglected site", it is singled out as "a classic example of how to revitalise urban fabric . . . in an area severely damaged by 1960s roads plans".

The second, awarded earlier this year, was for the Wooden Building, in the west end of Temple Bar, which "imagines what a slightly denser Dublin might be - not a cacophony of high-rises, but a roofscape of terraces and gardens", according to its gold medal citation. Its scale and "expressive materiality" also set it apart.

The third deBlacam and Meagher project to make the cut is the Esat Building, on Grand Canal Quay. Praised for its "finely detailed, frameless planar glass wall . . . glamorously draped in fabric, white sailcloth tumbling across its sheer skin"; no wonder then that the jury found its clear glass façade "undeniably sensual".

However, the citation goes overboard in describing Esat as "a rare example of a commercial office building freed from the mundane restrictions of the market". As originally designed, it was to be naturally ventilated, but the architects lost that argument with the chartered surveyors so it ended up air-conditioned.

Ironically, it is now up against Fingal County Hall, designed by Bucholz McEvoy Architects with BDP Dublin, which - as the jury rightly notes - was "driven by a ground-breaking, rigorously 'green' agenda". Energy-efficient, naturally ventilated and generally "healthy", it was also cheaper to build than conventional office buildings.

The citation describes it as "a building which captures a spirit of optimism and future thinking [ and] displays exuberance of thought and intention while creating a new public space that has engendered a sense of civic pride" in Swords. Its "deftly-handled" glass façade also suggested "transparent local government".

The fact that McCullough Mulvin's Model Arts and Niland Gallery in Sligo meets international standards of environmental control without the use of air-conditioning was one of the reasons it made the shortlist. But what really impressed the jury was its careful "pruning" of the existing building fabric, which gives equal value to old and new.

Two of Dublin City Council's civic improvement projects have won shortlisting for McGarry Ní Eanaigh. As its citation says, the reconfiguration of Smithfield as a "textured, cobbled space" lined by "super-scaled gas lamps" exerted a "muscular pull" in re-establishing the area and development quickly followed.

In truth, the 12 giant lighting masts topped by gas braziers have been swamped by the sheer scale of Horan Keogan Ryan's Fusano scheme on the west side of the piazza. There is also a redundant structure in the middle, which served briefly as a plug-in point for open-air concerts until local residents put an end to them.

The Liffey Boardwalk is praised as a project that "reinvigorates" the north quays, providing a place wide enough to walk and to sit out within "the space of the river", screened from all the traffic. But why was it thought necessary to compromise its clean lines by installing an over-sized gangway for the new Liffey waterbus?

Among new buildings in docklands, only the self-styled Millennium Tower at Charlotte Quay by O'Mahony Pike Architects has made the cut. What distinguishes it, according to the jury, is its responsive scale and form as well as "the disciplined, repetitive use of elegant pre-cast concrete cladding, which has weathered impeccably".

Last, but not least, among the shortlisted Dublin buildings is O'Donnell and Tuomey's Ranelagh Multi-denominational School, which is now to be extended.

"The interpretation of what a 'standard' eight-classroom school can be has produced a learning environment that clearly has an uplifting effect on both children and staff", the jury said.

The architects, whose Glucksman Gallery in Cork is shortlisted for the Stirling Prize, had "succinctly resolved the parameters of both the programme and a restricted site in a conservation area to come up with a building whose elegant massing and interwoven series of indoor and outdoor spaces . . . go far beyond the requirements of the brief".

The smallest "building" on the shortlist is Tulach a' tSolais, on Oulart Hill, near Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. Described by the jury as an "austerely beautiful memorial" to the 1798 Rebellion and the Enlightenment, it was designed by Ronald Tallon, of Scott Tallon Walker Architects, in collaboration with sculptor Michael Warren.

The jury for the RIAI Gold Medal consisted of Róisín Heneghan, Paul Kelly, Shane O'Toole and Mike Shanahan. All 10 shortlisted entries are on exhibition from today to November 10th at the RIAI, 8 Merrion Square. Details of the festival events can be obtained from www.lovingarchitecture.com.