A Dublin architecture partnership has won a prestigious competition to design a visitors' centre at the Giant's Causeway in Co Antrim.
Róisín Heneghan of Heneghan Peng Architects was congratulated yesterday at Stormont by Northern Secretary Peter Hain, and awarded a £10,000 (€14,500) prize. He said the "stunning" design would enhance the experience by Irish and international visitors to Northern Ireland's only World Heritage Site and would help realise the area's full tourism potential.
The 60 million-year-old Giant's Causeway already attracts some 400,000 visitors a year. They used to be facilitated at a visitors' centre until it was destroyed by fire in 2000.
Ms Heneghan's design beat off some 200 competitors, mostly from outside Ireland and Britain who submitted entries. Heneghan Peng has also won design bids for the Grand Museum of Egypt, civic offices for Kildare County Council and the Carlisle pier in Dún Laoghaire.
The judges sought "appropriateness of the concept and architectural expression" in relation to the Causeway, as well as "emotional power of the architectural imagery" and "spiritual and poetic content".
The new £12 million (€17.4 million) centre and car park are designed to merge with the landscape and not to detract from the Causeway's unique hexagonal basalt columns.
"The project was designed around the walk up to the Giant's Causeway itself," said Ms Heneghan. The visitors' centre was "not the destination", she added, "so we organised it so that the building never rises above the ridgeline." Local materials are to be used in the building and the car park is to be partly concealed.
Although considerable earthworks will be required, the judges particularly admired the design which necessitates "no visual or physical disturbance to the very important horizon line" near the causeway.
The walls will be glazed while the low roof will be grass covered, making the design blend in with the environment.
"The silence and emptiness evoked by the horizontal and rising lines created an air of expectation," the judges said, and "created a special emotional impact".
Mr Hain congratulated the bodies involved in the project, including Moyle District Council, the National Trust and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board.
Tourist board chairman Tom McGrath said the new facilities would be acclaimed by local and international visitors alike.
Hillary McGrady of the National Trust said: "The design is not trying to compete with the main attraction which is the Giant's Causeway itself. This is a centre which should enhance and support a World Heritage Site for the visitor. It will boost visitors' experiences right along the north coast which is important too."
SDLP Assembly member Seán Farren also praised the winning design.
A second competition is under way to choose an interpretive designer to fit-out the interpretive and education areas of the new facilities. Results should be known by the end of this year.