Henry J Lyons work to the Irish Stock Exchange on Foster Place has unlocked an architecturally significant part of College Green by the design of a light-filled international digital trading hub that has brought together the dispersed activities of the Irish Stock Exchange.

Originally a guarded entrance to the Parliament House, the Palladian-fronted Armoury Building has been given a new life. The brief was to extend their existing home in the Miller & Synes’ six-bay Italianate Palazzo building fronting onto Anglesea Street (1878) and to link this with an older Armoury Building by Frances Johnson (1811) onto College Green. Both buildings had awkward additions and both were landlocked.Lightwells and a series of gardens now punctuate the whole, revealing new spatial connections between and within the existing historic fabric and providing innovative top-lite workspaces. Vertical and horizontal circulation radiate from a new atrium at the heart, in a project that demonstrates a commitment to the retrofitting of the city.

The new insertions are not shy: board-marked concrete alternates with timber panelling to add texture: high-level glazed roof structures bring light, while cantilevered glass balustrades topped by brass handrails bring a continuity between new and existing finishes.

The building is naturally ventilated and designed to LEED Gold standard. To achieve this, three small garden spaces have been incorporated for staff, each extensively planted to promote biodiversity. They offer either spectacular panoramas of the city or close-up views of the textured historic fabric- complete with bullet-marked parapets and statues (which shielded revolutionaries in 1916).
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