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McDonnell + Dixon Architects

McDonnell + Dixon is an architecture practice with its head office in Dublin, Ireland. It is one of the oldest architecture practices in Ireland dating back to projects by Laurence Aloysius McDonnell in the 1880s and formalized in his establishment of the McDonnell + Dixon architectural practice in Dublin in 1917.

The firm have been responsible for some of Ireland landmark buildings including banks, hospitals, churches, civic offices, leisure facilities and social housing. They also expanded outside Ireland with a London office (since closed) and overseas projects in Asia and Africa. More recently McDonnell + Dixon have designed and project managed some of Ireland's leading health and fitness clubs and data centers with a particular focus on energy efficiency in data centers based on climate conditions, efficient energy production including the use of renewal energy, and the reuse of secondary energy for greenhouse food production and district business and residential heating.

The firm practice from 20 Ely Pace, Dublin 2 in Ireland.

Activities

McDonnell + Dixon are the architects for EcoLogic DataCentres the project data center in Co. Wicklow, Ireland. This infrastructure project uses a combination of energy technology principles to achieve a unique energy efficient nature for such a facility. This takes account of the suitability of Ireland's climate and recovers up to 25% of the cooling energy for local growing and district home and business heating projects. The data center will eventually cover 1,100,000 square feet and will generate up to 150 megawatts of rejected energy to be re-used to heat planned local Biodomes and to supply neighbouring villages and businesses. In addition CO2 produced from local energy generation will be pumped into the local biodomes for food production which will be used as carbon sinks that also produce oxygen as a byproduct. With the economies of scale, carbon neutral energy will be purchased on a scale virually unequalled proportions in data centre design and the goal is not just be carbon neutral - but to be carbon negative.

McDonnell + Dixon have designed and project managed some of the leading church construction and church conservation projects in Ireland. This includes the landmark Adelaide Road Church, from the early 90's till completion in 2002.

Notable Buildings
 * Munster and Leinster Bank in O Connell Street (then Sackville Street) in 1919,
 * 22/23 Henry Street Dublin in 1922
 * Dublin City Council Offices in Lord Edward Street (1927),
 * Art deco style of the Bank of Ireland in Belfast (1928),
 * Carrisbrook House, Northumberland Road, Dublin (1967)
 * Huguenot House on Saint Stephens Green (1997)
 * Crunch Fitness in Dun Laoghaire (2003)
 * EcoLogic world leading data center in Co. Wicklow (2013),

History

Laurence Aloysius McDonnell was described as 'a pupil in the office of an architect in this city' when his drawing of buildings on the Quay at Ilfracombe was reproduced in the Irish Builder on 1 December 1880. A sketch design for a high altar by him was published in the Irish Builder in 1884. His own practice his first appeared in Thom's Directory in 1887, with an address at 28 Pembroke Street Lower. Towards the end of 1910 McDonnell went into partnership with Alexander Reid, practising as McDonnell & Reid. This partnership ended on the outbreak of the First World War, when Reid enlisted. In 1917 McDonnell formed a new partnership with his assistant William A. Dixon under the name McDonnell & Dixon.

Dixon was in charge of the practice for some time before McDonnell's death in 1925 and ran it from the same premises for the rest of his career. In 1928 Joseph Vincent Downes joined the partnership; he remained with the practice, still officially called McDonnell & Dixon but also referred to as McDonnell, Dixon & Downes. During the 1930s and 1940s the firm did a considerable amount of hospital work and much housing, both public and commercial. It continued the relationship with the Munster & Leinster Bank, for which McDonnell had acted as architect from 1900. Dixon probably ceased to participate actively in 1964 or 1965, after which he no longer gave 20 Ely Place as his address, although he was listed among the partners as a consultant until the end of his life. In 2008 it donated a large archive of drawings to the Irish Architectural Archive (Acc. 2008/81).

Nigel Jones joined the practice in 19xx and continues as principal architect.

Notes

External links

McDonnell + Dixon official website Eco Logic Data Centers Archiseek – Irish Architecture