Kathleen Clarke Place, Poplar Row, Dublin 3

Approach

Kathleen Clarke Place provides 29 Older Person's Dwellings on an urban infill site on Poplar Row in Ballybough. The scheme is located approximately 100 metres from Ballybough village, Fairview park and the neighbourhood centre along North Strand Road. 

At inception and design stage, detailed studies were carried out which included its unique setting, tenant requirements, surrounding uses, neighbourhood centres, access to public transport, historic research/analysis, and community consultations. These ensured that an appropriate design response was delivered in keeping with the existing streetscape and surroundings, delivering an exemplary older person's scheme for Oaklee's tenants. 

Each apartment is dual aspect, with own door access from a central core. A generous south facing private open space is connected to apartment living areas, these overlook a south facing communal garden area, which consists of both soft and hard landscaped zones, with bench's for residents to use and meet. The mix of apartment types were specifically developed for this site, based on the age profile and older person's requirements, of 1 and 2 bed dwellings. 

The provision of older person's dwellings increased the mix of housing options in the area and supported DCC tenants to move from larger family homes.

Outcome

By developing an Older Person's scheme in a city centre community, Oaklee have supported DCC tenants to transfer from older, costly to heat family homes to energy efficient new build apartments. This protects our tenants against fuel poverty by providing substantially reduced energy bills while making larger units available to others in the community on the social housing waiting list.