{"id":604636,"date":"2026-05-26T11:10:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T11:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604636\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T11:10:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T11:10:19","slug":"irish-architect-niall-mclaughlin-home-is-home-but-moving-to-london-felt-like-home-in-a-different-kind-of-way-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604636\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish architect N\u00edall McLaughlin: \u2018Home is home, but moving to London felt like home in a different kind of way\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

N\u00edall McLaughlin<\/a> has been revisiting one of his buildings, a quarter of a century on. Jacob\u2019s Ladder was built in woodlands, in the Chilterns area of southern England. Its most recent owners wanted some changes. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe new client said to me: \u2018We feel, when we looked at this house, that it had been designed by a juvenile spirit.\u2019\u201d McLaughlin pauses with a wry smile. \u201cAnd then they looked at me slightly sideways and said: \u2018Do you think you could recover that?\u2019 So,\u201d he continues, \u201cI have been recovering my juvenile self. It\u2019s good fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Irish architects are increasingly lauded. There are Grafton<\/a>\u2019s Versailles, Stirling and Pritzker prizes; O\u2019Donnell+Tuomey<\/a>\u2019s design of an entire new quarter in London; and Heneghan Peng<\/a>\u2019s inclusion this year in Time magazine\u2019s 100 Most Influential Companies of 2026<\/a>. <\/p>\n

And then there is N\u00edall McLaughlin Architects<\/a>. That whisper of fun is the aspect less frequently mentioned in all the accolades and awards the Dublin-born designer has won since he graduated from University College Dublin, in 1984. <\/p>\n

As well as being elected to Aosd\u00e1na<\/a>, he has exhibited at Venice Architecture Biennale, won the Stirling Prize, been given an honorary MBE and, most recently, added the Royal Gold Medal, the UK\u2019s highest architectural honour, to the list.<\/p>\n

From a clutch of Oxbridge university buildings to churches and convents, and from individual homes to larger housing projects, McLaughlin\u2019s buildings are beautiful, often with a quality to the light that touches on the spiritual.<\/p>\n

Now based in London, the architect has been a thought leader in sustainability, bringing an understanding of site to his work that makes you see the place rather than just the building that\u2019s in it. Then there is that whisper of irreverence (despite the churches and convents), but perhaps the real genius of McLaughlin\u2019s work is that he is hugely curious and caring about people. You might call it humanity.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften, when I\u2019m feeling a bit out of sorts with architecture,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019ll get on my bike or the Tube and go down there. I\u2019ll sit in the playground outside the housing block.\u201d <\/p>\n

He\u2019s talking about Peabody Whitechapel, the social-housing project his firm completed in east London<\/a>, for which he was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2015. He didn\u2019t win that year, but if he had it would have been the first time in the award\u2019s history that social housing was so recognised.<\/p>\n

\"NíallN\u00edall McLaughlin Architects: Jacob\u2019s Ladder. Photograph: Nick Kane \"NíallN\u00edall McLaughlin Architects: Peabody Whitechapel. Photograph: Nick Kane \"NíallN\u00edall McLaughlin Architects: residents at Peabody Whitechapel. Photograph: Nick Kane <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an old Afghan man,\u201d McLaughlin continues. \u201cHe sits there, leaning on his walking stick, and I\u2019ll sit beside him. We\u2019ll watch the kids playing, and people go in and out. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the sort of building that just completely disappears when you build it. Nobody sees it as exceptional or different. It\u2019s just part of the background to the city. But you have people coming and going, and there are the simple decisions you made, which are almost nothing to do with what people think of as architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

He describes parents\u2019 ability to see their children playing as they prepare food; daylight in the circulation areas; natural ventilation in the bathrooms, \u201cthose quite ordinary things. It\u2019s very different from the high-profile, ultra-bespoke thing, but it\u2019s almost more fulfilling in a way.\u201d <\/p>\n

Delving into the history of the area, McLaughlin discovered waves of immigration and industry over time. French Huguenots, Irish, Bangladeshi. In 1936 the \u201cbattle of Cable Street\u201d saw the Irish and Jewish populations together standing up to the National Front, halting the march of Oswald Mosley\u2019s British Union of Fascists. \u201cAll this happened on our site.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cities can play a powerful role in welcoming newcomers to a country, giving them space to settle, find community, find work. \u201cPeople don\u2019t understand the way that architecture can facilitate that sense of settling and belonging, connection and becoming a citizen,\u201d McLaughlin says. \u201cOften, I call it the kind of carbohydrate of the city. It\u2019s just there quietly, doing its work.\u201d <\/p>\n

Get the molecules and bonds right, he says, and they allow for communal and public lives that enable people to live well. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m interested in that aspect of architecture, which is almost below the threshold of our conscious thinking but which allows us to thrive if it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

This idea of invisible architecture has also led to a series of sensitive commissions. Completed in 2009, and winner of an Architectural Association of Ireland award, McLaughlin\u2019s Orchard Respite Centre is set in an old walled garden in south Co Dublin<\/a>. Commissioned by the Alzheimer Society of Ireland<\/a>, its series of interconnected spaces incorporate gardens and courtyards while pathways loop back, \u201calways returning a person home again\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"NíallN\u00edall McLaughlin Architects: Orchard Respite Centre, in south Co Dublin. Photograph: Nick Kane \"NíallN\u00edall McLaughlin Architects: the recently announced Museum of Jesus\u2019s Baptism, in Jordan <\/p>\n

A Maggie\u2019s centre in Cambridge, to support people living with cancer, has recently received planning approval, while one of McLaughlin\u2019s latest projects is the recently announced Museum of Jesus\u2019s Baptism in Jordan, scheduled to open in 2030.<\/p>\n

The Alzheimer\u2019s respite centre, designed for people with cognitive impairment, brought challenges. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing I have to understand is how other people are going to experience that building \u2013 or else what am I doing?\u201d he asks. \u201cThe difficulty with dementia<\/a> is you can\u2019t really get a realistic picture of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cFull disclosure,\u201d he continues. \u201cThere were things we intuited that we got wrong.\u201d <\/p>\n

McLaughlin may look like the quintessential architect, down to the black clothes and black-framed glasses, but it is only later I realise I have never heard anyone else in his profession admit having erred.<\/p>\n

An exploration of the project and its lessons was at the heart of McLaughlin\u2019s Losing Myself installation, representing Ireland at Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016; you can see the results online, at losingmyself.ie<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He recalls the chief executive of the Alzheimer society at the time, Maurice O\u2019Connell, saying, \u201cThis is our first prototype building, and when it\u2019s finished we\u2019ll have the building, and we\u2019ll have our mistakes, and both of them are forms of information.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought,\u201d the architect says, \u201cthat was a very pure way of putting it.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaughlin was born in Geneva in 1962. \u201cMy dad was with Unesco and my mum was a teacher.\u201d Growing up in Kilternan, near the Wicklow Mountains, he had a childhood of a kind that few Irish kids today could hope for, although returning recently has been a disorientating experience. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to find the old road up through Balally to Sandyford, and it\u2019s 1779793815 these huge highways. We were so lucky,\u201d he says. \u201cYou could go at the end of the back garden, over the wall, through Richardson\u2019s fields and you\u2019d be up to the Three Rock.\u201d <\/p>\n

His mother would hang a red blanket out of the window when it was time to come home. <\/p>\n

\u201cOtherwise we were just free to roam. It was very privileged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Architecture hadn\u2019t been McLauglin\u2019s first choice of career. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I remember being consciously aware of it was the summer I put it down on my CAO form. It was, I think, my 10th choice.\u201d <\/p>\n

He recalls that while swithering all summer, as he puts it, he walked through Trinity College Dublin late one rainy night and looked up at what is now the Eavan Boland Library, by Ahrends, Burton and Koralek.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t quite tell you even now what I felt, but it was a deeply fascinating and mysterious thing. There was something about it, and I began to notice buildings a bit more. And I suddenly thought, almost on a kind of turn, that I would try to do it. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t study it in school,\u201d he continues. \u201cSo it\u2019s not brought to your attention in any overt way. It\u2019s just sort of there all the time. So to have it as a subject of study, and to find that it unpacks these incredible worlds, I was so lucky.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"NíallN\u00edall McLaughlin Architects: the designer with his fellow directors <\/p>\n

After graduating, McLaughlin got a job with Scott Tallon Walker, but it was a depressed period in Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say 90 per cent of our class went away somewhere. By staying at home you almost felt left out.\u201d<\/p>\n

London came about by accident.<\/p>\n

\u201cScott\u2019s was an amazing company. I worked directly with Ronnie Tallon<\/a>. I think he\u2019s the best architect Ireland ever had. But I somehow felt I had to go and try other things.\u201d <\/p>\n

With the goal of working in the United States, McLaughlin stopped off in London to do contract work. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve anything like that in your life, that one day you turned left when you could have turned right, and then everything was different afterwards?\u201d he asks. <\/p>\n

His Sliding Doors moment was the French House<\/a>, a small bar in Soho, in central London, where he ran into Tom Gray, a former classmate, who happened to have a spare room. That was 1988. He planned to stay for a few months but remained, setting up his own practice in the city in 1990. \u201cI think I left Portobello Road\u201d \u2013 where Gray lived \u2013 \u201cin 2012,\u201d he says. His Irish accent hasn\u2019t left him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a funny thing, a strong thing in my life. For the first time, I met a group of people \u2013 I completely got them, and they completely got me. Home is home, but this felt like home in a different kind of way. I was hanging out with a bunch of musicians, photographers, writers, really thoughtful people living in this really easy, enjoyable way. It felt like an absolute paradise.\u201d <\/p>\n

McLaughlin was invited to speak at an event for the Irish diaspora, under the heading We Made London. \u201cAnd I turned it around and said: \u2018London made me …\u2019 I\u2019m incredibly grateful for what this society has given me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite all the accolades, his practice remains deliberately small. This \u201cis a bit of a challenge, because I\u2019ve got two competing instincts. One of them is to keep my practice small, and the other is to do everything I can to maintain and nurture the staff that I have, allowing that development and growth within the practice without growing it into a bigger organisation. It\u2019s a significant challenge. We\u2019ve managed so far.\u201d <\/p>\n

McLaughlin and his team are based above an Aldi on Camden High Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe office at the moment is like a building site,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

It is also an epicentre for a broad church of belief systems. The team are working for a new Shia Muslim burial ground and, with a group of Sunnis, for the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing work on a synagogue. We\u2019ve done an Anglican church. We\u2019ve done a theological college, and now we\u2019re doing a cathedral in Sydney and a multi-faith prayer space in Toronto. Architecture,\u201d he says, \u201cis a real education in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NíallN\u00edall McLaughlin Architects: the Carmelite prayer room in Dublin. Photograph: Alice Clancy \"NiallNiall McLaughlin Architects: a preliminary impression of the Hornsby cathedral precinct redevelopment, in Sydney <\/p>\n

With such a roster of projects, where does McLaughlin\u2019s own spirituality sit? <\/p>\n

\u201cI was recalling yesterday something that my mother said to me. She was a profoundly religious person, and she always said: \u2018There\u2019s no point in having a conversation about: do you believe this? Do you believe that?\u2019 She said: \u2018What I notice is that you need to put yourself into situations where you\u2019re open to the dimension of the sacred.\u2019 And we live in a world that closes us off all the time.\u201d <\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s the thing. Whether they\u2019re houses or housing, libraries, museums, centres for care or sites for devotion, N\u00edall McLaughlin Architects\u2019 buildings create space for things, imaginations and lives to open up once more.<\/p>\n

Immersion, N\u00edall McLaughlin\u2019s Royal Gold Medal exhibition, is at Riba North<\/a>, in Liverpool, until Sunday, June 7th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"N\u00edall McLaughlin has been revisiting one of his buildings, a quarter of a century on. Jacob\u2019s Ladder was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,74920,388,148791,206196,56,54,55,68469],"class_list":["post-604636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-irish-abroad","tag-london","tag-niall-mclaughlin","tag-ronnie-tallon","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wicklow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}