Check out a quarter century of award-winning architecture in Northern Ireland
To mark the turning of the year – and the end of the first quarter of the 21st century (yikes) – the Royal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA) has put together its selection of the best buildings in this often overlooked part of the UK in the last 25 years.
Chosen projects range from celebrated tourist attractions, such as Titanic Belfast and the Giant’s Causeway visitor’s centre, to community and health facitilies and private homes. RSUA Director Ciarán Fox said, ”Undertaking the review has highlighted how important design competitions are to achieving excellence particularly in public buildings. Those competitions have become very rare in Northern Ireland in recent years. We will be working with government in 2026 to get design competitions back into the mix.”
Armagh Marketplace Theatre and Arts Centre
Architect: Glenn Howells Architects
Completion year: 2000
Location: Armagh
The modernist building, which replaced a cinema destroyed by a bomb, is made of five terraces of cast stone volumes that navigate the steeply sloping site of Market Square.
Batik Building
Architect: Twenty-Two Over Seven
Completion year: 2003
Location: Belfast
The Batik Building, designed by Twenty-Two Over Seven, was part of the redevelopment of the former Belfast Gasworks on the Ormeau Road. Surrounded by the restored Victorian architecture on the site, the building was recognised for its sensitive integration with Belfast’s industrial heritage.
Falls Road leisure centre
Architect: Kennedy Fitzgerald Architects
Completion year: 2005
Location: Belfast
Kennedy Fitzgerald Architects’ leisure centre on the Falls Road focused on glass, light and colour. Hailed as “a brave and deliberate break with Belfast’s siege mentality architecture”, the centre was the first in a string of award-winning projects in the Gaeltacht quarter Irish-language district of West Belfast.
Lyric Theatre
Architect: O’Donnell + Tuomey
Completion year: 2011
Location: Belfast
The Lyric Theatre in Belfast is one of only three Northern Irish buildings to have ever won Ireland’s top accolade for architecture, the RIAI Gold Medal. Designed by architects O’Donnell + Tuomey, who have since also picked up the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, the Lyric is admired for its material quality and integration into the constrained site between the red-brick terraced housing of Stranmillis and the River Lagan.
The MAC
Architect: Hackett Hall McKnight
Completion year: 2012
Location: Belfast
Belfast architects Hackett Hall McKnight won the commission for the new Metropolitan Arts Centre Belfast, “The MAC”, through an International Design Contest in 2007. The centre opened its doors in 2012, providing Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter with a new public space and acting as a beacon for the ongoing regeneration of Belfast.
Giant’s causeway visitor centre
Architect: Heneghan Peng
Completion year: 2012
Location: Bushmills
The centre is folded into the landscape surrounding Northern Ireland’s most iconic natural attraction. Much of the building is tucked beneath a grass-covered roof to retain the uninterrupted coastal views while its facades echo the hexagonal columns of the causeway itself.
Titanic Belfast
Architect: Eric Kuhne (Civic Arts) and TODD Architects
Completion year: 2012
Location: Belfast
Titanic Belfast was the centrepiece of the £97 million Titanic Quarter regeneration project. Civic Arts was responsible for the original design concept, while local practice TODD Architects worked alongside them to deliver the building located at the head of the slipway where RMS Titanic was built. With its four distinctive steel-plated wings, the centre has become Northern Ireland’s most visited paid tourist attraction, and an iconic Belfast landmark.
Killynure Green
Architect: Studio PDP
Completion year: 2015
Location: Carryduff
Studio PDP’s Killynure Green development in Carryduff exemplifies well-designed social housing in Northern Ireland.
Fallahogey House and Studio
Architect: McGarry Moon
Completion year: House completed in 2009 and studio in 2017
Location: Kilrea
Fallahogey house and studio both follow the forms of simple barns, with a series of fluid spaces within. Double-height windows create bright spaces that flow into the surrounding rural landscape.
St Bronagh’s Primary School
Architect: d-on architects
Completion year: 2017
Location: Rostrevor
The school’s restrained and structured design by d-on architects created a calm and airy learning environment, in a project that saw pupils heavily involved in co-design.
Omagh Hospital and Primary Care Complex
Architect: TODD Architects with Hall Black Douglas
Completion year: 2017
Location: Omagh
TODD Architects and Hall Black Douglas delivered a high-quality, modern facility that set new standards for healthcare architecture and service delivery. The complex building provides a holistic and welcoming environment for healing and brings acute, primary and community care together on one site in a way that was unique in NI and the UK.
House Lessans
Architect: McGonigle McGrath
Completion year: 2018
Location: Saintfield
This “dream home” in County Down, designed by McGonigle McGrath and built on the “tightest of budgets”, was named by RIBA as the UK’s House of the Year in 2019.
North West Transport Hub
Architect: Consarc Design Group
Completion year: 2020
Location: Derry
The North West Transport Hub in Derry-Londonderry was restored and reimagined by Consarc Design Group. By revitalising the once derelict 1873 Waterside railway station into a vibrant multimodal transport hub, the project not only preserves significant Victorian railway architecture but also supports sustainable travel, community use and regional connectivity in the North West.
Ulster University Belfast Campus
Architects: Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios with McAdam Design, Scott Tallon Walker & White Ink Architects
Completion year: 2023
Location: Belfast
The design team faced the challenge of fitting close to 300 learning spaces for some 15,000 students and staff into the site on the northern edge of Belfast’s city centre. The completed project is a city within a city and is estimated to have had a regeneration impact of £1.4 billion on the Northern Ireland economy.
Student hub, Queen’s Business School
Architect: TODD Architects
Completion year: 2023
Location: Belfast
The low-energy Queen’s Business School student hub by TODD Architects was designed to sit sensitively beside the historic Riddel Hall and mature woodland, offering a mix of teaching, study and social spaces reflecting students’ needs.
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