The £12.2m refurbishment of Belfast’s Grand Opera House, a new-build home in Armargh that was inspired by the design of a nearby fort and a community farm in West Belfast are all in the running for Northern Ireland’s top architecture awards.

Consarc Design Group’s Opera House and Patrick Bradley’s Fort House are joined on the 10-strong shortlist for the Royal Society of Ulster Architects’ 2023 Design Awards by a striking new-build home near Belfast designed by McGonigle McGrath. The practice won the 2019 RIBA House of the Year Award with it’s £335,000 Lessans House project in County Down.

With a price tag of £120m, Avanti Architects and Kennedy Fitzgerald Architects’ Ulster Hospital Acute Services Block at Dundonald is at the upper end of the 2023 Design Awards shortlistlist in terms of cost.

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