Though a record 50,000 new homes were built throughout the State last year, only three housing projects feature among 29 winners of annual awards from the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland.
Mr Arthur Hickey, the institute's president, said the fact that most of this year's awards went to public buildings or commercial projects underlined the urgent need to raise design standards in the housing sector.
At the RIAI Regional Awards presentation in Dublin yesterday, he said the challenge was strongest in the area of speculatively built suburban estates, which account for a majority of Ireland's housing output.
The three housing winners - the Wooden Building in Temple Bar, an extension to a Victorian house in Dublin 8 and a weekend house in Connemara - demonstrated how good design could be applied to any context.
Mr Hickey said that the fact that so many buildings had won awards this year - the largest ever in the history of the Irish Architecture Awards - was itself a testament to the rising standard of building design in Ireland.
"What this year's awards show is that good building design is becoming more prevalent, not only in grand schemes such as Donegal County Council's District Offices in Dungloe, but also in smaller projects."
The awards were important because they created a goal for architects and their clients to aim for, he said. They also provided a platform for discussion on architecture and the built environment in a public forum.
Mr John Graby, the RIAI's director, said the aim of the awards was to communicate the range and quality of architects' work in any one year. No "building of the year" is selected because such judgments were for the future.
He explained that the evaluation of buildings of permanent quality is the function of the RIAI Triennial Awards, which are usually made five years after completion so that the projects can be judged in a mature setting.
Altogether, 204 projects - again, a record number - were submitted for consideration by the Regional Awards panel of assessors. Of these, 29 were selected for awards and a further 49 for inclusion in the annual exhibition.
The exhibition, which is sponsored by Roadstone, continues until July 11th at the Architecture Centre, 8 Merrion Square, Dublin, after which it will tour 20 venues in Ireland as well as London over the coming months.
A full report on the RIAI Regional Awards will appear in the Property supplement on Thursday.
