Hall McKnight

Hall McKnight (formerly Hackett Hall McKnight) is an architectural firm based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 2008 it won the Young Architect of the Year Award[1] sponsored by Building Design magazine and Autodesk.[2]

Exterior of the Belfast MAC (2012)
Interior of the Belfast MAC (2012)

Background

The firm was created in 2008 by Mark Hackett, Alastair Hall and Ian McKnight, and named Hackett Hall McKnight but renamed Hall McKnight after Mark Hackett retired in 2010.[3] Hackett went on to lead the Forum for Alternative Belfast.[4]

Rather than aim to create an 'Irish' architecture, Hall McKnight bases its work on what methods and skills the local construction industry can do well.[5] The company's first major public project was the Belfast MAC (Metropolitan Arts Centre),[6] which opened in 2012.[1] The six-storey building, located behind St Anne's Cathedral, includes two performance spaces and a tower clad in black basalt. The Telegraph described it as one of the "most stunning new British buildings of the century".[4] Expressing the idea of 'architecture as collage', the Belfast MAC was described by Architectural Review as "at once pragmatic and ambitious, perhaps even romantic in its trust in material, light, volume and the resolution of detail".[6] With extensive use of brick inside and out, the MAC won the 2012 Brick Award for Best Public Building.[7]

Hall McKnight won an international competition to redesign Copenhagen's Vartov Square. The square, formerly a carpark, was created with a grove of cherry trees and a variety of seating using concrete and granite.[8] Politiken described the square as over-detailed and "looking like a liquidation sale for a quarry".[8]

In January 2014 the company won the bid to design a £3.5 million tower to be built in front of the town hall in the centre of Ipswich, Suffolk.[9]

References
  1. "Belfast's new arts venue the MAC prepares to open". BBC News. 19 April 2012. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  2. "Belfast's new arts venue the MAC prepares to open". e-architect. 16 October 2008. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  3. "Hall McKnight: Practice". Hall McKnight. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  4. Ellis Woodman (25 April 2012). "Belfast: rising from the ruin of the Troubles". The Telegraph. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  5. Lappin, Sarah A. (2009), Full Irish: New Architecture in Ireland, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, p. 3, ISBN 978-1-56898-868-9
  6. Raymund Ryan (24 April 2012). "Belfast's Metropolitan Arts Centre By Hackett Hall McKnight". Architectural Review. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  7. "Belfast's Answer To The Tate Modern: The MAC". Brick Development Association. November 2012. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  8. Karsten R.S. Ifversen (8 December 2012). "En hulens masse irske sten risikerer at få to hjerter". Politiken (in Danish). Copenhagen.
  9. "Winning Ipswich Cornhill design announced". BBC News. 15 January 2014. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
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