Jack Coughlan Architects is an established multi-disciplinary architectural practice with offices in Cork City and Dunboyne, Co. Founded by Jack Coughlan in 1985 as an architectural practice producing contemporary designs, JCA has expanded to incorporate the disciplines of architectural conservation, retail and passive house design. The in-house expertise in all these areas allows JCA to provide full design and project management services from concept stage to completion. JCA is a vibrant practice with a broad skill base comprising architects, project managers, architectural conservation consultants, architectural technologists and graphic artists with supporting administration providing a comprehensive and rapid design and execution process. JCA is an award-winning RIAI Grade 1 Conservation Practice having developed a wide range of experience in various areas of conservation and provides an exceptionally high level of expertise within the practice. A fundamental first step is the understanding of the building. Once achieved, JCA can approach a design or intervention with confidence, based on many years of conservation experience in combination with the ethos of contemporary design that the practice is committed to. Indeed, JCA’s strength has been found to be a combination of conservation with a contemporary intervention. JCA projects establish the credibility of its design philosophy: contemporary, appropriate, sensitive, functional, sustainable and economical. Many of these criteria can only be fully tested by interaction with the end-user. As the client’s role has a major influence on the design outcome, the management of that relationship is critical. JCA has a very strong track record where, for an architectural practice, it has a significant repeat business. Retail is one area where JCA has established a strong client relationship over a decade, with repeat projects in Ireland, Germany, Holland, Austria and Belgium. This body of work has resulted in JCA building up a wide base of experience and expertise in the ever changing retail design field. Our work in Europe is undertaken in collaboration with local partners, design team colleagues, contractors and specialist sub-contractors and carried out by teams led by a Project Director who has hands on delivery of the project. JCA’s commitment to sustainability includes appropriate site planning, selection of Green Rated materials, careful design of the building envelope, passive and active energy conservation and generation, use of renewable energy sources, optimising natural ventilation and daylight, water conservation and harvesting, air tightness testing and thermal imaging of buildings.
