Setanta Construction celebrate success of Dezeen award-winning project

Setanta Construction provided off-site constructed building enclosure components for The Richard Rogers’ Drawing Gallery situated in the grounds of Chateaux La Coste, Provence, in the south of France.

Designed by renowned international architects RSHP Architects, the project has been named Small Building of the Year in the Dezeen Architecture Awards. Organised by worldwide influential architecture and design website Dezeen, the awards are the benchmark for international design excellence and the ultimate accolade for architects and designers.

Accessed across a short bridge, and purposely taking in the amazing views of the Provence landscape, the 120-square-metre art gallery is almost entirely suspended with only four small footings touching the ground. Two pivot points were placed at the edge of the hillside, while two sets of tension rods tie the building to the ground to create the cantilever. The structure and form of the gallery, which contains one white room that ends with a full-height, full-width window, was derived from the desire to frame the view.

Mark Gribbin, director at Setanta Construction said: “This is a fantastic accolade for the project, and Setanta are delighted to have played a major part in its construction. We spent almost three months building and testing the inner frame components of the gallery here at our factory in Magherafelt before being transported to their location in Provence. Then, a few weeks onsite assembling before handing over to the next stage of the build.

"It was a real collaborative approach, and I would like to thank all business partners and industry experts involved in the design and build of this engineering masterpiece.”

The architecture master jury praised the remarkable engineering and level of execution required to complete the design saying: “This project is magical in its simplicity of thought and the complexity of its execution. The design concept behind it is very clear and has been translated to near perfection in the built form, which required an extraordinary feat of engineering."

The 11 project winners will now compete to be named the overall architecture project of the year winner, which will be revealed at the Dezeen Awards 2022 event in London on November 29.