The new leisure centre in Ballyfermot, Dublin 10 provides a much needed and long sought after local community resource and social focus.  The project involved the construction of a leisure centre and a youth centre with a total area of approximately 7,400m2.  The leisure centre contains a 25m pool with moveable floor, sports hall, gym and changing areas, plant room and ancillary function rooms.  The youth centre contains a performance space, crèche, recording rooms and multi- function rooms.  The project also included the construction of six all-weather five-a-side football pitches.

Both Civil and Structural services were provided by PUNCH Consulting Engineers on the project. The services provided also included the provision of a Resident Engineer on behalf of the client for the duration of the main structural elements of the works. A close working relationship was developed with the Architect due to the highly detailed fair faced nature of the structure which was predominantly reinforced concrete with steel elements for the main roof structure.

The leisure centre has a number of special features such as a 5.0m cantilever canopy roof to the front elevation of the building and a sandstone faced gabion wall to the front of the all weather pitches.  Internally the first floor sports hall is designed as a concrete box with a 4m cantilever section over the reception area. The main roof structure of the sports hall has been expressed by use of deep steel rafters with tapered steel columns supported by the fair faced concrete walls.  The highly detailed finishes and overall success of this project have resulted in the project being awarded the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) “Best Leisure Building” Award for 2009.