There's a lot happening at the corner of Berkeley Road and North Circular Road, on Dublin's northside, both in terms of construction and commotion. Traffic roars along the ring road and the pavements are busy with pedestrians. To one side is the vast neo-Classical Mater Hospital and on the other is the interminable orange wall that is Mountjoy Women's Prison. Sitting on this corner is a quiet building, simply shaped, with a flat roof, that is to house some of the Sisters of Mercy nuns who recently moved out of the Mater hospital building, which they founded. The new convent is by MCO Architects, which was established by Laura Magahy and Eve-Anne Cullinan. They were already running MCO Projects (a development management company) and were previously directors of the Temple Bar urban renewal project. One guiding ethos of the practice, which is headed up by architect Phillip Crowe, is sustainability, says Magahy (as it is with many other Irish architects, not least because EU law will require it) and that is something that the Sisters of Mercy share. "We are very concerned with conservation and all aspects of energy efficiency," says Sister Margherita, who worked with the architects on behalf of those who use the building.
