Navigators will find Portlaoise at 53 degrees north and west seven and an architectural practice that has borrowed its name from these map references is helping to put the town on the map in its own way. Portlaoise is a traditional Irish town, with its mix of older buildings and logo-dressed shop fronts, that is being punctuated by glass and sculptural concrete structures emerging from Architecture 53Seven's office, based in the town. In the practice's latest project - a café and extension to a nightclub - the difference between old and new are there in the one premises. Standing on the high street you see, to the right, the existing Egan's restaurant front - whose multi-paned window could be a set for Dickens' A Christmas Carol - while on the left stainless steel signage frames a view into a sleek black and white cafe. Here z-shaped stools in the style of Rietveld's Zig-Zag chairs are lined up against a light concrete bar. This is the second eaterie by Jason O'Shaugnessy, head of Architecture 53Seven, whose practice began with a bang just a few months after he left Edinburgh University when he secured a commission to design Tullow Civic Centre in 2000.
