Education · Ireland
Trinity Business School
- Client
- Trinity College Dublin
- Main contractor
- JJ Rhatigan
- Architect
- Scott Tallon Walker Architects
- Location
- Pearse Street, Dublin 2
- Completed
- 2019–2022
- Sector
- Education
- Scope
- Bilingual external building identification plaques · Bilingual floor directories, levels -1 to 5 · Over-door room signs with room numbers · Donor and dedication plaques, including the bronze opening plaque · Replaceable panels for rooms that are renamed · Numbered identification for study pods
Trinity Business School carries two languages on every sign, and in many rooms the name of a donor as well. The system is read in Irish first, and built so that the names can be changed without rebuilding the sign.
Floor area
Storeys
Opened
Levels on the directory
Trinity Business School opened on Pearse Street in May 2019: 11,400 square metres across six storeys above ground and two below. Almost every room in it carries two names, one in Irish and one in English. A good number carry a third, the name of the person or company who paid for it.
Two languages, one grid
Under the Official Languages Act 2003 and the signage regulations made under it in 2008, a public body's signs must carry the Irish text first, in lettering no smaller and no less prominent than the English. Trinity is a public body, so this is a dimension, not a preference. On the level 2 directory the Irish sits above in gold and the English below in white, with a room number column to the right running from 517 at the top to B132 at the foot. Léachtlann Bhanc na hÉireann sits above Bank of Ireland Lecture Theatre. Every entry is set twice before a single room number is placed.
Names that change
The building is named through philanthropy: the KPMG Lecture Theatre, the Jones Engineering Lecture Theatre, the Class of 1980 Seminar Room, the Linders Family Seminar Room, the A & K Dargan Theatre, the R S Maharry Theatre, the Luce Atrium. Each of those exists in Irish as well, so a new gift means two new lines of type, not one. The room signs are held in frames, with the panel face replaceable without disturbing the fixing or the wall behind it. Wayfinders returned to the building after handover to change names and, later, to number the study pods.
A donor name is not a fixed thing. The signage has to be made to be edited.
Marking the day
The opening is recorded on a bronze plaque, 30 mm deep, set near the entrance: oscailte ag, opened by, An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, T.D., ar an 23 Bealtaine 2019, on 23rd May 2019. The production drawings set the lettering in Source Sans Pro Semibold, the same face that runs through the directories and the room signs, and specify rosy gold metal letters to the cladding alongside it. The plaque is the one sign in the building that will never need to change.
