It Faced stiff competition from some of the best buildings in the country, but Limerick’s redeveloped Milk Market has won the public’s vote in this year’s Irish Architecture Awards.
Among the buildings which competed against the oldest market in the country was the Aviva stadium in Dublin.
But the market won by a mile, scooping 33.34 per cent of the thousands of votes cast.
The Milk Market was one of two local architecture projects among 38 projects shortlisted for this year’s Irish Architecture Awards.
The award is another coup for Limerick practice Healy & Partners architects, which was behind the €2m redesign which helped transform the market into an all-weather structure.
The redevelopment involved erecting a 1.8 tonne, half acre canopy over the market and the market now trades for four days a week, rather than just on Saturdays as it was prior to the refit in June 2010.
Voting closed on Sunday night, with some 10,000 entries received from the public, and an awards ceremony was held in Dublin this Monday night to congratulate all the winners.
Social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook helped propel the famous Limerick market to win the top prize.
This is the second time the Milk Market has won an award for Healy & Partners, after winning the Opus Building of the Year award last year, when it was praised as a “significant urban intervention that can be a catalyst for regeneration in Limerick’s old Milk Market area”.
The Limerick Chamber of Commerce congratulated the market on this “fantastic achievement.”
The other Limerick property was a ‘zero waste’ house in the city, designed by Nenagh based O’Neill Architecture, who used recycled products in the design of the house.
In total 134 entries were received across 15 categories including emerging practice, public building, health and leisure.