September 29, 2009
Shih-Fu Peng (B.Arch. ’89) and Roisin Heneghan of the Dublin-based firm Heneghan Peng Architects were awarded their fourth World Heritage Site when they won a competition to design the new school of architecture for the University of Greenwich, London.
A field of more than 70 firms competed to design the 17,000-square-meter space that will include the university’s library. The expected completion date for the £60 million project is the 2013–2014 academic year.
This triumph follows closely to the team’s recent winning entry to design a bridge to span the Rhine River in the Middle Rhine Valley in Germany. The competition’s jury praised the winning design’s S-shaped ground plan as "an elegant building, which blends harmoniously into the river landscape."
In 2002, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated the 65-kilometer stretch of the Middle Rhine Valley where the Mittelrheinbruecke Bridge will be built as a World Heritage site. The Middle Rhine Valley is home to many historic towns and has influenced writers, artists, and composers for centuries.
Heneghan and Peng have won two other competitions involving World Heritage sites. In 2003 they were chosen to design the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo and in 2005 they were again the winners in a competition to design the Giants Causeway Visitor Centre in Northern Ireland.
Another current project is a design for a footbridge at the center of the 2012 Olympic park. The team, working with engineer Adams Kara Taylor, trumped a field of 46 other entrants to win this competition.
