Madge’s Garden

Type: Public Work

Client: Dunnamaggin Development Group & Workhouse Union

Location: Dunnamaggin, Co. Kilkenny

Stage: On going

Architectural drawing of small outdoor structures with roofs, seating areas, and surrounding trees, with people walking and standing around.

Islander Architects were awarded the Town Ecologies co-design & community engagement programme. The context was the rural village of Dunnamaggin, Co. Kilkenny.

The culture of play is an innovative engagement method to provoke interesting conversations within community groups. We like to emphasise a creative & human approach to bring people, their stories & ideas together to make meaningful co-design projects.

Read more about Town Ecologies and watch the film here.

A person holding a colorful survey flyer with the title 'A Vision for Dunnamaggin, Have your Say'. The flyer features illustrations of houses and trees. Next to it are survey forms, pens, and a photograph of people planting trees, on a wooden surface.

adaptive reuse community project for a new arts centre in an old barn, regeneration project architects

Architectural site plan showing outdoor landscape, seating areas, trees, a building with multiple rooms, and pathways.

Following the community engagement workshops for Town Ecologies we conducted context analysis & designed a community led public space at the heart of Dunnamaggin.

Madge’s garden is designed to be flexible in order to accommodate; village markets, a play space, outdoor dining & a performance space.

Set of colorful abstract art prints with circles and triangles on Eames-style wooden easels, leaning against a textured white wall.

A detailed map of a residential area with roads, houses, and a blue highlighted section. It shows a creek running through the landscape, with directional labels pointing to nearby towns.

A grassy backyard with a beige house, a stone wall on the left, a wooden fence on the right, utility poles, and a partly cloudy sky above.

People gather outdoors near an old stone building with a sloped roof, surrounded by greenery and tall trees, participating in an event with colorful signboards on strings between sticks.

Our proposal for a community operated park, market space and the adaptive reuse of an existing barn for a new community arts centre has been granted planning permission.

The community has also been awarded substantial funding from the Town and Village Renewal Scheme to build the project.

An old stone building with a sloped roof, to be renovated to become public toilets

community led design project public launch

vernacular heritage building, conservation architects

Drawings: Islander Architects

Photography: Islander Architects

Funded by: Kilkenny LEADER & Town and Village Renewal Scheme