The new visitor centre is about communicating the values embodied in the Irish landscape with a building
that is embedded in its context physically and culturally.
The building is a geological fragment; a massive wall emerging from the coastal ridge to form a gateway, or
portal, to the Giant’s Causeway.

Like a solid rock that has been carved to create routes through and around its mass, the form is pierced with
long fissures to allow light and people to enter and flow.Providing two routes to the Causeway, both exterior and
interior, the new building will create the opportunity to reach the Causeway as a profoundly direct landscape
experience or as an intimate, interpretive journey through a series of narrative, sensory spaces.

An exterior ramp leads to a vast portal, which is both a balcony overlooking the coastal view to the south and a covered exterior space marking the route to the causeway. This direct external route to the Causeway will provide a 'pure' experience of the transition from the built landscape to the sublime, natural landscape of the coast and Causeway stones. In contrast, the building itself will provide a more intricate interpretive route.

In contrast to the rough basaltic stone exterior, interior of the new Centre have smooth surfaces that will reflect
and refract light across polished pigmented walls and floors. Enclosed rooms containing different functions will be painted with bright colours or lined various materials such as timber, linen or metallic leaf, creating different acoustic and tactile qualities. Light emerging from these lined spaces will tint the light reflected on the stone surfaces, while in the dark afternoons of winter the building's fissures will emanate mysterious coloured light over the landscape.

The roof of the new Visitor facility is a green, sedum ‘field’ and, like a wide leaf resting on the landscape, collects rainwater to fill storage tanks for greywater recycling. The building is an aid to restorin...