The location of the Mayfair building at a primary entrance to the Abbey Quarter requires a design of distinction especially on the south-east façade which is within the viewing fields of Parliament Street, St Francis Abbey and the Brewhouse. It is desirable that the design reflects the character of Kilkenny architecture rather than a global architecture. In the Kilkenny City Environs & Development Plan 2014-2020 emphasis is put on the preservation of the special character of the city centre area. This building has a façade on Parliament Street and is thus intimately linked to the City Centre Architectural Conservation Area.
Section 4.6: Materiality:
An Taisce acknowledge the value of retaining much of the material of the existing building but we express concern that the proposed louvre façade, possibly in multicoloured ceramic baguettes, on the south east facade of the flat roofed section is out of place. It bears no relationship to the traditional architecture of Kilkenny and represents a globalization of architecture without reference to local character. The use of ceramic louvers in other cities as in Canada, Germany and Denmark are in modernist settings, and the colourful ceramic facades of buildings in the Iberian peninsula suit a different light environment. Ceramic baguettes, while attention seeking, do not constitute sustainable architecture and become very dated.
A cohesive south-east façade on the Mayfair building could be achieved by reconstruction of this disjointed facade, redesign of the fenestration, and use of traditional building materials such as stone, as in the Carnegie library, or decorative brick as in Talbot’s Inch Village, or a modern recessed brick design with some colour reference to the Brewhouse. While the architecture of this mid 19th century building is not significant some reference to a façade from this period would not be out of place in Kilkenny.