By Bobbie Dell'Aquilo

When architect Paul Dillon (B.S. ’92) developed the design for a drive-through restaurant in his native Galway, Ireland, he didn’t use the everyday menu of branded design elements that most food franchises serve up. Instead, he created a unique, modernist structure that attracted national attention—and the 2011 Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland award for best commercial/retail building. 

“This is a simple, robust, and local architectural response to an ordinary, everyday public building,” explains Dillon, who hopes his approach to design will help set a new standard for this type of commercial structure. 

“We’ve considered how this building might be used in 20, even 50 years from now, and we try to create buildings that are suitable for reuse,” he says, explaining his team’s approach to the project. “We try not to overdesign for one particular use. It could easily be fitted out as a more conventional restaurant or a retail unit.” 

Since roads surround the drive-through (pictured below), there is no real front or back to the stone, concrete, and glass structure. Hints of influence by Dillon’s favorite architect, Rudolph Schindler, are apparent in the angular two-story structure, which includes a first floor with a small shop and seating area, kitchen, and storage. The second floor contains most of the seating as well as a terrace and play area.

“Simple” and “robust” are the mantras he also used in his design of the 160,000-square-foot Briarhill Shopping Centre, which acts as a modern and imposing gateway to Galway from the east, and of Briarhill Business Park. The latter won Paul Dillon Architects one of five awards presented by the Architectural Association of Ireland in 2008—the first ever awarded to a Galway practice.

Dillon attributes some of his flexible approach to design to his days at NYIT’s Manhattan campus. He humorously recalls one project that tested his limits.

“I had to design and build a timber structure about 3 x 3 x 5 feet high and take it to the 10th floor of the Manhattan campus building, make a presentation, and then take it with me on the subway,” he says. “It was like carrying a large filing cabinet home.”

On a more serious note, Dillon says that early on at NYIT, he learned that architecture is a public and practical art. Design, his professors noted, needed to function in a real world while serving the needs of each client. “Today, I approach each project with a completely open mind and listen very, very carefully to my clients,” he says. 

At NYIT, Dillon says he was inspired and encouraged by his design studio instructor, professor Victor Dadras, and remembers the late Stewart Furman’s incredible understanding of the architecture of New York.

After he graduated, Dillon went on to graduate school in California and worked with Sigrid Miller Pollin at Siteworks in Los Angeles, eventually returning to Ireland to work for a small architecture firm. He opened Paul Dillon Architects in 1999 in an industry and country that saw a steep downturn over the next decade, particularly after the property bubble burst in 2008 when housing prices and property loan approvals dropped dramatically. “About 60 percent of all architects working in Ireland were made redundant in the space of a year or two, and in my own office, we went from a growing office of 10 employees to three,” he notes.

Dillon and his team have persevered, and are able to be selective about the projects they take on, experimenting with new designs. He also spends time with his wife, Connie, and their three young children in their Maam Valley home, where they rear sheep, go fishing, and grow their own fruits and vegetables. 

And, despite his youthful eagerness to leave Ireland to pursue his dreams, returning home and establishing his practice has been more than Dillon could have envisioned 25 years ago. 

“I left Ireland the day after finishing secondary school with a fearless sense of adventure and a childhood dream of becoming an architect,” he recalls.  “After my first week at NYIT-Manhattan, I felt sure I would be an architect with my own practice … I didn’t know where, I didn’t know when. I would never have dreamt that it would be back here in the Maam Valley, one of the most beautiful, tranquil places on Earth.” 

More Alumni Notes

Winter 2012 Table of Contents