This Teagasc Oakpark Project incorporated Campus-Masterplanning, the delivery of Teagasc National H.Q.; Laboratories, & Research Facilities, on the live, operational, campus site.
Teagasc is the National Organisation for Agriculture and Food Development Authority, including production, research, advice, and education. CJFA masterplanned the Teagasc Oakpark campus, which is an International Research and Training Facility in Genetically Modified Foods, Gene Expression & Genetic Transformation Crop Research, and Bio-Energy fuel sources; while the campus also includes Teagasc’s National Headquarters. The Masterplan is designed to integrates the entire 344ha campus which was previously fragmented, and which contains eight Protected Structures of National Importance.
The initial Masterplanned included a new Teagasc National H.Q. At the time, a complex arrangement was presented, as Teagasc had sold its former H.Q. building in Dublin, meaning that decentralisation to the Oak Park campus pressured for a speedy delivery of project progression – however, this was carefully and thoroughly handled by the CJFA-led Architectural Design Team, enabling works for appropriate and sensitive temporary and permanent relocation of Laboratories, Offices, etc. into existing buildings (which required rapid upgrading, alterations, and extensions) coupled with the construction of Ireland’s first large scale Genetic Transformation Crop Research Complex, Class 3 Laboratories, and controlled growth environment, hi-tech green house – this proved to be a tremendous success.
Following the construction of the new facilities, the use of food for Bio-Innovation, and fuel products, as a result of the Kyoto Agreement accelerated research in the field of agriculture, and subsequent cereal research, and Bio-Fuel Laboratory Buildings were constructed in a combination on the entire live campus. The G.M. Project, of International standards, was heavily researched by CJFA in preparation – including visits to research facilities in the U.K., U.S.A., with Teagasc personnel – for the delivery of the first of its kind in Ireland. The G.M. Laboratory Facility provides research in Eco-Innovation, Commercial Pharmaceutical Research, and Molecular Bio-Technology in plants. The facilities provide a wide range of laboratories and associated offices for scientists, research technicians, and post-grad research.
