Church of St George and St Thomas

Abstract: A vibrant inner city parish needed space for meetings, language classes, children’s play and other support accommodation as well as a clearer link between the interior of the listed church and the space outside.

The project builds itself about the entrance to the church. The form is manipulated such that the intervention recedes from those entering the church, drawing them into the plan before becoming readable as an addition. The resultant poché between this entrance sequence and the fabric of the church is hollowed out to provide the required accommodation. These rooms are insulated and lined in cork to allow for their use separate to the main body of the church. With budget at a premium the construction methodology was developed from an analysis of traditional Irish boat building techniques, which allowed the use of the solid timber to act as the primary structure with no additional material support.

Constructed in solid walnut the intervention reads with the existing brick interior and yet is clearly identifiable as a contemporary addition.

Aims / Objectives Questions

1 To accommodate new space inside an existing protected structure.
2 To form a new threshold between interior and exterior.
3 To develop an affordable means of construction that would be durable and rapid to erect.
4 To make a contemporary addition in sympathy with the qualities of the existing protect structure, in line with best conservation practice and research.
5 Traditional forms of construction as a model for contemporary technologies.

Additional Accommodation Church of St George and St Thomas

A vibrant inner city parish needed space for meetings, language classes, children’s play and other support accommodation as well as a clearer link between the interior of the listed church and the space outside.

The project builds itself about the entrance to the church. The form is manipulated such that the intervention recedes from those entering the church, drawing them into the plan before becoming readable as an addition. The resultant poché between this entrance sequence and the fabric of the church is hollowed out to provide the required accommodation. These rooms are insulated and lined in cork to allow for their use separate to the main body of the church. With budget at a premium the construction methodology was developed from an analysis of traditional Irish boat building techniques, which allowed the use of the solid timber to act as the primary structure with no additional material support.

Constructed in solid walnut the intervention reads with the existing brick interior and yet is clearly identifiable as a contemporary addition.

Aims / Objectives Questions

1 To accommodate new space inside an existing protected structure.
2 To form a new threshold between interior and exterior.
3 To develop an affordable means of construction that would be durable and rapid to erect.
4 To make a contemporary addition in sympathy with the qualities of the existing protect structure, in line with best conservation practice and research.
5 Traditional forms of construction as a model for contemporary technologies.


Principal Investigator: Clancy Moore Architects –Colm Moore

Co-investigator(s): Andrew Clancy, Mathew O’Malley

Funding partner/ Client: Select Vestry of St George and St Thomas

Finance. €35’000

Date (start – finished) Start June 2008 – Completed December 2008

A Damascene Conversion:Additional Accommodation Church of St George and St Thomas

Additional Accommodation Church of St George and St Thomas - Critical Appraisal ‘A Damascene Conversion’ by Shane O’Toole in The Sunday Times December 2008.

Altered cofactor binding affects stability and activity of human UDP-galactose 4′-epimerase: Implications for type III galactosemia

Deficiency of UDP-galactose 4'-epimerase is implicated in type III galactosemia. Two variants, p.K161N-hGALE and p.D175N-hGALE, have been previously found in combination with other alleles in patients with a mild form of the disease. Both variants were studied in vivo and in vitro and showed different levels of impairment. p.K161N-hGALE was severely impaired with substantially reduced enzymatic activity, increased thermal stability, reduced cofactor binding and no ability to rescue the galactose-sensitivity of gal10-null yeast. Interestingly p.K161N-hGALE showed less impairment of activity with UDP-N-acetylgalactosamine in comparison to UDP-galactose. Differential scanning fluorimetry revealed that p.K161N-hGALE was more stable than the wild-type protein and only changed stability in the presence of UDP-N-acetylglucosamine and NAD(+). p.D175N-hGALE essentially rescued the galactose-sensitivity of gal10-null yeast, was less stable than the wild-type protein but showed increased stability in the presence of substrates and cofactor. We postulate that p.K161N-hGALE causes its effects by abolishing an important interaction between the protein and the cofactor, whereas p.D175N-hGALE is predicted to remove a stabilizing salt bridge between the ends of two a-helices that contain residues that interact with NAD(+). These results suggest that the cofactor binding is dynamic and that its loss results in significant structural changes that may be important in disease causation.