Talent Garden Coworking Campus, Dublin City University

Talent Garden, Europe’s largest co-working and digital innovation network, established its Irish base at DCU Alpha as part of Phase 1 of Dublin City University’s Capital Development Programme (2015–2021). MOLA Architecture, in association with COMMA, led the integrated design team for the adaptive reuse and conversion of the former National Standards Authority of Ireland testing laboratories -originally designed by Hooper & Mayne- into a 3,200sqm flexible co-working environment for 350 users. The project forms part of the transformation of the Glasnevin campus into a cluster for digital innovation and enterprise, complementing DCU’s research, incubation and industry engagement activities.

The architectural strategy retains the robust industrial character of the three-storey structure, exploiting generous floor-to-ceiling heights and glazed facades to accommodate open workspaces, enclosed offices, an Innovation School, events space, café and a variety of meeting and breakout rooms. New partitions provide legibility and coherence across floors, supporting a high degree of organisational flexibility and user turnover. The exterior was refreshed through a selective re-colouring of the façades, while the adjoining redundant water tower was repurposed as a public art marker by the artist collective Subset, reinforcing the new identity of the building.

Talent Garden exemplifies how adaptive reuse can support contemporary knowledge work while contributing to a larger innovation ecosystem on campus.