Those who take the N11 out of Dublin city centre will be familiar with Donnybrook Bus Garage. It sits on a key site, immediately to the south of the Dodder river. A further hundred metres brings you, on the opposite side of the road, to RTE’s grounds and you reach UCD’s campus in less than a kilometre.

The Bus garage is a most unusual looking building, especially the roof which is, according to online blurb for the annual architecture exposition Open House, a “barrel-vault structure.” It dates from 1952 and has rough plaster and contrasting smooth plaster bands designed by the celebrated artist Patrick Scott.

On another web page, we learn that it was the first building in the world to have a concrete shell roof lit by natural light from one end to the other. Each shell was poured in situ with large wooden moulds that were dismantled, and moved on to form the next one.