Clara Masterplan

Architecture Office Urban Agency Architects

Typology Masterplan

Location Clara, Ireland

Client Offaly County Council

Status Completed, 2023

Offaly County Council appointed Urban Agency to collaborate with the Town Team in developing a new vision for Clara. The process combined extensive background research with stakeholder engagement, public events, and surveys to capture the town’s needs and aspirations.

Grounded in a detailed context analysis, the plan proposed a range of strategic interventions to create a vibrant and connected town centre. These included enhancing the townscape with improved visual quality, connectivity, and a new civic plaza; activating the riverfront with a walk route, water sports facility, and active travel loop around Goodbody’s Reservoir; regenerating and reactivating key heritage buildings; improving accessibility through a local cycle network and the conversion of the historic railway line into a greenway; redeveloping a central site into a new neighbourhood quarter; and celebrating Clara’s industrial heritage at the Erry Mill site.

As part of the Urban Agency team, I contributed from the research phase through to the definition of the strategic masterplan, developing design solutions for selected intervention sites and producing the graphic representations featured in the final document coordinated by RMLA.