The proposed Service Station at the Charleville interchange will be in an ideal location situated midway between Dublin and Belfast on the M1 motorway. The service station is to be the first of its kind in Ireland and is to be based more on the European model featuring a budget hotel; retail outlets; fast-food restaurants in addition to the petrol station and associated facilites.

The brief for this off-line motorway service station evolved over a series of detailed discussions with Louth County Council and a survey of best practice in the Uk and Europe. The following was agreed upon prior to commencing the design process:

• A 2 storey service station building consisting of a shop/deli at ground floor level and at first floor level ancillary staff accommodation.

• A part 2 storey part 6 storey food court and budget hotel building consisting of at ground floor level a restaurant a fast food restaurant, 8 retail units of varying size, a tourist information /internet point and at first floor level 3 general purpose meeting rooms and a truckers lounge facility. A 51 Bedroom 4 storey Budget Hotel over ground floor with ancillary staff accommodation above.

• On site facilities to include a petrol filling station with a 12 pump forecourt, 2 HGV pumps and associated in line fuelling, 1 automatic car wash and 2 manually operated lance washes. 118 car parking spaces, 21 coach and lorry parking spaces and 2 landscaped picnic areas.

The core concept from the outset was that the proposed development would set a precedent for future service station developments, with very high quality Architecture and innovative design being the hallmark of the proposed development. It was the clients intention that the proposed development when finished would be a destination location with the impact being such that people will remember the location for the quality of the Architecture as well as the services provided. It is intended to be a state-of-the-art services location.

In our initial presentations to Louth County Council we proposed placing a number of pavilion type structures under a floating folded plate canopy type structure. In developing our proposals from this stage on we looked at some of the existing service station canopies in use through out Ireland. We felt that while these canopies were very basic and industrial in most cases they had some interest as they were very practical and provided shelter to the forecourts. We decided to use the basic form of these traditional canopies as the concept for the canopy structure in our proposed development.

The service station building has a split-level canopy with part of it forming the roof at the first floor level and part of it forming the roof to the forecourt. The canopy to the forecourt extends almost as far as the Food court building establishing a visual link. The roof to the main Food court building sits over the double height internal seating area and is expressed externally as a flat roof in the form of a roof canopy to match the service station building. This canopy type roof extends as far as the main entrance and forms an impressive double height covered entrance area.

The budget Hotel acts as ‘book-end’ to the whole development and acts as an entrance marker to the Food Court and Budget Hotel building but also as a location marker to the surrounding area. As there are no other service stations of this type in Ireland we felt that the proposal needed a level of scale and massing to give it a suitable presence. The applicant intends this service station to be the main stop off point for travellers between Belfast and Dublin and as such it would require a development of an appropriate scale to mirror the importance of this location.