Polaris Building, Dublin City University

DCU’s €80 million Polaris Building arrived in early 2025 with the quiet confidence of a building that knows exactly where it’s going. Named after the North Star and apparently just as reliable, it consolidated 3,000 students from four separate buildings into one meticulously organised hub, navigating supply chain chaos and hyperinflation along the way. Inside, an Immersive Visualisation Suite beams students into virtual collaboration with peers across the globe, while the Movement Lab applies data analytics to the decidedly analogue business of athletic performance.

Officially opened by Taoiseach Micheál Martin, the GLF-designed, JV Tierney-built structure is the kind of place where the lights know you’re coming before you do, thanks to Crestron smart systems managing everything from audiovisuals to ambience with clockwork precision. In a world increasingly convinced that education belongs on a laptop screen, DCU has responded by building something so thoroughly, triumphantly solid that it could only be described as a point well made in glass and steel.