Marc O Riain is one of Ireland’s most senior Commercial Interior Architecture professions with over €167m of completed projects to date. He has won all the industry awards nationally and one international award as well as running a successful teams at O’Riordan Staehli Architects, Henry J Lyons Architects and RUA Architects in Cork.

 He has been involved in PhD research with the Cork Centre of Architectural Education in the topic of low energy retrofit. As part of the research he was the architectural lead researcher in Zero2020, an energy retrofit prototype based on a section of the 1967 RTC typology based in Cork. The prototype has achieved a performance in line with nZEB expected energy consumption (EPBD). The project won the IDI Design Sustainability Award in 2012. His most recent work on the Architecture Factory has won the IDI design grand prix and is a World Architecture Architizer A+ Finalist. Graduating from NCAD & UL in 1995 he has learned his trade in Galway, Dublin and Cork. 

His work spans the national and international Blue Chip companies, such as Amazon, Ernst & Young, Deloittes, Nortel Networks, Microsoft, TYCO, balanced with his public work on many hospitals, colleges and exhibition buildings. These have included the award winning Cork Maternity Hospital, St Johns Central College, Mansion House Cork, Cliffs of Moher Interpretive Centre, Zero2020 and Architecture Factory to name a few. Marc’s advocacy role has seen him as chairman of Cork Design Week, national IDI Education Board member of the IDI, Academic Councils of NCAD & CIT and founder of the Professional Accreditation for Interior Architects Ireland. Architecture Week.

 Marc is the incoming Prudent of the Institute of Designers in Ireland