The team at O’Brien’s are delighted to announce their success in the 2025 ALCI awards. In addition to receiving awards for each of their category entries, O’Brien’s beat off the competition to be awarded the coveted Best Commercial Landscape of 2025 for Project Fitzwilliam and the Excellent Employer Award. Speaking at the awards ceremony, Director, Barry Lupton said, “The quality of the entries captures how the landscape construction sector has developed and grown. Receiving the top awards for our work, and our commitment to everyone on the team, really mean a lot to us all,”.
Project Fitzwilliam is the most ambitious and complex landscape developments ever undertaken in Dublin. Spanning an entire city block and occupying 45,000 sqm, it included roof gardens, terraces, basement courtyard,300 trees and almost 30,000 plants. Commenting on his experience working with O’Briens during the project, lead Landscape Architect, Bernard Seymour said, “O’Brien’s are not cut from an ordinary template, they not only carefully scrutinize the contract drawings and documents, identifying problematic elements at an early stage, they also immerse themselves in the spirit of the project, developing a partnership to deliver the vision”. Having reviewed the project in detail, the head awards adjudicator had this to say, “A complicated project with so many areas to deliver on within the one site. A logistical challenge for O’Brien Landscapes to deliver and install the large volume of material to so many areas while working to a main contractor’s program which would rarely afford sufficient or appropriate time for works to be carried out. The delivery of the hard and soft elements on this exciting design has been carried out to an extremely high standard”.
Reflecting on the Excellent Employer Award, Managing Director, Ciaran O’Brien said, “We’re a family at heart. Yes, we have the systems, processes and mechanisms in place, and ensure we pay better than anyone else, but when you boil it down, we just care for each other. We have each other’s back through thick and thin”.
Also receiving awards were Coopers Cross Residential in the €500k – €1m commercial development category and the Meta data centre in the Excellence in Nature category. Having been involved with the data centre project since inception, project manager for the Client, Ben Plant had this to say, “Unlike other company’s I have worked with, O’Brien’s really pushed an environmental agenda. They consistently encouraged both the client and I, to think differently about it, and worked tirelessly to maximise the site’s potential, bringing in ecologists and other specialists to help guide their actions and support their proposals to the client”.
Commenting the Excellent Employer Award, the expert adjudicator, said “O’Brien Landscaping has demonstrated their outstanding commitment to creating a supportive and inclusive high-performing workforce built on over 60 years of experience. It is clear that O’Brien’s have created a company culture which is rooted in family values, as they champion employee wellbeing, continued professional development and upskilling of employees as well as internal career progression”.
We’d like to extend sincere thanks to our clients, site teams and everyone in the background from logistics to administration for their contribution to these amazing projects. Thanks also to the award adjudicators for taking on such a touch challenge.
Learn more about the Association of landscape Contractors if Ireland here.
