Welcoming Joe Sharkey – Lead Architect at Vico Group

We are delighted to welcome Joe Sharkey to Armstrong Planning as Lead Architect, heading up our in-house multidisciplinary design studio, Vico Group. Joe is a registered architect and member of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, and brings to the firm a depth of design and delivery experience that complements our planning, heritage and development advisory work.

A senior design lead for Vico Group

Vico Group is the design studio within Armstrong Planning. It brings architectural design, conservation expertise and visualisation capability together with our planning work, so that strategy and design are developed in close coordination from the outset. Joe’s appointment as Lead Architect gives the studio a senior design voice at the centre of every project – sitting alongside our planning, retail and heritage specialists, and shaping the design response from day one.

For our clients, that means faster iteration, fewer handoffs, and a design response shaped by the planning case from the start.

Track record on large-scale residential and commercial schemes

Joe has worked at Associate and senior project architect level with leading Irish architectural practices, including O’Mahony Pike Architects, John Duffy Design Group, ARC Architectural Consultants and Paul Keogh Architects. His recent work includes major residential and mixed-use schemes – Holy Cross College, Clonliffe Road, East Road, Hollystown Local Centre, Ard na Glais and Clancy Quay among them – with a track record of taking complex urban schemes from concept design through planning and into delivery.

That experience matters for the kind of work the firm is increasingly involved in: large residential, mixed-use and commercial schemes where the design response has to satisfy planning policy, urban-design scrutiny and the practical realities of delivery in parallel.

Bespoke house design, extensions and remodelling

Alongside the larger schemes, Joe brings a strong creative voice to bespoke, high-quality house design – new homes, extensions and the careful remodelling of existing dwellings. His work pairs a contemporary design sensibility with the careful handling that period homes need: confident, modern interventions where the brief calls for it, and a measured, conservation-aware touch where the existing fabric deserves to be led with.

For clients commissioning a one-off house, an extension or the sensitive remodelling of a period property, Joe’s appointment means access to senior design input from the outset – not just on the drawings, but on how the brief, the site, the planning context and the buildable detail all fit together.

Bringing it together

Joe’s appointment reflects how Armstrong Planning and Vico Group are set up to work: planning, design and conservation under one roof, in close coordination, with senior input on every project. We are looking forward to the work ahead.

If you would like to talk to Joe or the wider Vico Group team about a project – from a one-off house to a major mixed-use scheme – please get in touch.