IRELAND AS IMAGE

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Mariella Hirschoff, Naiara Mares, Bianca Wilson

Kenneth MacKay

Summer 2022

Study Abroad, Ireland

BS Arch, MArch

How can we translate visual observations into tangible representations of our experiences? The Ireland Study Abroad program invited students to reflect on how Ireland is perceived as both landscape and urban form. Each day students explored rolling landscapes, seaside towns, and bustling cities daily. They observed the lighting conditions, urban forms, and landscape environments unique to each context. Through the design studio and parallel seminars, students cataloged their observations through carefully composed photographs, fast and loose sketches, and digital and analog collages.

Digital Collages

The students worked on design proposals for a series of three small art galleries. These galleries would be a new location to house the Book of Kells, a preserved illuminated manuscript and an essential piece of Irish history. The program brief required students to design according to a four-square grid; a space for viewing the manuscript, a library space, living

Digital collage, Hirschoff quarters, and a space for viewing the surrounding landscape. An emphasis was placed on developing a hierarchy of public and private spaces and designing a space that could adhere to the strict lighting conditions required for viewing an ancient manuscript. Students used photographs from various day trips as their selected site locations for the manuscript galleries. The site photographs formed the base for the digital collages, where students “placed” their gallery proposals into the landscapes.

“Collaging is a collaborative way to capture personalities, diversities, and complexities among the design process. It is also a means of accepting and celebrating mistakes.”

- Bianca Wilson

Physical Collages

Students collected postcards to study the spatial relationships seen in the built environments of both Ireland and Scotland. Students collected the postcards from various shops, galleries, and museums they visited to use in their physical collages. This assignment aimed to generate new architectural spaces and landscapes from the familiar and cliche postcards that were widely available. Analog collages also allowed students to remove themselves from the digital realm and bond with each other over daily trips to craft stores.