UCD Architecture Yearbook 2012 by Paul Kenny

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Photographs and documents relating to Richview and Earlsfort Terrace were recorded, scanned and cleaned by James Kennedy and Michael Hayes with help from Bill Hastings. As part of the School’s centenary launch event the images were printed on white ‘tablecloths’ that wrapped three long trestle tables, and lit with task lamps. Guests were invited to add notes, names and memories.

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This book was published by UCD Architecture on the occasion of the centenary of the School of Architecture in UCD.

Copyright the editors, students, authors, photographers and UCD Architecture. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise, without first seeking the written permission of the copyright owners and of the publishers. EDITORS

Orla Murphy Lisa Cassidy Stephen Tierney DESIGN

Conor & David Printed in Ireland by Hudson Killeen

ISBN 978-1-905254-65-1

UCD Architecture University College Dublin Richview, Clonskeagh Dublin 14, Ireland Tel: +353 1 7162757 www.ucd.ie/architecture

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Contents

Editorial Note 7 RECAST

Centenary Introduction 10 In Medias Res by Hugh Campbell School Introduction 14 Inherited Landscapes by John Tuomey Foundation — Semester 1 20 Foundation — Semester 2 28 Research in Architecture Colloquium 2011 — review by Emmett Scanlon 32 A Gathering and a Ceiling — review by Orla Murphy 34 Portrait 01: Andy Devane — review by Lisa Cassidy 42 Foundation — School Trip: Rome 46 Lunchtime Lecture Series 48 Lunchtime Lecture 1: CJ Lim — review by Lisa Cassidy 50 Portrait 01: Robin Walker — review by Michael Pike 52 Landscape Architecture 54 Interdisciplinarium by Alan Mee 64 Acoustic Research in Eighteenth-Century Irish Country Houses — essay by Áine Nic an Ríogh 68

REVEAL

Middle School — Semester 1 74 Islands on Paper: Mapping Aran — review by Marcus Donaghy 82 Postgraduate Research 84 Year 2 — Semester 2 92 Workshops 96 School Trip: Lyon 98 First Encounters Lecture Series — review by Elspeth Lee 102 Made — review by Peter Tansey 106 Year 3 — Semester 2 108 Lunchtime Lecture 2: Peter Carl — review by Sean Lynch 114 The Classical Urban Plan: Monumentality, Continuity and Change — abstract by Samantha Martin-McAuliffe 116 Prescriptive Postcards and their Influences — essay by Orla Phillips 118

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Gardiner’s Royal Circus — essay by Merlo Kelly 126 Lunchtime Lecture 3: Peter Wilson —review by Tiago Faria 132 Upper School — Semester 1 134 Settlement — essay by Anthony Haughey 152 Year 4 — Semester 2 160 Lunchtime Lecture 4: Jan Theissen — review by Brona Waldron 166 A Window to Practice — review by Orla Hegarty 168 PRACTICE – space|overlooked 170 Upper School — Semester 2 172 Professional Practice Essay — essay by Bláthmhac Ó Muirí 176

RELATE

Convergence by John Tuomey 180 Architecture for Society: Practices and Projects — review by James Casey 182 Staff Research Output 186 Making is Thinking 188 Thesis Research Groups City as Archive 190 Common or Garden 196 Continuity 202 Ecology 208 Horizon 214 Inside Outside 220 Townland 226 Untitled (Inherited Landscapes) 232 Foundation Mimmo Jodice 238 Lunchtime Lecture 5: Christopher Platt — review by Lisa Cassidy 242 Lunchtime Lecture 6: András Pálffy — review by John Parker 244 Brick 246 Talking to Architects by Lisa Cassidy 250 Acknowledgements 256

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Editorial Note Orla Murphy Lisa Cassidy Stephen Tierney May 2012

(following spread) Studio Model Making Photo by Stephen Murray

UCD Architecture is one hundred years old. This milestone in the life of the School has been marked in various ways since September 2011: the celebrations were launched with a party and exhibition, and followed by events during the year, including the Portrait and First Encounters lecture series, the Window to Practice exhibition and the Architecture for Society symposium. The centenary is also being marked in a permanent way by the installation of the new ceiling in the Red Room by final year students, the production of an audio history of the School by Lisa Cassidy and by this book, whose format is a little different from that of previous yearbooks in recognition of the anniversary. A common aim in marking both the centenary and the work of this academic year is to highlight the continuous and collective endeavor of students and staff in imagining, exploring and creating, through the shared media of words, drawings and models. ‘Inherited landscapes’ – the theme common to all studios this year – acknowledges the built and cultural context of this island. This inheritance can be as ancient and particular as the walls of Aran, as researched by Mary Laheen; or as recent and generic as the empty suburban houses photographed and discussed by Anthony Haughey in his essay Settlement. This year, the design and research work of the School has engaged with and reflected on these situations, in the knowledge that while context has brought us to where we are now, it is also the foundation upon which the future is built.

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CENTENARY / INTRODUCTION

In Medias Res

Hugh Campbell April 2012

Architecture is fueled by talk. Even the most laconic of exhortations to free what’s built from what’s written (Mies: ‘Build, Don’t Talk’) relies on language. Through every stage of its existence, from earliest inklings to practical completion, the architectural project, described in drawings and models, is sustained on a sea of words, which are used to describe, to propose, to explore, to specify, to negotiate, to fix. Architecture is building talked about.

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viewpoint of a young, ambitious graduate in the midfifties, it was one of many possible paths, none of them clearly visible. Henri Bergson described beautifully how ‘the past, in its entirety, probably, follows us at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which is about to join it…’ But even as the past is constantly swelled by the present, the future keeps coming into view. Each of the more than two thousand journeys through the school to date was made facing firmly forward. Inherent in the very word project, the future is built into every presentation of every project of every student of every year of the school’s hundred-year history. That’s what all the talk has always been about: we had an idea about the future.

No surprise then that a school of architecture should be awash with words. A walk through its rooms on any given week will find students and staff engaged in conversation – in pairs, in small groups, in larger gatherings. Drawings, models and projects are the matters at hand, but conversation is the medium. Bodies are disposed accordingly, clustered around a common point, facing across a shared subject, addressing an agreed topic. Mapping these dispositions, a terrain emerges in which knowledge is assiduously talked through rather than categorically set down. Everyone participates in this activity, simply by being part of the conversation. So it is that the school’s centenary celebrations have been dominated by talk. Lisa Cassidy’s Herculean feats of recording the recollections of a cast of key protagonists and graduates from as far back as 1941, described elsewhere in this volume, have set the tone. The full narrative of one hundred years of architectural education is still being constructed from these recordings, and from the photos, documents and archival material so memorably displayed and so helpfully annotated during the centenary’s opening event. But the assembling of the archive has huge value in itself. The centenary website www.ucdarchitecture.ie records the graduates year by year, from the first – Vincent Kelly in 1917 – to the class of 2011. Inscribed on the ceiling of the Red Room, this roll call is already incomplete, about to be added to by another group of graduates, many of them involved in the ceiling’s making. Even as it looks back, the school keeps moving forward. The website is structured so that wherever you land is the present; one way is the past, the other way is the future. In medias res: this is the school’s territory. Hence, many of this centenary year’s events have focused on formative moments rather than summative achievements. In his First Encounters talk, Professor Cathal O’Neill recalled his decision, following graduation, to go to IIT to study with Mies. It was, he said, by no means certain that he was going to go there. Gropius and Wright were also teaching in the US, Corb and Aalto had featured more prominently in his education. In retrospect, of course, the Miesian trajectory seems predestined, but seen from the

(following spread) Red Room Photo by Alice Clancy

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POSITION / INTRODUCTION

Inherited Landscapes

John Tuomey

Inherited Landscapes is the studio and research topic in this centenary year of the School of Architecture at UCD. Our newly renamed, hundred-year-old School of Architecture now includes the welcome integration of Landscape Architecture within the School. This timely connection between land-form and building-form makes strategic sense for the future creative life of our school. We look forward to further strengthening academic connections between two studio-based design programmes, and to creative exchange between staff and students.

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Lineaments and Matter The UCD School of Architecture is one hundred years old. We won’t tire of repeating this celebratory fact of our institutional background. And we might remind ourselves that we are working just one century after the birth of modernism in architecture, after the breakthrough from the battle of the styles. Six-anda-half centuries ago Alberti published his book On the Art of Building. With the significant exception of the controlling force of the Classical Orders, it is interesting to see how little has changed in the theory of architecture across the centuries since 1452, how little the fundamentals have shifted since Alberti’s assertion of Architecture as an autonomous intellectual discipline. Since the Renaissance, various writers on theory and practice, from Palladio to Schinkel and Semper, continued to develop Alberti’s discussion of the principles of architecture. In this century after modernism, emancipated from Classical

conventions and restrictions, it is interesting for us to observe how much those historical thoughtleaders seemed to be obsessed with the rulesystems of the Orders. John Soane, one of the most original-minded and non-conformist architects of the early nineteenth century, gave twelve lectures to the Royal Academy on lessons to be learned from the history of architecture. Soane spent the first six lectures dragging his audience through the complicated business of columns and their capitals. He concluded by declaring his personal passion for the Corinthian. Only in the second series of lectures did he give any space to the really crucial questions of chimneys, windows, and the plan. Freed as we find ourselves from the shackles of the classical style, the same characteristics remain crucial for architecture today; heat, light and space. It is encouraging to note such consistencies in the history of thought across the centuries, to find, behind the orders, a collective consensus concerning the useful beauty of architectural design, a process described by Palladio as the harmonious arrangement of parts. Let’s breathe a sigh for having inherited the license to say goodbye to the burden of the Orders. I regret to have to recall that our own respected now hundred-yearold school took more than fifty years to reach that crunch point, an intellectual escape delayed by many decades after the age of modernism. Let’s not seek out any substitute systems of rules, let’s not tie ourselves up all over again in arbitrary adherence to any mind-controlling new religions that parade under such authoritarian mediafriendly flags as Parametrics, Sustainability, Design Quality Indicators, etc. Let’s avoid such simplifying slogans and keep a fresh and curious eye on the complexities of life and on the permanent, lasting, natural qualities of architecture. Alberti, began his On the Art of Building by defining a building as a ‘form of body’. He believed that buildings consist of ‘lineaments and matter, the one the product of thought, the other of Nature.’ According to Alberti, Lineaments form the building’s rational organisation, let’s call that design. Matter, in Alberti’s sense of the word, comprises the bones, muscles and skin of the body of the animal, the raw material of architecture. We might think of our

The umbrella cover provided by the theme of Inherited Landscapes allows us to intervene in the realm of the inter-relationship between manmade landscapes and existing structures. We can think about structured landscapes and we can imagine topographical metaphors for architecture. We can propose new projects as reactions to given conditions. We can concentrate on existing buildings, not only as precious objects for careful conservation, but also as resources for inventive reuse and radical regeneration. Old buildings once were new. We can interpret the thoughts that we find embodied in the things we have inherited and treat those interpretations as essential points of departure for our own new thinking. We do not think of Inherited Landscapes as inevitably inhibiting artifacts; neither do we think of Inherited Landscapes as inherently natural places. Wherever we go, we should know that someone has been busy there before we arrived to begin our work. Our education prepares us for action, action in knowledgeable response to the surrounding conditions. We must make our work in readiness for unknown others to continue to act, to take up where we have left off.

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POSITION / INTRODUCTION

creative work as oscillating between these two conditions; between lineaments and matter, between design and raw material, between freedom of thought and the conventions imposed by external conditions, between inwardness and the outside world, between the intellectual and the practical aspects of an openminded architectural investigation.

New Thinking about Technology Following our recent comprehensive review of studio teaching, this year we have thoroughly reviewed the teaching of technology and construction studies across the School, alternately integrated with and independent of the studio programmes. Students are expected to divide their individual time between drawing, thinking and making, and at the same time, to combine their collective efforts between lineaments and matter, between design and demonstration. In Fifth Year we have introduced a new element to thesis preparation: Making is Thinking. In First Year we have given still more time to skills and techniques: Drawing and Making. In Second, Third and Fourth Years we have set new directions for technology studies, with an architectural emphasis critically engaged on the topical question of environmental design. This is how we set out to begin again in this centenary year, on a new centuryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s search for intelligent architectural responses to the Inherited Landscapes of these fast-changing times.

(opposite) The Building Laboratory, Earlsfort Terrace, 1978 Photo by Gerry Hayden

(following spread) Foundation Year Photo by Stephen Tierney

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STUDIO / SEMESTER 1 / FOUNDATION

Foundation

The first semester is made up of four three-week long projects: Space, Interior & Exterior Measure, Survey & Record Light, Spectacle & Drama

Material, Assembly & Technique

The purpose of the semesterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work is to actively encourage both thinking and exploration around some of the essential elements that inform architectural inquiry and so the projects are structured to introduce the students to ways of observing, representing, making, thinking and reflecting about architecture and its broader connection with the environment in which we live. The projects range from the detail design and making of a piece of furniture, surveying and recording of a Georgian house and urban plot, to compiling a sketch book on a visit to Rome. During the programme specific attention is paid to the acquisition of skills and the focus is on operating across different scales, requiring various representational techniques, to ensure that over the course of the semester each student gains a level of competency in modelmaking, sketching and drafting as well as a basic introduction to architecture.

(above) Parlour Models Photo by Stephen Tierney

(opposite) Georgian Survey Hamid Rehan

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STUDIO / SEMESTER 1 / FOUNDATION

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Model Detail Photo by Stephen Tierney (opposite) Umbrella Stand Photo by Stephen Tierney

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STUDIO / SEMESTER 1 / FOUNDATION

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(above) Trajanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Market Margarita Kaplun & Ed Hughes

(oppsite)

(following spread)

Rome Sketchbook

View of Foundation Studios

Nick Cunningham

Photo by Stephen Tierney

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STUDIO / SEMESTER 2 / FOUNDATION

Foundation

(above) Milking Parlour Daragh Martin

(opposite) Milking Parlour and Cheese Processing Plant James Barry

The second semester consists of one project that has three constituent parts. Having visited the facility of an artisan cheese-maker in Stoneyford, Co. Kilkenny the students are asked to design a similar facility on two sites in the nearby village of the Rower. The accommodation includes a milking parlour, cheese plant, shop and cafĂŠ. The students work together in pairs to undertake a preliminary site survey, develop a site strategy and make a joint proposal for the site. In the first project for the milking parlour and cheese plant the focus is on structure and envelope followed by space and plan in the subsequent design of the shop and cafĂŠ. In both stages of the project, each student has ultimate responsibility for the design of one element of the accommodation however they are actively encouraged to work together. To this end, the third project, the design of the shared groundscape across the site and its integration with the structure of the village is undertaken jointly.

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STUDIO / SEMESTER 2 / FOUNDATION

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(above) Cheese Processing Plant Lukasz Kuchta

(right) The Rower Urban Strategy Nick Cunningham

(opposite) Model Even Fuglestad and Ferdia Kenny

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RESEARCH / EVENT

Research in Architecture Colloquium 2011

Emmett Scanlon

In late 2010 a research team from UCD Architecture comprising of Hugh Campbell, Paul Kenny and Emmett Scanlon was appointed by the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government to carry out a scoping study on research in architecture in Ireland. The purpose of the study was to identify the range and priorities for research that might support the Government Policy on Architecture 2009–2015 (GPA 2009–15). The research team adopted a number of approaches to gathering information and views pertinent to the specific situation in Ireland, while also looking to other countries for insights into the relevant approaches to research in architecture in Ireland. The research team considered the idea of a colloquium to be critical to the development of this research study and proposed to run the colloquium as part of their methodology. The GPA 2009–15 has a clearly stated ambition to assist in establishing an evidence base for architecture via research. The colloquium was considered, in part, as an opportunity to bring this key ambition of the GPA directly to a wide audience and to offer an opportunity to feed into the further development of this ambition. The colloquium was also designed to gather critical, real intelligence about research in architecture nationally and internationally. The colloquium was held in UCD Architecture on 24 June 2011. The day was organised in two parts, the first enabling invited keynote speakers to set a national and international context for research in architecture. Prof. Murray Fraser and Prof. Hilde Heynen from UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, London and K.U. Leuven, Belgium respectively were invited to present architectural research from an

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research output measurement systems were cited as real barriers to architectural research establishing an identity within wider academia. As peer-reviewed dissemination and publishing is poor in architecture, research does not get measured and recorded and therefore does not fully exist on the wider research landscape. European research priorities remain economic in focus, and this may make it difficult to obtain funds for some aspects of research in architecture. However it also emerged that research is providing opportunities for stronger links between academia and practice to develop. The colloquium clearly revealed to a wider audience that there is an all-Ireland research base that can act as a foundation for future developments and that those interested in research in architecture must work more coherently and together to build up and off this foundation, in order to ensure we get out off the ground.

international perspective. Martin Colreavy, Chief Advisor in the Department of Arts, Heritage and Local Government (where the Government Policy on Architecture now resides since the change in Government in 2011) also gave an overview of the GPA 2009â&#x20AC;&#x201C;15. The second part of the day consisted of a more specific outline of this research scoping study delivered by the research team, followed by a facilitated workshop session in small groups, during which the audience was invited to discuss, challenge and respond to the specifics of the keynotes, or contribute their own individual experiences to the discussion. Dr. Suzanne Guerin, School of Psychology, UCD, facilitated the afternoon session. The colloquium raised some key issues and offered valuable insight into current issues facing research in architecture across Europe. It was reassuring that many of the issues faced by the research community here are also common across Europe. It became clear there is much to be gained by paying close attention to recent and current developments in international research thinking and to building strategic links with others involved in research. The audience of 60 attendees included students of architecture, those who research in practice and/or the academy, commissioners and funders of research and a wide range of interested parties from private and public bodies. A key finding of the research study â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and supported by those at the colloquium â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is that a stronger and more coherent research culture and identity must be established, funded and sustained in Ireland. This is an enormous challenge and should not be underestimated. Current bibliometric and

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CENTENARY / EVENT

A Gathering and a Ceiling The launch of the centenary year 16 September 2011

Orla Murphy

In preparation for the UCD Architecture Centenary a group of staff and students were given the task of hosting a once-off gathering of alumni and friends and were asked to design and install a visible and lasting marker of the centenary as a way of launching this special year. Initial discussions about the culture of the School of Architecture concluded that a particular quality of the school is the value placed on the collaborative endeavour and engagement of every student. Practicality of the day-to-day running of the school suggested that the installation should be hung from a ceiling, as during the academic year wall space needs to be kept free for drawings and temporary exhibition. The Red Room, seen as the heart of the school, was chosen as the space for the installation. The design concept evolved to become a simple inscription of the name of every BArch graduate, chronologically arranged. A team of fourth year students worked over the summer on the design and production of the installation. After correlating the names and years of all the graduates to pass through the school in the first 100 years, they surveyed the ceiling and came up with a proposal to laser-cut the names onto large plywood panels. Samples were made and reviewed and the material and overall appearance and legibility of the installation were discussed. New samples were made in Forbo Desktop, a similar material to the existing linoleum

floor surface. It was decided to laser-cut each name on an individual panel in one of 10 colours to be arranged to make a floating coloured carpet of names. Graphic designers Conor & David, who also designed the new school website and the centenary identity, assigned the colours to each name and set the typeface. The student team designed a plywood sub-frame and fixing system for the ceiling, which has minimal impact on the fabric of the building. Forbo Ireland kindly agreed to sponsor the material and delivered it to the school for laser cutting. 2,047 individual panels, plus 100 date panels were manually sized, ironed (to prevent them bowing) laser-cut and sorted during July and August 2011. Working to a large-scale set-out drawing the students laid and bonded the name panels and hoisted the 6 sub-frames into place for fixing. Meanwhile, in preparation for the launch event, other students in the group gathered old photographs and documents in the Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history. The Memorial Hall was arranged with three long, lamp-lit trestle tables on which were laid the paper exhibition of photographs. Pens were provided for guests to add another layer of notes and memories to the sheets. Photographs of students sent in by graduates and a high definition film about the slow and unchanging nature of making a drawing were projected on the walls. Excerpts from Lisa Cassidyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s audio interviews with graduates of the school were broadcast in the Red Room.

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President of the University, Dr. Hugh Brady introduced Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairi Quinn TD, graduate of 1969 and he launched the event under the new ceiling. Necks were craned as guests searched for and located their names and the names of the friends, family and colleagues on the ceiling. Later in the evening in the Memorial Hall, Professor Hugh Campbell outlined the plans for the Centenary Year, and formally unveiled the new school website; a timeline of people, events and connections. Over 400 guests – alumni of the school, friends and colleagues – met, shared memories, wine (kindly sponsored by Forbo Ireland), pie and a slice of the stunning centenary cake (handmade by Catherine de Groot), and remembered that Richview really is a wonderful place for a party.

The centenary ceiling and launch event was designed and made by: Denis Forrest; Kate Griffin; Michael Hayes; James Kennedy; Jonathan Janssens; Donal Lally; Philip McGlade; Sarah MacKendry; Conor Maguire; Jennifer O’Donnell; Banbha Nic Canna; and Albert Tobin; with Hugh Campbell; Lisa Cassidy; Orla Murphy; Conor Nolan; Bobby Tannam; and David Wall.

(above) B.Arch. name tiles Photo by Alice Clancy

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CENTENARY / EVENT

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Centenary Ceiling Photo by Stephen Murray

(opposite) Ceiling in production Photo by Stephen Murray

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Gathering in the Red Room

(opposite)

Photo by Alice Clancy

Memorial Hall Photo by Alice Clancy

(following spread) Red Room Photo by Alice Clancy

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CENTENARY / EXHIBITION & TALK

Portrait 01: Andy Devane Shane Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Toole and Peter Carroll DoCoMoMo Ireland and SAUL 22 September 2011

Lisa Cassidy

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Andy Devane and Wes Peters, Taliesin West, 1947 Photo courtesy of Dick and Susan Devane

construction guided by minds and hands. ‘There’s always a job to be done and there’s no such thing as spare time. Nobody wants it, except to write a letter or to swim in the river. Generally, we swim.’ O’Toole described Devane’s return to Ireland, his friendship with Paddy Robinson and his decision to re-join the practice of Robinson Keeffe, and the characteristics of Devane’s architecture, including influences from Taliesin and, particularly in church plans, American typologies. The lecture ended with a description of Devane’s work in Calcutta towards the end of his life, drawn there by his spiritual beliefs. With reflective material from interviews late in Devane’s life capturing the man’s own speaking voice, Shane O’Toole’s lecture comprised a fond and full portrait of the 1941 graduate. Peter Carroll described St. Mary’s Girls’ Primary School, in the heart of the medieval city, as a project that had held a fascination for him since childhood. Carroll’s affection for Limerick itself was evident as he described encouraging students to look at the city through different lenses, as the ‘city in crisis’ narrative was producing so many plans that the city was becoming a building site. This programme was undertaken as a combined module with Miriam Dunn and Graham Petrie, in which the students investigated the existing built fabric through structure, construction and environment. The accompanying exhibition of drawings showcased their thorough and careful work.

Portrait 01: Andy Devane was the first in the Centenary Portraits series of events, spotlighting a number of the School’s graduates. The two lectures by Shane O’Toole and Peter Carroll launched an exhibition of drawings by second-year students at University of Limerick, that examined the structure, materials and environmental control in Devane’s earliest major work: St. Mary’s Girls’ Primary School, King’s Island, Limerick. The event was supported by DoCoMoMo Ireland. Shane O’Toole presented an overview of Andy Devane’s life and work, drawing particularly on Devane’s correspondence and on interviews. Beginning with Devane’s own home, O’Toole quoted Devane describing it as the only building he’d ever designed his own way. A series of letters between Devane and American architects gave a sense of his character and ambition. To Frank Lloyd Wright, there was a challenge, asking if he was the real thing in an age of few architects and many media men. Walter Gropius, Eero Saarinen and Richard Neutra also received letters from Devane – interesting points for speculation on what might have happened differently had Devane not taken the Taliesin Fellowship, as O’Toole pointed out. After arriving in Arizona with little money, surprised that nobody knew who or where Wright might be, Devane settled into Taliesin West and wrote letters about labour, materials and

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The lecture began with an outline of the development of Limerick as a city from the medieval period, through the 18th century grid extension, to the expansion and social programmes in the 1940s and 50s. Carroll described the architecture Devane met at Taliesin West as ‘calibrated, considered, located’, and how he brought these influences from the desert landscape to a city then under deep reconstruction. He also noted the importance of this significant public commission – 20 classrooms for around 860 students – at the early stage of a young architect’s career. Carroll’s lecture presented the school through colourful photographs, details and careful descriptions, describing a ‘plain, understated building’ with considered relationships to the city on each face, including the interaction between the classroom block and the medieval wall. An interest in economy and the beauty of construction was revealed in the details and on the wholebuilding scale, and though the students and staff weren’t aware who had designed the school, Carroll reported that they had a deep affection for it. A lively discussion with the audience followed, including an account from Colm Dixon, a former colleague of Devane’s who spoke of him warmly and emphasised O’Toole’s comments about Devane’s profoundly religious nature.

CENTENARY / EXHIBITION & TALK

(opposite and below) Front Room exhibition by 2nd Year students at SAUL Photos by Stephen Tierney

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SCHOOL TRIP / FOUNDATION

Rome November 2011

Tutors Chris Boyle Peter Cody Cian Deegan Michelle Fagan Merlo Kelly Samantha Martin-McAuliffe Stephen Tierney

The foundation year trip to Rome was an opportunity to inspire students at an early stage of the their studies with some of the great buildings of history. The trip was an integral part of a three week project dealing with adaptability of existing buildings, within the overall school theme of inherited landscapes. The students made models of ten Roman buildings at two scales in advance of travelling and were asked to prepare a guide book of the studied buildings. Each student was asked to identify and study an individual phenomena relating to their Roman building; a quality of light, an illusion or perhaps a collage of materials that would then be incorporated into their design project in Dublin. The studied buildings: The Pantheon The Basilica of Maxentius Trajan’s Market Santa Costanza Palazzo Spada (Borromini’s corridor) Villa Farnesina San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane San Andrea Santa Sabina Tempietto

(opposite) San Ivo alla Sapienza, Rome Photo by Stephen Tierney

Our four day stay was organised around a series of three themed walks; the ancient, the churches and the urban spaces. Visits to buildings were preceded by introductions given by those students who had researched each building. Students were encouraged to sketch at every opportunity and most filled at least one sketchbook. Luckily the weather was excellent and the hostels were pleasant, particular mention should be made of ‘Villa Irlanda’ the well run guest house near San Giovanni run as part of the Irish College.

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REVIEW / LECTURE

Visiting Critics Lunchtime Lecture Series

Visitors to the School were invited to present their thoughts and work in the Red Room as part of a lunchtime lecture series.

Lectures 2 February 2012

1 March 2012

CJ Lim

Christopher Platt

Studio 8 Architects, London

Studio KAP and Mackintosh School of Art, Glasgow

3 February 2012 Peter Carl

2 March 2012

University of Cambridge

András Pálffy Jabornegg & Pálffy Architects and

10 February 2012

University of Technology Vienna

Peter Wilson Bolles + Wilson, Münster

17 May 2012 Níall McLaughlin

24 February 2012

Níall McLaughlin Architects, London

Jan Theissen AMUNT, Stuttgart

18 May 2012 Shelley McNamara Grafton Architects

(opposite) Generali Foundation construction site Jabornegg & Pálffy Architects

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REVIEW / LECTURE

Lunchtime Lecture 1: CJ Lim 2 February 2012 Lisa Cassidy

CJ Lim is Professor of Architecture and Cultural Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, as well as an architect and founding director of Studio 8 Architects. This

was his first visit to UCD, as a guest critic for the Up For Air thesis reviews, and he gave a lunchtime

Food Parliament

lecture to the School on February 2nd 2012.

CJ Lim

CJ Lim’s lecture provided an overview of what he described as the two worlds he occupies. The first crosses over with his most recent publication with Ed Liu, Short Stories: London in Two-and-a-half Dimensions, and took in a series of inspirations. London is re-imagined with the Thames frozen and inhabited, polar bears floating past the Houses of Parliament. Queen Mary’s Garden in Regent’s Park hosts the Playboy Club. Elements of the macabre come in, like the tower of death project for ‘Virtually Venice’ at the Venice Biennale (2004) or the smell of meat at Smithfield Market. Throughout, Lim was playful, encouraging the audience to laugh at jokes and visual puns, and there was a wit in projects like an exploration of how normal objects at different scales turn into something else, or combining Battersea Dogs’ Home with a dating agency.

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The second ‘world’ was connected to Lim’s book Smartcities and Eco-warriors (also with Ed Liu), and the projects described were made for large international organisations and governments. Food production and sustainability form the focus, and though the projects are pragmatic and analytical, the approach has the same quality of imagination and wonder as the narrative explorations – Lim describes aspiring to Jules Verne’s approach, writing about flight before people could fly, and is interested not in problem-solving but in a vision that can address problems. Food production becomes a central concern again, in a symbiotic relationship with the urban and considered another energy requirement, as vital to the city as its electricity supply. Several of the projects shown are in China, including one at Dongyi Wan East Waterfront on the heavily polluted Pearl River, where their brief was to look into cultivating a different mindset. Through

a series of drawings, Lim showed proposals for turning the embankment into allotments where the community might take pride and care of the land, with floods replenishing the soil each year. Lim showed a comic strip series of illustrations for ‘Food City’, a fictitious London that forms the focus for his PhD investigation of where his two worlds intersect. With inspiration from the Garden of Eden to Christopher Wren, as well as fiction where the city becomes a protagonist, Lim’s city integrates the practical and the fantastical, authorities transforming into elements of food production such as the Speaker becoming an angry cloud that collects dew to wash away filth, or the Department of Defence fighting crop diseases. Noting that the project is ongoing and being shown here as excerpts like snapshots, Lim described the work growing out of sheer joy, a sensibility that came across throughout the talk.

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CENTENARY / EXHIBITION & TALK

Portrait 02: Robin Walker Simon Walker 24 October 2011

Michael Pike

The second exhibition in the Profile Series focused on Robin Walker (1924–91) who graduated from UCD School of Architecture in 1947. Curated by the architect’s son, Simon, it comprised a series of beautiful black-and-white photographs by John Donat of three of Robin’s completed buildings in Dublin: the Bord Failte Headquarters in Baggot Street (1961), the Science Laboratory building at St. Columba’s College, Rathfarnham (1971) and the PMPA office building in Wolfe Tone Square (1978– 79). The opening of the exhibition was marked by a lecture from Simon entitled ‘Apollonian Trails’. This talk centred on the way in which the architect assimilated the influence of both Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, but then made a distinctly contextual architecture, rooted in its response to site and place. Simon sought to contest the accepted idea that Robin Walker was involved in a project of importing modernism to Ireland, instead emphasising the personal nature of his work through reference to his writing and painting as well as his architecture. He described in detail how the Bord Fáilte building played its urban role at the corner of Baggot Street Bridge. The building also responded to the adjacent Georgian buildings in its making of direct unadorned façades, the raising of the entrance level with a generous stepped approach, and in particular the creation of a sunken courtyard garden to the rear.

The extraordinary building at St. Columba’s, with its distinctive glass façade formed by shelves of bottles, test tubes and science experiments, also responds very cleverly to its sloping site in order to set up the entrance. The large concrete columns that support the raised ground floor find their footing on the uneven terrain. The steel frame of the roof structure then springs from this and the glass façade hangs from the roof. The photographs captured the distinct atmosphere of the luminous interior, with light refracted through the glass shelves and vessels. The description of the PMPA building focused principally on the relationship between the glass façade and the frame structure. The sketch drawings showed the process of shifting the extruded steel glazing mullions in relation to the red cylindrical columns, emphasising the free façade and allowing the elevation to respond to the scale of its neighbours. Simon presented a very compelling argument for the importance of frames in glass façades, contrasting this building with the tedium and scalelessness of frameless glazing. This exhibition and lecture sought to emphasise Robin Walker’s very personal response to place. As he stated in his essay A sense of place: ‘The building is not in space, in a place, it is that place.’

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Simon Walker Photo by Stephen Tierney

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STUDIO / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Landscape Architecture Year 1 (Stage 1+2)

Tutors & Teaching Support Staff Wendy Barrett Simon Canz Sean Cassidy Vandra Costello Karen Foley Dermot Foley Michael Heurich Vincent Hoban Victoria Kavanagh Kevin Keenan Sarah O’Brien

Students William Blunden Stephen Brady Morgan Colclough Bloom Davies Barbara Dunne Paul Gannon Alexandra Hartford David Knowles Yannick MacMahon Peter McKenzie Luke Meehan Kristiyan Nikov Barry O’Brien Diarmuid O’Reilly Harry Osborne Alex Timmins

In year one of the four-year undergraduate programme in Landscape Architecture students are introduced to various core modules ranging from natural sciences and ecology, to planning and archaeology. Landscape history and graphic communication, supported by classes in arts and photography are specifically tailored to meet the academic and professional requirements of future landscape architects. Landscape studios 1A + 2A focus on the basics of design in landscape architecture. Key elements of landscapes are introduced and exemplified through studies of the Irish rural and urban landscape, its typologies and sites of cultural and ecological interest. A strong focus is put on plants and vegetation. Analytical skills and spatial imagination are developed through projects with increasing complexity. Design methods and design processes are explored through small contextual interventions on different scales. Knowledge of contemporary landscapes and landscape architects is developed through lectures, seminars and precedent studies. An important part of the first year course is a four-day field trip introducing the Irish landscape to the students. Its objective is to encourage an early understanding that the landscape is an evolving artefact, a synthesis of natural and cultural elements, something that has been manipulated through time to meet social and economic needs.

Year 1 Field Trip to Liss Ard Photo by Karen Foley

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STUDIO / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Landscape Architecture Years 2 & 3 (Stage 3–6)

Tutors & Teaching Support Staff Dave Andrews Wendy Barrett Christy Boylan Mark Boyle Desmond Byrne Sean Cassidy Kevin Fitzpatrick Dermot Foley Karen Foley Angela Hayles Michael Heurich Victoria Kavanagh Ciarán Keaveney Kevin Keenan Simone Kennedy Mary Laheen Sophie Maltzan Sophia Meeres Feargus McGarvey

Students (Year 2) Tomas Agnew Tadhg Barlow Fiona Byrne-Ryan Caitriona Carlin Megan Cassidy Aisling Clarke Sarah Delaney Laura Doherty Philip Doran Richard Ellis Miguel Herrera Morrissy Lena Hörtemöller Isabel Kelly Kevin McGann Stephen O’Gorman Sharon O’Rourke Karlis Spunde Lisa Tierney Colin Torpay Gretchen Weber

Students (Year 3) Andrew Annett William Burke Karen Butler William Burke Roisin Byrne Coire Eglington Arnaud Fache Michele Farley Joseph O’Callaghan Colum O’Connor Jovita Razdobrejevaite Eoghan Riordan Ruth Turpin Ruth Williams Doris van Hooydonk

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(right) Year 3 Photo by Karen Foley

(below) Dorset Street Concept

Lena Hรถrtemรถller

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STUDIO / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

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Stage 3 (Year 2, Semester 1) Design work in studio focuses in this semester on private and communal open space with the target to combine functional, social, ecological and aesthetical aspects in a sustainable way. The meaning of landscape architecture and its role in society is discussed alongside the question in which way spatial design can positively influence social behaviour and human comfort. In 3 projects of increasing complexity, focusing on a private garden, a combined school- and community garden and the regeneration of a social housing estate, students engage with the spatial and contextual nature of landscape design and learn to rationalise their responses and to develop their own design method. Model making, graphic and verbal communication are further developed through continuous crits and presentations.

This vertical studio project for second and third year students explores dynamic aspects of landscape architecture and examines how the discipline can work within a broader sustainability agenda. The starting point is the use of plant materials in design and management of exterior space. Initially a series of short projects work across the scales, looking at aspects of plant identification and knowledge, detailed site design, plant use, and specification. Starting at the local scale and working up towards the neighbourhood scale the students revisit the Local Area Plan for the Northern Fringe in Dublin. Such areas, with their fractured development time-lines and current uncertain future provide an opportunity to explore how the adoption of principles from urban ecology and theories about ecosystem service provision can be used to envision alternative living environments with short and long term use being made of the unplanned and transitory spaces left in the aftermath of the building boom.

In this studio traditionally known as the ‘Construction studio’ we look in detail at the design of landscape ‘things’ – at materials and their juxtapositions, at finishes and fixings – and how to describe them. Students were set two projects: the first project was one of renovation. Working in teams, over a period of six weeks, students proposed improvements to the existing outdoor spaces of three inner city schools. Individual programmes were established by the students in response to the sites and conversations with teachers and children. Propositions were presented to the schools in a public exhibition at the Dark Space gallery in Dublin. The second project involved a change in scale and focused on the needs of city wildlife and in particular birds and bees. All students entered an international competition run by the UK Architecture Foundation, to design ‘a bee hive and plant box and bird or bat box’ suitable for use in an inner city context. The project required research into the physical, social and environmental needs of the honey-bee and of a named species of bird, or bat and most students proposed solutions at full life size.

(opposite) Landscape Studio Photo by Karen Foley

Stages 4 and 6 (Year 2 + Year 3, Semester 2): ‘Green Infrastructure’

Stage 5 (Year 3, Semester 1)

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STUDIO / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Landscape Architecture Year 4 (Stage 7+8)

Tutors & Teaching Support Staff Wendy Barrett Mark Boyle Desmond Byrne Simon Canz Sean Cassidy Dermot Foley Karen Foley Victoria Kavanagh Kevin Keenan Mary Laheen

Students Sophie Branigan Leanne Brennan Cian Byrne Niamh Cahill Declan Cooney Gavin Foy Jenny Gerrits Eoin Grace Christophe Hanuss Danielle Hitzler Daniel Holland Niamh Joyce Michael Keady James Kelly Dorothy Lynch Simon Madigan Sean McBride John McLoughlin Eamonn McMahon Gregory McNeill Gavin Ó Broin Colum Ó Séanáin Aoife Power Neassa Quille Jonathan Redmond Brenda Sorohan Shane Sutton Deirdre Walsh Joseph Walsh

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Studio 4A James Kelly, Neassa Quille, Niamh Cahill

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STUDIO / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Stage 7 (Year 4, Semester 1) In 2011 the landscape architects at UCD School of Architecture initiated TURaS (Towards Urban Resilience and Sustainability), a five-year research programme in the field of Resilient Cities. A decision was made to run the first semester of the final year landscape architecture studio in parallel with the initial period of the research. The studio was based in the transitional spaces in the Liberties in Dublin. Students were encouraged to consider subtle change based on detailed and patient looking and listening. Having explored the area with all their senses, the students mapped the area as a series of ‘threads’, according to experience, and then selected individual sites on which to make experimental proposals. The students were asked to answer a number of fundamental questions regarding the character of the Liberties, the material of the place and the potential for subtle change. Most of the proposals are low cost and modest, yet they constitute a rich variety of views, opinions and ideas on the nature of a complex urban district. From a pedagogical point of view it is interesting to confront ‘senior’ students with such basic challenges, as they have the maturity and design/ graphic experience to make a more profound and meaningful response than first year students. It is a fact also that such fundamental questions are more challenging than more conventional landscape architecture design briefs, and oblige the student to tease out minute detail in a way which exercises the mind at every turn. Stage 8 (Year 4, Semester 2) In the final semester of year four students undertake their individual design thesis. The previous semester is spent on preliminary thesis preparation where they research a topic, examine precedents and formulate a thesis. This is then explored and tested.

Wicker Walkway, Connemara Michael Keady

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RESEARCH / COLLABORATION

Interdisciplinarium

Alan Mee

Concept Sketch Elaine Fanning, Sarah Halpenny, James Kelly, Jenny Gerits, Brian Burns, Shane Given, Christopher Manton

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On reflection, it seems the architecture students were emboldened in their subsequent dealings with the park, both by the realisation of the modest scale of the park setting in relation to a wider urban infrastructure, and the example of understanding of the park within Landscape Architecture as a living, evolving place, which by nature changes shape. This idea of metaphorically ‘gardening the city’ might have something to tell us about urban design and architecture across a spectrum, from infrastructural networks to constant ‘gardening’ of the threshold between public and private realm – whether that involves housing a creche in the park, enhancing the environment of a twentieth-century flat complex, all in the context of re-seeding the Georgian section from park and street through house, garden, mews and lane. Observing the experience of the students working together leads to the question: could there be such a thing as an Interdisciplinarium? This could be a home for the ‘interdisciplinarian’, as one who works between different disciplines, seeking improved thinking which grows from the joined commitments. Judging the Crampton Prize was premised on rewarding the designs where their genesis and development showed clear and consistent crossfertilisation of ideas between disciplines. The winning entry was by the team comprising Sarah Halpenny, Elaine Fanning (Architecture), James Kelly, Jenny Gerits (Landscape Architecture), Brian Burns, Shane Given and Christopher Manton (Civil Engineering). Paul Doherty from Civil Engineering, Des Byrne from Landscape Architecture, and Marcus Donaghy from Architecture, coordinated the project. Eugene O’Brien and Karen Foley contributed from Civil Engineering and Landscape respectively. Tony Williams of RPA gave input on the logistics of metro stations, and Wendy Barrett referred the group to design precedents.

Traditionally the Crampton Prize at UCD has been awarded for a one-week joint design project between architecture and engineering students, fostering collaboration between cognate disciplines. Sponsored by the G&T Crampton construction company, in 2011, the field of interaction was broadened to include Landscape Architecture. The process of formulating a brief between three related disciplines is perhaps as fraught and illuminating as the resulting design exercise. One has first to face one’s preconceptions about one’s own and others’ disciplines and they theirs. The tendency of the architect was to try to co-opt and harness the project to a contextual agenda within the city, bringing the skills of sister disciplines into play in the context of our ongoing architectural/ urban/landscape studio of Mountjoy Square in the upper school of UCD Architecture. This ‘Inherited Landscape’ was agreed as the field of operation for an infrastructural project to entrain the skills of three disciplines in the conception and development of a project. Des Byrne brought the studiously iconoclastic view that infrastructure need not be writ large on the surface. From these discussions a brief was developed for a Metro stop at Mountjoy Square. From Architecture, a preconceived expectation was that landscape architects, architects and engineers would exercise their skills on modest extension of the public realm reaching between surface and underground systems: ‘well-lit ticket hall’, ‘careful paving’, ‘subtly expressive sheltering structure’ etc. Surprisingly, the actual results of the three student disciplines design endeavours was consistently more bold than this, including large underground train halls and their attendant entry and exit and ground level incisions leading to significant proposals for the re-ordering of Mountjoy Square Park.

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RESEARCH / COLLABORATION

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Perspective Elaine Fanning, Sarah Halpenny, James Kelly, Jenny Gerits, Brian Burns, Shane Given, Christopher Manton

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Acoustic Research in Eighteenth-Century Irish Country Houses Áine Nic an Ríogh

Áine Nic an Ríogh is an IRCHSS Postgraduate Scholar

www.musicroomreflections.com

RESEARCH / ESSAY

As architects we are usually preoccupied with the construction, design and function of a building. In some cases we consider its architectural and social context; however, it is rare that we consider the acoustics of a building, the particular atmosphere that makes that building unique. The stately eighteenth-century country houses of the AngloIrish gentry receive considerable scrutiny from architectural historians. However, it is usually the visual aspects of the properties which are recorded, and not the particular acoustics of the space. Are we missing out on gathering vital information about these houses, do we lack a dimension when conserving these properties, or are the acoustics of these spaces simply consequences of the design? Some rooms were of course deliberately designed for music; these rooms were often small and intimate, designed with the aural pleasure of the performer in mind. However, the majority were multipurpose rooms designed for entertaining larger groups, drawing rooms, galleries and ballrooms. Music was regularly performed in these rooms, but it was not the main source of entertainment, and in many cases it was as background music for dancing. It would appear that while architects may not have deliberately set out to create particular acoustic effects in the majority of rooms they designed, they were certainly aware of the results. Serlio in Book V of his Treatise on Architecture (1547) clearly describes Cornaro’s Odeon, an apartment specifically built as a place for music. A great deal of thought was given to the form of the room, its decoration and even the conditions of the room so that it might be suitable for musical performance. This small room however was not for large gatherings or concerts, but more for the enjoyment of the musician.

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… you enter an octagonal salotto – its diameter is xviii feet. Here musicians play – this is very suitable since the form is one which tends towards the circular, and the salotto is completely vaulted with brick, something which has no humidity in it whatsoever. And the four niches, through their concave rotundity, receive the notes and hold them … underneath the pavement there will be a fire following the custom of the ancients, so that the musical instruments will not be silenced by the humidity, nor will they crack from the violent heat from naked flames.1 Isaac Ware in The Complete Body of Architecture (1756) was more concerned with the decoration of a room and its effect on the acoustics:

Robert Adam writing to his brother from Italy in 1755 described the highlight of his visit to Livorno, a private concert at Mr Askew’s house, given by ‘a prodigious fine fiddler, Pietro Nardini.’ In this letter, like Serlio and Ware, Adam also gives particular thought to the form and decoration appropriate for a concert room, but promised to question the musician on his opinion before drawing his own final conclusions. … not as yet anything extraordinary in any shape … a few concert halls are quite plain without any coveing at all, which is certainly the right thing as the cove forms echoes, reboundings and unjust sounds. Painted cornices won’t do though I think that real ones [should have] no breakings 1

Serlio, S. (1982) The Five Books of Architecture, Book V. New York:

‘A complete body of architecture. Adorned with plans and

Dover Books.

Did Adam implement these conclusions in his designs? Were the results satisfactory for music performance? Headfort House, Co. Meath is the only surviving Adam interior in Ireland and the ballroom is now regularly used as a concert venue. However, the room was originally designed by Adam as a dining room and does not follow his rules for acoustic design: the ceiling is coved and the walls and ceiling have considerable decoration. In an effort to test the veracity of Adam’s statement a concert was held in the Headfort Ballroom. The concert was recorded using multiple microphones strategically placed around the room, the room was accurately surveyed and drawings produced. Headfort House was the starting point of the research and subsequently concerts have been held in three other venues: the Long Gallery, Castletown House, Co. Kildare; the Gothic Music Saloon, Birr Castle, Co. Offaly and the Great Hall, Beaulieu House, Co. Louth. Using the recordings of the concerts and 3-dimensional room models, comparisons and contrasts can be drawn between the rooms. The 3-d models can also be manipulated, the shape altered, the decorations extruded, simulating the performance of the spaces, to verify whether Ware and Adam’s conclusions are valid. For the acoustic testing, a variety of eighteenthcentury classical and traditional Irish music was performed, the same in each venue, to provide a basis for comparison. The instruments used included a harpsichord, uilleann pipes, guitar, violins and piano, all of which are specifically mentioned in eighteenth-century letters. However, while the same musicians did perform the same pieces at each concert, it is very difficult for a musician to play exactly the same in each venue. Performers react instinctively to the natural acoustics of each room, to the audience and to the music being performed. Such variations

elevations, from original designs. By Isaac Ware, … In which are interspersed some designs of Indigo Jones, never before published.’ London, 1768. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. P.522.

Letter from Robert Adam at Leghorn 23 January 1755 [NAS, GD18/4761]

… sounds should be echoed back, not swallowed up in the surface of a ceiling; and that a plain superficies would return the sound, while one thus enriched absorbed it.2

or modillions, blocks or even den(tils) which might in some degree hurt the sound. I shall not fail to enquire of Nardini concerning his opinion on the subject.3

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are unavoidable in live performances. However further insights will be gained by employing digital simulation techniques, using a virtual 3-d model generated from the survey data. A recently discovered list written by the second Lady Rosse provides some interesting details to the use of rooms for musical entertainments. Lady Rosse’s list of chores for her servants details the exact placement of furniture, music and instruments in preparation for her summer ball on 4 July 1826, as well as details on the location of musicians within the house.

… A table in the Yellow drawing room with eight candles for the Musick – Candles on Pianoforte and on the Musick stand, on the shelves on which the Musick for the evening be placed. The musick desks – violins and case of spare strings and tuning hammer to be place on the table …4 Such manuscripts give us a clear insight into the use of rooms for parties and in particular the flexibility associated with these rooms. By combining the social histories of life in the houses, the family’s own particular interests in music, and the results from the live concert recordings, one can piece together a map of the importance of music and acoustics in Ireland’s eighteenthcentury houses adding another layer and depth to the documentation of these properties.

Note written by Lady Alice Rosse, Second Lady Rosse for her ball 4 July 1826, [Rosse Papers F.21]

RESEARCH / ESSAY

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Castletown House Photo by John Olley

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STUDIO / MIDDLE SCHOOL / SEMESTER 1

Rush

Tutors Wendy Barrett Gerry Cahill Alice Clancy Will Dimond Kevin Donovan Eileen Fitzgerald Anne Gorman Fiona Hughes John Barry Lowe Aoibheann Ní Mhearáin Stephen Mulhall Esmonde O’Briain James Rossa O’Hare John Parker Michael Pike Peter Tansey

Every year, the second and third year students of the School of Architecture UCD design theoretical projects for urban or rural sites in Ireland. The exercise allows them to develop their architectural skills in the context of the complex social, topographical and environmental issues particular to every inhabited place. This year, we chose the town of Rush as our location for, amongst other reasons, its historical grain and architectural heritage, its relationship to the sea, its relationship to the city of Dublin, and its tradition of market gardening that is closely intertwined with the fabric of the town. The students began by visiting and making survey drawings of the town. They were then asked to design projects with the underlying theme of ‘Inherited Landscapes’, or the consideration of the complex relationship between new interventions and existing conditions.

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Joanne Keenaghan Christina Kerr Eimear Kilgariff Marlise Kuratli Louise McGarrigle Alan Meredith Malene Lillelund Daniel Moran David Mulkeen Michelle Murphy Gráinne Nic Gearailt John Nolan Ultan O’Conchubhair David O’Mahony Darragh O’Shea Muireann O’Sullivan Hana Potisk Linda Prendergast Nicky Rackard Hannah Scaife Rosie Smallwood Clodagh Somers William Spratt-Murphy Jonathan Steen Cian Tarrant Angela Truschzinski Ailish Walker Alexandra Wallace Samuel Wust David Zhao Gerda Ziemele

Students (Year 2) Ronan Atkins Maryam Bakhtvar Cristina Benn Dylan Callanan Paul Campbell Patrick Carey William Conran Maeve Counihan Cianan Crowley Deborah Cullinan Fiona Dempsey Eoin Diamond Lee Dinh Ian Donnelly Sorca Duffy Rebecca Dunne Aoibhin Egan Patrick Farrell Lana Fattah Cormac Friel Hugo Hickey Sean Hughes Ruanne Hunt Gerard Keane Miriam Keane Jenny Keating Gerard Kelly Sukyoung Kim Anthony Lambert David Lee Ciaran Long

David Mahon Robyn Marren Eoghan McCarthy Ruth McDonnell Donal McElwaine Cillian McGarry Simon McGough Roisin McHugh Leisha McPartland Emma Melvin Aoife Morris Andrea Nolan Kevin O’Brien Michelle O’Byrne Gillian O’Connell Amy O’Connor Shona O’Keefe Roisin Power Sarah Sheehan Lily Toomey Edward White Conor White Gibson Jennifer Wilson

(opposite) Credit Union Model John Nolan, Marlise Kuratli, Rebecca Dunne, Ian Donnelly

(following spread) Rush Public Building Map Rebecca Dunne

Students (Year 3) Reem Al-Sabah Jack Baker Eamon Bolger Aileen Boylan Cillian Briody Sarah Browne Domhnaill Byrne Lisa Callaghan John Campbell Sarah Carroll Caryn Chan James Corboy Eamonn Costello Alan Coughlan Robert Curley Beibhinn Delaney Deirbhile Doddy Aisling Donnelly Alanah Doyle Kevin Egan Marwa Elmubark Linda Fahy Oonagh Farrell Louise Finlayson Gemma Gallagher Eoin Gillen Marc Golden Fiona Gueunet Rachel Hoolahan Sean Hughes Naomi Hyland

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STUDIO / MIDDLE SCHOOL / SEMESTER 1

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STUDIO / MIDDLE SCHOOL / SEMESTER 1

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(opposite)

Credit Union

Interior Perspective of Credit Union Ultan Ă&#x201C; Conchubhair

(below)

Hana Potisk

Drawing Room Workshop

In the first semester, all students were asked to propose a Credit Union design for a site either on Old Barrack Road or at the end of the Tower Street. As well as the specific issues associated with the use of credit unions, the students were required to consider questions of public access to the site, history and context of the site, orientation and other environmental factors, structure, spatial qualities of the main reading spaces, movement around the building, landscaping, the relation of the inside and outside spaces etc. The students worked individually at first, developing strategies for their sites. They were then organised into groups to develop 28 of these projects to a more detailed level.

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STUDIO / MIDDLE SCHOOL / SEMESTER 1

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(opposite top)

Credit Union Model

Plan of Credit Union

Dylan Callanan, Grainne Nic Gearailt,

(opposite bottom)

Ultan Ó Conchubhair, Shona O’Keefe

Interior Perspective of Credit Union Ultan Ó Conchubhair

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RESEARCH / EXHIBITION & TALK

Islands on Paper: Mapping Aran Mary Laheen 28 November 2011 Marcus Donaghy

This review is an amalgam of an earlier commentary on Mary Laheen’s book Dry Stone Walls of the Aran Islands revisited in the light of her exhibition of material from her book in the Front Room at Richview and her lecture on her

field of study on the opening of that exhibition.

(opposite) Troughs at crags Photo by Mary Laheen

The exhibition draws out and highlights particular strands of knowledge and research pursued in the book, which is a study of the geologic and cultural forces underlying the net of stone walls known as the landscape of Aran. Mary Laheen has peered long and hard through this veil of built heritage to examine, intact, the pattern of Gaelic land division in Aran. The author describes a filigree of stone bound fields drawn out of the islands’ carboniferous geology and hydrology – field and boundary handbuilt by the islands inhabitants. The book is an outgrowth of Laheen’s MUBC thesis: a survey of the qualities of a place; conducted one foot after another – painstaking legwork on the ground and in archives. The exhibition amplifies some of the archival sources such as first edition Ordnance survey maps and GSI Stereotomic Aerial Photographs. The work sets out the importance and significance of our built ‘cultural landscape’ as it exists outside the city, making the case for valuing landscape as a bearer of knowledge and belonging as much as we have come to accept the same case for buildings. As background to this Laheen positions the argument in the framework of the evolving understanding of conservation up to and extending from the Burra Charter. The premise of Laheen’s work is that Aran is a living (but threatened) relict landscape embodying the history of Gaelic landholding. The Aran landscape follows quite closely its original divisions: baile/ townland; ceathrú/quarter; cartrún/cartron; and cnagaire/smallholding (roughly 16 acres). The beauty of the exhibition on the four walls of a room, is that the original analysis is put together again, synthesized, the islands remembered in a whole enfolding presentation of Laheen’s reading of the landscape of man as manifested in Aran. Each subdivision under this surviving system is based not solely on quantitative measure of area or acres but on the qualities of land – in Laheen’s clear and trenchant description ‘the townland matrix reflected the spatial dimension of Gaelic society which was non-urban in nature. It was a countywide landscape master plan that reflected an intimate understanding of the land and divided its resources into usable and sustainable parcels for the purpose of agriculture. The principle being

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that the equivalence between units resided in the potentiality of the land and not its quantity.’ Laheen goes on to state ‘This is something that may never have been fully understood by the administrators of the land in the centuries after the demise of the Gaelic order.’ Laheen describes how townland, quarter, and farmholding are contoured, each to encompass their share of resources: of land, water and foreshore rights for seaweed – all giving rise to the maze of interlocking fields and holdings. A pattern driven by an assessment of what counts, more than mere measurement of areas. The detail and deep insight contained in the book is exemplary – the ‘conclusion’ which on first reading seems a little summary, is set out as a table of possible measures to sustain and maintain the important landscape of which, culturally we are all heirs, and the Aran Islanders are custodians. This is framed within the idea that the survival of the landscape as it has grown has lessons for us, and its resilience offers a horde of ideas and models

of dwelling within clear and carefully drawn limits. The exhibition reopens this horde, setting aside conclusions, but re-presenting in various media the landscape laid out by the underlying hand of karst hydrology and the overlaid structure of settlement and landholding. The lecture which accompanied the exhibition opening revisited the history of mapping in Ireland and highlighted the degree to which map based research now informs our understanding of landscape in Ireland. The dependability of maps was explored; Laheen concludes that the boundaries were most likely all mapped on the first edition OS and thus the exhibition makes as its backdrop an overlay of underlying geological maps; from first edition and second edition OS maps to 20th century and current aerial photographs creating a collage of landscape representation through maps from the deep time of geology through ‘recent’ cartographic history.

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RESEARCH / DISSEMINATE

Postgraduate Research 2011/12 A selection of some of the current Masters and PhD research in UCD Architecture

Ruth Kidney MUBC student Dublin’s military barracks: the presentation of our military heritage

During the British war with France (1793–1815) military barracks were built extensively along main roads and waterways throughout Ireland

to accommodate the increased number British Army troops. Dublin was the centre of the British administration in Ireland, therefore, a series of large, permanent barracks were strategically constructed to defend the capital along Dublin’s canal network. This thesis identifies the significance of Dublin City’s military barrack network.

Florence Timothy-Afolayan PhD student Sustainability in Historic Buildings Lisa Cassidy The research involves the evaluation of the

MArchSc student

energy performance of historic buildings and their environment, based on their inherent

I am researching the history of UCD School of

thermal features and characteristics. Sensitivity

Architecture, beginning with the background to

Analysis is being carried out with the use of

the establishment of the Chair in 1909. Changes

Building Performance Simulation Software to

in academic structure and methods of education

see how the reuse of these buildings can be an

provide a framework for the investigation, closely

‘act of sustainability’.

bound to the School’s cultural and social history throughout its first century.

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Earlsfort Terrace

Niamh Marnham

Photo by Lisa Cassidy

PhD in Architecture student The Leinster House Cultural Quarter: Dublin’s ‘Albertopolis’?

The thesis examines the history and significance of the Leinster House site as a pivotal crucible in which large parts of Dublin’s civic identity, urban form and emergent social and national cultural identity were forged. It analyses the principal comparable institutions in London, Edinburgh, and Liverpool, and focuses on key moments and controversies in the site’s evolution and the way in which it settled into the city’s identity and psyche. Finally, it examines in conservation terms, the significance of the site and how it has been looked after, reused and occupied since independence.

RESEARCH / DISSEMINATE

Brian Ward

(above)

(below)

PhD student

Dublin, 1914

Offerlane Church

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Colm Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien My research uses the 1914 Dublin projects of CR Ashbee and Raymond Unwin to investigate their attempts to construct a democratic design process suitable for the emerging discipline of municipal town planning. It concentrates particularly on their positioning of the experiential within that process.

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Preparing for concert

Áine Nic an Ríogh

at Birr Castle

PhD student

Áine Nic an Ríogh

Music, Architecture and Acoustics in 18th Century Irish Country Houses.

Combining a detailed historical investigation of the architecture of 18th century Irish Country Houses with the results of musical recordings Colm O’Brien MUBC student The Churches of Frederick Darley.

The thesis primarily entails research into the churches designed and built by Frederick Darley (jnr.) for the Church of Ireland Ecclesiastical Commissioners in the Dublin Province, 1833 to 1852. This reasonably well-known, but little researched, nineteenthcentury architect designed approximately thirty churches in all for the Church of Ireland throughout Leinster during this period.

conducted in-situ in 18th century country house music rooms, in conjunction with acoustic characterisations of these rooms.

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RESEARCH / DISSEMINATE

Laura Johnstone MUBC student Lords of the Soil; The nineteenth-century Development of Dún Laoghaire, Monkstown and Glenageary on the Longford/de Vesci Estate

This thesis examines the nineteenth-century development of Dún Laoghaire, Monkstown and Glenageary on the Longford/de Vesci estate. The Lords of the Soil, through their use of leases, controlled development and profoundly influenced the character of the area, from the laying out of streets, the locations of churches and pleasure grounds, down to the detail of the colour of façades. By examining their involvement in the management of the estate, I aim to shed light on the evolution of part of Dublin’s Victorian suburbs, which has been examined in less detail than the urban

Georgian core.

(above) Gate piers, Vesey Place Laura Johnstone

(right) Boundaries and pathways through the landscape Elizabeth McNicholas

Elizabeth McNicholas PhD student

As a means to inform current debates about water and water management, this thesis reaches to the past to explore and understand the evolution of Irish land and waterscapes.

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(above)

Siobháin O’Dea

Connectivity, Activity

PhD student

Siobháin O’Dea

An Examination of the Relationships between Movement Networks and Urban Form in the Dublin Urban Area.

My MScUD thesis measured pedestrian connectivity as pedestrian network metric reach, and concurrently mapped urban use to examine the extent and nature of the correlation. My PhD Derville Murphy

continues and expands this work.

PhD student

This overall research project proposes to investigate the history of the relationship

(left)

between architects and artists in Ireland.

Inter-subjective

Also, to gain an insight into the catalysts

Cartographies 2011

and conditions that encourage collaboration

Denis Forrest, James

between the two disciplines and the potential

Kennedy, Banbha Nic Canna,

advantages of their closer association to the

Alan Boardman, Marlon

practice and communication of architecture.

Kelly, Tom Mathews

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RESEARCH / DISSEMINATE

(above) Victorian Dublin and the part-

to-whole axonometry of the north side of Mountjoy square Mariana Moreira

(right) St. Peter’s College Wexford, Pugin’s Chapel Cross Martin McKeith

Martin McKeith PhD student The architecture and landscape of the nineteenth-century Irish Diocesan Major and Minor Seminary.

The research to be undertaken for this PhD builds upon the work of my MUBC thesis, The architectural development of the Irish Diocesan Major Seminary – from 1782 to 1900 which looked at the nine Diocesan Major Seminaries, and expands the scope of study material to include the 18 Minor Seminaries and the continental Irish Colleges. It will seek to compare the Irish Seminary buildings and landscapes with similar national and international typologies.

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Mariana Moreira MUBC student Urban Morphology as a Discipline for Conservation in Planning and Practice. A Case Study on the North Dublin Intermediate Fringe-Belt.

The urban fabric is regarded as a repository of human life that records past culture including historic-geographic changes that have physical manifestations. Urban morphology is identified as a discipline that provides the basis for a more effective conservation planning. The northern Dublin City is taken as a case study that involves a morphological analysis of the contrasting Georgian city and the Victorian fringe belt.

91 Richmond Penitentiary, 1812â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1816 SinĂŠad Gargan

SinĂŠad Gargan MUBC student

I am researching the development of the Monck lands at the Manor of Grangegorman from the seventeenth century to the present. My interest is in the institutional development in this western city quarter and the parallel slow development of the Monck Estate which comprised of 243 acres under single ownership within one mile of the city centre.

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STUDIO / MIDDLE SCHOOL / YEAR 2 / SEMESTER 2

Year 2 Design Studio 2011/12

Tutors Wendy Barrett Gerry Cahill Alice Clancy Kevin Donovan Anne Gorman Fiona Hughes James Rossa O’Hare Ruth O’Herlihy Michael Pike Guest Critics Jan Theissen

Students Ronan Atkins Maryam Bakhtvar Cristina Benn Dylan Callanan Paul Campbell Patrick Carey William Conran Maeve Counihan Cianan Crowley Deborah Cullinan Fiona Dempsey Eoin Diamond Lee Dinh Ian Donnelly Sorca Duffy Rebecca Dunne Aoibhin Egan Patrick Farrell Lana Fattah

Shane Fitzsimons Cormac Friel Hugo Hickey Sean Hughes Ruanne Hunt Gerard Keane Miriam Keane Jenny Keating Gerard Kelly Sukyoung Kim Anthony Lambert David Lee Ciaran Long David Mahon Robyn Marren Eoghan McCarthy Ruth McDonnell Donal McElwaine Cillian McGarry

Simon McGough Roisin McHugh Leisha McPartland Emma Melvin Aoife Morris Andrea Nolan Kevin O’Brien Michelle O’Byrne Gillian O’Connell Amy O’Connor Shona O’Keefe Roisin Power Sarah Sheehan Lily Toomey Shawna Van Zee Edward White Conor White Gibson Jennifer Wilson

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Elevation Study Hugo Hickey, Edward White, Gerard Kelly, Cianan Crowely

In the second semester the students explored the issue of housing, beginning with an analysis of households in contemporary Ireland. We continued to work in Rush and three sites were chosen for the design project dealing with distinct conditions within the town. The focus of the project was on the mediation between the housing unit and the city. To this end the two scales of 1:500 and 1:50 were used from the outset and returned to as the requirements for the final presentation, seeking to achieve an exploration of both strategy and detail. A parallel programme focused on the design of the domestic window and involved the making of 1:20 models of completed windows by members of the staff, followed by similar 1:20 models of windows from the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; design projects.

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STUDIO / MIDDLE SCHOOL / YEAR 2 / SEMESTER 2

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(opposite top)

Lyon Sketchbook:

La Cité des Étoiles

Hugo Hickey

(opposite bottom) Lyon Sketchbook: La Tourette David Mahon

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Workshops

WORKSHOP / MIDDLE SCHOOL / YEAR 2 / SEMESTER 2

The Publication Workshop Wendy Barrett, Alice Clancy, James Rossa Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hare Students learn graphic publication skills using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop, learn library research skills and work as a group to produce a collaborative document, a guide which follows the itinerary of the second year study trip. The AAI Student Design Competition 2011/12 Michael Pike, Gerry Cahill, Kevin Donovan, Ruth Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Herlihy

Run by the Architectural Association of Ireland, this design competition is open to all 2nd year students from the seven schools of architecture on the island of Ireland. This year the competition brief is for a boat repair workshop for a sailing club. The Material Through Structure Workshop Anne Gorman, Fiona Hughes, Adrian Duncan This workshop takes the student on a journey of exploration of material in its broadest sense. The week consists of four separate workshops that seek to explore the nature and potential of specific materials together and from a creative perspective.

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(opposite)

Play

Leporello Guidebook to Lyon

Shona Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Keefe

(Publication Workshop)

(Material Through Structure Workshop)

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SCHOOL TRIP / MIDDLE SCHOOL / YEAR 2 / SEMESTER 2

Lyon Study Trip

The study trip allows students to experience and study buildings of architectural significance and to explore the relationship between a particular place, its culture and its architecture. It is considered a vital part of the work of this semester, providing ideas and inspirations for the housing design project. This year we travelled to Lyon and visited a series of significant housing projects, as well as Le Corbusierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s La Tourette monastery and project for Firminy-Vert.

(above) Sketching Unite dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Habitation Photo by Alice Clancy

(opposite) Lyon Sketchbooks Photo by Michael Pike

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SCHOOL TRIP / MIDDLE SCHOOL / YEAR 2 / SEMESTER 2

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Gerry Cahill and Miguel ﾃ］gel, with students from UCD and La Coruﾃｱa, at La Tourette Photo by Alice Clancy

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CENTENARY / LECTURE SERIES

First Encounters Lecture Series January & February 2012

Elspeth Lee 30th January 2012 Jim Murphy: Old Dublin Airport Terminal Building. Desmond Fitzgerald (1941) Anne Gorman: St Peter’s Church, Klippan. Sigurd Lewerentz (1963–1966)

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6th February 2012 Professor Loughlin Kealy: Gipsoteca Canoviana, Possagno, Italy. Carlo Scarpa (1955–1957) Stephen Tierney: National Theatre, London. Denys Lasdun (1967–1976)

13th February 2012 Noel Dowley: Brion-Vega Cemetery, San Vito d’Altivole, Italy. Carlo Scarpa (1970–1972) Jennifer O’Leary: Haus Esters and Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany. Mies Van der Rohe (1928–1930)

20th February 2012 James Rossa O’Hare: Casa Curutchet, La Plata, Argentina. Le Corbusier (1954) Yvonne Farrell: Universitá Luigi Bocconi, Milan, Italy. Grafton Architects (2008)

20th February 2012 Fiona Hughes: Royal Festival Hall, London. Lesley Martin and Peter Murrow (1951) Professor Cathal O’Neill: Barcelona Pavillion, Mies Van der Rohe (1929)

Cathal O’Neill Photo by Stephen Tierney

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CENTENARY / LECTURE SERIES

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Fiona Hughes and Cathal O’Neill Photo by Stephen Tierney

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Noel Dowley spoke about the inherent metaphor, meaning and symbolism in Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Cemetery, and described its beauty and completeness as an architect’s final project. Jennifer O’Leary was interested in Mies’ exploration of an idea through the design of a building. She spoke of the ‘process’ and how we as architects can learn from it. Both speakers shared an interest in materiality. The conversation led to a comparison of Mies’ early work with that of Carlo Scarpa. James Rossa O’Hare and Yvonne Farrell both spoke very personally about projects which had had an emotional impact on them. In Yvonne’s case, she spoke of the inherent emotional attachment an architect has with a building when they have seen it through from conception to ‘hard-won making’. James spoke of Le Corbusier’s branding of himself and his only realised project in south America. Both projects explored the city’s invitation into a building. Fiona Hughes briefly discussed Mies’s New National Gallery and described it as creating a ‘visceral reaction’, before moving on to describe the Royal Festival Hall in London, whose affection was slightly more slowly won. Cathal spoke of his work with Mies Van der Rohe and his initial impression of the image of the Barcelona Pavilion. The pairing of past and present members of staff, each speaking about a project about which they felt passionately, resulted in a rich dialogue between the individual speakers, their projects of choice, and the staff and students in attendance.

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First Encounters was a lecture series spread over five weeks as part of the centenary celebrations of the school of architecture. Two short lectures were presented in succession on each evening to allow a conversation to develop. The project chosen was to remain a secret before the lecture The projects selected were to be the speakers ‘first encounter’ with modern architecture, a particular work of architecture from the period 1911–2011, which the speaker found inspirational at first sight. The intention was to explore the selected projects in detail, either in totality, or in relation to specific parts or aspects, and to thoroughly convey their reasons for having feelings of admiration, enjoyment, enthusiasm or bewilderment towards their particular work. The two speakers each week were pairings of current and former members of staff of the school. This let to conversations about the changes that have taken place in the school over the years, as well as interesting parallels being drawn both between the speakers and their chosen projects. Jim Murphy and Anne Gorman both spoke about a childhood interest in taking things apart and putting them back together again, each thereby developing an interest in the craft and detailing of architecture. However Jim spoke of a ‘catalyst moment’ on visiting the Old Airport Terminal as a boy, which inspired him to study architecture, whereas Anne’s chosen project was a precedent study of Lewerentz’s church in Klippan which she had been assigned in her second year of study. The following week Loughlin Kealy and Stephen Tierney described the creation and complexity of public space, in Carlo Scarpa’s sculpture museum and the National Theatre in London respectively. Both spoke about materiality, detailing and the importance of surface finishes. The affinity of the projects was noticed in the care of the marble and plaster finishes of the Gipsoteca and the finishes of the board marked concrete of the National Theatre which was designed with the scale of the city in mind.

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REVIEW / EXHIBITION

Made

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Peter Tansey

Architects BCD, Clancy Moore, Ryan Kenihan, Steve Larkin, and TAKA show five carefully crafted models in this exhibition. These models were originally commissioned for last year’s RHA exhibition. Here, in contrast to the linear arrangement of the Ely Place exhibition, the pieces ease into a loose configuration in keeping with the intimate space of the Front Room. The highly-crafted models are set onto pedestals made up of thick sections of maple wood interlocked with sharp mortice and tenon joints. They are all young architectural firms establishing practices and, in parallel, involved in schools of architecture. These common circumstances might suggest why the work also shares a concern with construction in architecture, how ideas are realised through structure and material. All allude to, expressly refer to, or strongly

suggest respect for building traditions, and particularly to the work and teachings of Louis Kahn. To a greater or lesser degree, each project suggests the transcendent potential of architecture. TAKA’s text to accompany the model states ‘we believe that structure and light are fundamentals of architecture’. Their model is an amalgam of two projects. It is made in two thicknesses of birch plywood. The plan is split down the middle, touching at one point; one side is rotated about an acute angle. This produces a hinged/reflected space with a dynamic set into the heart of the construction. The sober outer demeanour belies its character as the space achieves dazzling effects. The model of the Aoibhneas Centre, a competition won by BCD, has similar qualities. The square plan is flipped into a spin through the

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illuminates the room through the roof which is split in four parts two of which are shaft open to the sky. Extruded timber frames describe a thick wall and give a particular and measured relationship to the landscape beyond the garden. Like a threedimensional pinwheel, these vectors converge, forming a still space at the centre of the circle. There is a twin process of default and renew in the architectural practice here, an antinomy which suggests that for a building to achieve the status of architecture, it must be playful despite its earnestness, it might move to be still, it must invent to rediscover and it must be re-made to be made. These beautiful models embody work which endorses the timeless pursuit of architecture conscious of its relevance for practice today. As the title suggests the conviction here is completed, done, made – the evidence is in front of the viewer.

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alternating orientation of the t-shaped elements of the roof. The construction is reminiscent of corbelling used in prehistoric construction. The gradually decreasing square of the plan as the roof ascends in section recalls further the use of the spiral in pre-historic iconography. At the centre of a spiral there is the notional still point. The transcended allusion is hardly accidental, and reflects Kahn’s observation that architecture encompasses ‘the measurable and immeasurable’. Ryan Kennihan’s arched space, held in a timber roof construction, is made for the model purpose in dark hardwood. The white, elegant, stereotomic construction of the arch is elevated on a framed support, achieving a floating effect. In plan, there is a shift where one arch meets two, generating a diagonal axis across the plan. Here, again, there is a tactic of inversion tectonically. What at first appears composed is not quite as anticipated – it seems to achieve more than the sum of its parts. Emerging out of an inventory of Irish walled houses Clancy Moore’s house in a walled garden presents a symmetrically planned house propped on the existing wall. The model is made of timber and metal, painted a neutralising shadowy black. Balanced in a corner on fragile elongated legs, the enclosing stone wall of the garden and the new house are hoisted above the ground in a gravity defying arabesque. This Black Swan plays with the expected order as the roof pirouettes 45 degrees supporting the midpoint of the beams, leaving the corners unsupported. A secondary structure sits within this and supports the first floor. Through the apertures in the roof it is possible to glimpse a luxurious burnished brass interior in one of the rooms. The orthogonal order of square plan and, similarly, the garden wall are loosened up with a semicircular element and an archway respectively. Steve Larkin’s walled garden house, by contrast, is grounded and in repose. The exquisite model is assembled out of a collection of solid cast pieces and fine timber insets. A photograph of the finished house is no less exquisite. The first floor, elevated over the datum of the garden walls, is an open floor. The space enjoys all the privileges of its elevated position, opening to the house below through the stairs and an open void. Overhead light

(above) Clancy Moore Model Photo by Stephen Tierney

(opposite) Exhibition Photo by Stephen Tierney

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STUDIO / MIDDLE SCHOOL / YEAR 3 / SEMESTER 2

Learning Landscape

Ideas Made Real Seminars Hugh Campbell

Digital Drawing

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David Healy, Donal O’Herlihy

Tutors Will Dimond Tiago Faria Eileen Fitzgerald Mary Laheen John Barry Lowe Stephen Mulhall John Parker Peter Tansey

Students Reem Al-Sabah Jack Baker Aileen Boylan Cillian Briody Sarah Browne Domhnaill Byrne Lisa Callaghan John Campbell Sarah Carroll Caryn Chan James Corboy Eamonn Costello Robert Curley Beibhinn Delaney Deirbhile Doddy Mark Doherty Aisling Donnelly Alanah Doyle Kevin Egan Marwa Elmubark

Linda Fahy Oonagh Farrell Louise Finlayson Ellen FitzGerald Gemma Gallagher Eoin Gillen Marc Golden Fiona Gueunet Rachel Hoolahan Naomi Hyland Joanne Keenaghan Christina Kerr Shirley Kenny Eimear Kilgariff Jiapei Li Louise McGarrigle Alan Meredith Daniel Moran David Mulkeen Michelle Murphy

Gráinne Nic Gearailt John Nolan David O’Mahony Darragh O’Shea Muireann O’Sullivan Anne-Katrin Pichler Hana Potisk Linda Prendergast Nicky Rackard Hannah Scaife Rosie Smallwood Clodagh Somers William Spratt-Murphy Jonathan Steen Cian Tarrant Ailish Walker Alexandra Wallace David Zhao Gerda Ziemele

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School Section Alan Meredith

In the second semester of third year students explored the role of architecture in providing for the educational needs of the community. The aim was to address fundamental questions about the kind of environment that makes an appropriate stepping stone into the community for its younger members, and the kinds of spaces that are conducive to learning. Building on the work of the first semester the context was the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;inherited landscapeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of Rush, North County Dublin, with its interwoven mesh of working landscape and market town in a coastal setting. After a short introductory project, in which students were asked to consider an essential idea about a learning space prompted by a given image and text, the focus moved to the development of proposals for primary and secondary schools in this particular landscape. Projects were developed in depth and to a large scale with a view to describing how the building and landscape is made, structured, inhabited and enjoyed. The ambition was to show how the idea of a place of learning can become manifest in the material and composition of its spaces.

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STUDIO / MIDDLE SCHOOL / YEAR 3 / SEMESTER 2

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(opposite) School Model Cillian Briody

(below) School Sketch Section Oonagh Farrell

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(above) School Model Alan Meredith

(right) Intermedia Model Gemma Gallagher

(opposite) School Ground Plan Cian Tarrant

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REVIEW / LECTURE

Lunchtime Lecture 2: Peter Carl Horizons of Involvement 2 February 2012 Sean Lynch

January saw the return of visiting critic Peter Carl to the school for Fifth Year Up For Air Reviews. He also delivered a lunchtime lecture entitled Horizons of Involvement, expanding on topics discussed in his previous year’s lecture What is a City For? In it, he outlined ways by which we might

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begin to overcome some of the abstractions that have become commonplace in describing the city, and return to some degree of what Carl terms ‘concreteness’ in our thinking.

The Romantic Period, Carl believes, has had a huge bearing on what horizon means to people today, and how we frame questions like ‘what is a town?’ With reference to the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich and ideas of August Wiedmann, Carl said that the concept of horizon ‘bounds a drama with Cartesian and Idealist roots; a contest for authority between subject and nature, a contest that despite or because of almost two centuries of comfort, sophistication and technological mastery it’s not evident we’ve left the arena of.’ According to Carl, we can only leave this arena by becoming more concrete in our thinking, and by this manage to overcome generalisations which he says make it too easy to plan a city. The result would be ‘architecture that is more difficult to comprehend, but richer, and ultimately more interesting.’ In order to understand horizon, Carl led us first to Heidegger’s idea of the clearing. Heidegger coined the term with respect to ‘Dasein’ – there

being – which is always concrete, particular to circumstance. Horizon, to Carl, conversely means something that is common to all. Comparing Campo San Giacomo dell’Orio in Venice and a 1960s London perimeter housing block, he argued that although both have central open areas, the clearing in each is very different, as this is dependent on horizonal depth – what is happening around it – of which there is little in the latter example. To further explain horizonal depth Carl referred to the painting Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio. From the conversation at the table, to the postures, furniture, walls and floor there is a temporal stratification to the situation, or horizons, where what is furthest away is the most laconic. Carl further demonstrated horizonal depth in Le Corbusier’s work through an examination of Villa Savoye. He interrogated two photographs taken by Le Corbusier of the kitchen and external ramp to the solarium, showing the degree of effort le

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Horizons of Involvement Peter Carl

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Corbusier employed in endowing everyday objects with symbolic value. ‘So they have much more resistance than if they’re just forms, or aesthetic objects. He won’t allow himself to use them except insofar as they participate in a private mythology,’ according to Carl. So, although with Le Corbusier the kitchen becomes like atelier, or sanctuary, this horizonal depth does not permeate through to Modernism as a whole. Instead we find ourselves in a strange culture where Modernism has largely tried to silence the Agon: ‘What should be temple is museum, and what should be car is traffic.’ Carl discussed what horizons of involvement might mean with regard to the urban condition. He argued that there is a tendency to think about the city frontally, with street life happening between two façades. Consequentially, the character of the back is largely ignored or forgotten, and referring to David Lynch’s film Mulholland Drive, he showed the potential difference in character between the front

and back. Presenting our streets in figure-field drawings or elevations shows little of the nature of its public life. By looking at it obliquely we can see more clearly what it constitutes as a horizon of involvement and thus begin to understand the city more concretely. Carl concluded by suggesting that although modernism tries to pacify all the noise or horizonal depth of what capitalism and democracy is about, there is scope for rethinking about how we might begin to accommodate this noise in the cities we make for ourselves.

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The Classical Urban Plan: Monumentality, Continuity and Change Samantha Martin-McAuliffe

Samantha L. Martin-McAuliffe, Lecturer in History and Theory of Architecture, is co-organising a session (with Daniel Millette, University of British Columbia) at the second international meeting of the European Architectural History Network (EAHN). The conference will take place at the Palais des Academies in Brussels,

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Belgium, from 31 May to 3 June 2012.

www.eahn2012.org

RESEARCH / ABSTRACT

Greek and Roman monuments have been disappearing from the collective psyche for millennia; as soon as a new Roman emperor assumed power, for example, the architectural landscape was reshaped and adapted to suit the new rule. More recently, the rapid acceleration in the loss of collective memory through the obliteration of monuments has made clear that ancient architecture as we have come to know it, is moving away from the physical realm, to the imaginary psyche. One aspect of it, however, remains: the urban grid. Even where ancient architecture has been decimated to make room for new urban and at times, rural spaces, substantial portions of an earlier ancient grid can be retraced and the wider plan can, to varying extents, be recovered. This session will shed light on these ‘lost’ urban and rural plans. We know that individual monuments as well as monumental architectural ensembles can today be harnessed in the service of memory scripting, just as it was – as Paul Zanker so brilliantly showed – in Roman Republican times. Can the same approach be extended to the planning grid? Does meaning change as the plan is altered? Does memory change? Can an ancient plan reflect a new cultural, political or social order? Whether intentional or not, each Classical plan has the capacity to embody specific messages linked to such notions as ‘heritage’ and ‘identity’. While this is arguably most significant when considering the formal orthogonal grid, the weight that this infrastructure can bear in terms of cultural meaning has been underappreciated by current scholia. As such, this session invites papers focusing on Greek and Roman grid traces – both literal and figurative. Proposals are particularly welcome which consider ways through which the collective memory of cities and smaller settlements is altered, if at all, with the introduction of newly constructed monuments within an ancient plan. Participants might also address the reciprocity between the institutional and architectural order of cities; or explore how an entire city can be monumentalised by virtue of ‘inheriting’ a Classical plan. Overall, this session will inform theoretical frameworks, thereby broadening as well as reassessing the existing discourse on ancient urban plans.

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Stoa of Attalos II, ca. 150 BC from southwest Samantha Martin-McAuliffe

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RESEARCH / ESSAY

Prescriptive Postcards and their influence The study of the generation of the national image of Ireland during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, through pictorial means Orla Phillips

The first postcard was sent in Austria on the first of October 1869. Its success was immediate and nearly three million postcards were sold in the first three months of sales. However, it was not until 1894 that picture postcards were officially allowed within the United Kingdom.

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Behan, A P. History from picture postcards. Dublin Historical Record, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Autumn, 1993): pp. 129â&#x20AC;&#x201C;140.

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the country.2 This contrasts with the more factual or documentary approach evident in the later Lawrence views taken by Robert French.3 Brian Torode has claimed that Irish travel photography was concerned with appearances only; the interior of the home is rarely shown.4 The view produced is that which is available to the traveller passing by. Torode’s view supports the argument that the Irish photograph offers familiar images of nature and culture: sea and mountain, human settlement and wilderness, within a single scene. This image of Ireland portrayed at home and abroad continued unchanged throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. The name pre-eminent in Irish commercial view photography is William Lawrence. Lawrence had considerable talents as a businessman and entrepreneur. Lawrence, who was long established as the leading supplier of Irish photographs, was naturally involved in postcard manufacture but at first he supplied the picture views for other firms to publish. By 1899 Blum and Degen Publishers were selling eight views of Dublin – all Lawrence photographs. Lawrence soon decided to publish his own series, most of which were printed overseas.5 The Lawrence collection is one of the world’s largest and least known collections of Victorian and Edwardian photographs from a single source.6 Shortly after opening his store on Sackville Street William Lawrence employed Robert French. French would substitute new views of the same image into the series when buildings/transport changed. It is interesting to note Lawrence’s concern with the topicality of the views.7 After the Act of Union 1801 political life moved to Westminster. The industrial revolution passed Dublin by somewhat, in favour 2

Chandler, E. (2001) Photography in Ireland: the nineteenth century. Dublin: Edmund Burke.

Ibid.

Torode, Brian “Inside Imaginary Ireland” CIRCA, No. 28 (May–Jun.,

Hickey, K. (1973) Introduction in French, R. The Light of other days:

1986), pp. 19–21

Irish life at the turn of the century in the photographs of Robert French. London: Allen Lane. 6

Ibid.

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In the Republic of Ireland the two predominant firms producing picture postcards at the turn of the twentieth century were Eason and Son Ltd. and William Lawrence. Today these collections are stored at the National Library of Ireland. The Eason and Son Collection contains 2,772 images originally created for the Irish postcard trade between 1900 and 1940 and the Lawrence Royal and Cabinet Collection contains 19,272 glass plate negatives, produced for commercial use. These databases provide a record of the image of Ireland portrayed at home and abroad at the turn of the century. The development of photography and technology from the nineteenth to the twentieth century allowed for the increase in commercial use and wholesale production of photographic products. Photography was to provide a new means of viewing and of representation. In this extract from her dissertation, which won the UCD Architecture Dissertation Award in 2011, Orla Phillips discusses the production and manufacture of these two collections and their role in the communication and distribution of the mass-produced image in Ireland. At first, all Irish postcards were published by British firms. However Irish firms such as Lawrence, Hely’s and Eason and Son were soon producing cards, some countrywide and others locally. The most popular picture was a topographical view. However, cards may be found on any conceivable subject. Some postcards included advertising, art nouveau, Art Deco, aviation, maps, military, political, postal, railways, shipping, sport and theatrical images. In 1865 Frederick Holland Mares showed views and stereoscopes of Irish scenery at the Dublin International Exhibition. William Lawrence, who continued to use some of them well into the twentieth century acquired all of Mares’ negatives of views during the 1870s. Mares’ series were numbered approximately 1 to 500 and the negatives may be identified in the Lawrence collection by the distinctive lettering style used for the integral titles. His compositions are easy to recognise as they are distinguished by a particularly romantic view of

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of Belfast and the North. Linen manufacture, shipbuilding and cigarette production transformed Belfast from an agricultural society to a thriving industrial one. Dublin retained its eighteenth century character well into the nineteenth century.8 However the photographic business in Dublin expanded as rapidly as anywhere else. Though French photographed Dublin and the developments, he did not photograph any developments of industry that had begun to emerge in the countryside such as the lace and wool industries. The invention of the dry plate process meant that outdoor photography was a lot easier as the equipment that was necessary for it was drastically reduced. French was in charge of all outdoor photographic work for thirty years. Lawrence’s views were used in many tourist guidebooks and as decoration in Victorian homes. They were also displayed in the carriages of the trains that tourists were travelling on. Lawrence became the dominant Irish figure in the field of Irish views. His catalogue of photographs lists 1,219 views from nearly every Irish county with particular emphasis on the main cities and the tourist areas; this was before the introduction of the picture postcard. Lawrence wrote that his were ‘The only complete series of photographic views published in Ireland’.9 As the popularity of picture postcards grew, new views of the country were in demand. Most firms had to increase their output to cope with the craze. In 1903 it is estimated that 7000 million cards were sent though the world’s mails.10 Sales would have actually exceeded that number as the craze extended to card collecting and many were bought for postcard albums. From this it can be taken that people who may have bought Lawrence’s or Eason and Sons’ views may never have travelled to Ireland but wished to buy the image of an Ireland they believed to exist. French photographed town-life, landscape, railways, shipping, transport, churches, ruins, hotels, public buildings, statues, banks, military activities, golfing, fairs and markets, tourist and

tourism as well as the occasional posed picture. While French’s camera merely records without any obvious response on his part to the subject matter it does so methodically and with accuracy and thoroughness. French’s photographs were not made as part of a historical record. They showed no stylistic shifts over thirty years. His work grew more expert but was in no way forward looking. Hickey goes on to suggest that French was unconscious of his output or its importance in the future. Social documentation may have been the result but it was not the intention.11 Though French shows little response to the subject he was photographing, he was aware that these photographs were for a market who expected the current national image of ‘picturesque Ireland’ to be upheld. Eason and Son was also a large producer of Irish views. They began as Johnston and Co. in 1819 and were taken over by W.H. Smith in 1850. Eason and Son acquired the business from Smith in 1886.12 Eason and Son and Hely’s were rivals in rushing cards of special events such as royal visits so that they were on sale within a few hours of the photographs being taken. They also competed in other enterprises such as reproducing views from the customer’s own originals. Eason and Son had some cards printed in Dublin by Cherry and Smallwood and in their own factory but most of their stock was obtained through English firms such as Hartmann, Hill, Photochrom and Stoddart and Co.13 In 1905 Eason and Son also introduced their own trademark ‘SIGNAL Series’ a name recently revived by Eason and Son (N.I.) in Belfast. Having contacted the managing director of both Eason and Son in Dublin and in Belfast it has emerged that Eason and Son have very few records from sales at that time of the century. The Belfast branch could disclose that the majority of their postcard views were sold wholesale rather than in their own shops and may have been displayed on bookstalls at railway stations. Contact with Louis

11 Ibid. 8

Ibid.

10 Ibid.

12 Cullen, L. M. (1989) Eason and Son; A History. Dublin: Eason and Son Ltd. 13 Dixon, F. E., Pioneer Publishers of Dublin Picture Postcards

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At the same time that Eason and Son and Lawrence were producing picturesque views of the Irish countryside, Alexander Hogg and R. J. Welch, two Northern Irish photographers were focusing their attention on more current issues and trends. Some of R. J. Welch’s photographs were Irish topographical views which were also used for postcards and for cigarette cards. However, Welch’s true interest lay in natural history.17 Welch saw the value of recording aspects of the Irish scene that were familiar a century or even half a century ago but which have now largely disappeared. Evans states that R. J. Welch ‘went to great pains because he wanted every picture to be instructive … to be a record for the benefit of future generations.’ Unlike French or the Eason and Son photographers Welch wished to use the photograph as a historical document. He also recorded the production lines of the ship building, cigarette and linen industry in Belfast. His collection is now housed in the Ulster Museum. Compared with Welch, Alexander Hogg’s intellectual interests appear to have been more conventional.18 However, he had a genuine appreciation of Irish topography, natural history and archaeology. He was also a keen antiquary and naturalist and devoted much of his spare time to photography in these spheres. The photographing of machinery provided him with income for forty years. Hogg became the official photographer to Workman Clark and Co. shipbuilders.19 Hogg’s other subjects included linen manufacture, slum housing scheduled for replacement, some of the decayed national schools in the city, the city’s horse-drawn fire brigade and the laying of electric tramlines. The Ulster museum collection contains 5,500 glass negatives and about 1,500 glass-lantern slides and several hundred of Hogg’s prints. Welch and Hogg’s collections have catalogued a period of social history. They have documented for commissions, and for their own interest, different

14 In correspondence with the author

17 Estyn, E. (1977) Ireland’s eye: the photographs of Robert John Welch.

15 Kinane, V. (2002) A Brief History of Printing and Publishing in Ireland. Dublin: The National Print Museum. 16 Dixon, F. E. (Vol. 32, No. 4 (Sep., 1979)). Pioneer publishers of Dublin Picture Postcards. Dublin Historical Record, pp. 146–147.

Belfast: Blackstaff Press 18 Maguire, W. A. (1986) Caught in time: The photographs of Alexander Hogg of Belfast, 1870–1939. Belfast: Friars Bush. 19 Ibid.

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M Cullen, the author of ‘Eason and Son a history’ disclosed that there are no records as to the photographer of the series.14 At this point, the printing press was not a predominant industry in Ireland. Printing was a late arrival in Ireland and it was not until the 1640s that there was ever more than one press in operation in the country at any one time. At the beginning, the control of the Press by the British ‘King’s Patent’ suppressed the growth of printing in Ireland until 1732. There was also a lack of legislation to protect intellectual property in Ireland which meant that many Irish authors turned to London for publication of their works. Although at the end of the eighteenth century there was growth in the industry, the Extension of Copyright Act to Ireland in 1801 following the Act of Union had a devastating effect on the Dublin printing and publishing trades.15 The loss of the reprint trade almost obliterated the Dublin printing trade. This fact and the reputation of bad quality of print deepened the depression. Any recovery of the trade after this was exacerbated by the Great Famine. The second half of the century provided some stability, however the general trade depression at the end of the century sent the printing industry into the doldrums again. The First World War and the destruction caused by the 1916 rising compounded these problems. The continuing poor print quality being produced in Ireland until the 1940s was the main reason why publishers went abroad to print their postcards. This meant that not only were we generating an image of Ireland for people in other countries but that those countries were also actually printing these images. This is highlighted by the fact that the 1904 series Cartaí Posta Gaedhealach was printed with all inscriptions in Irish. However these cards were also printed in Germany.16 This was concealed by stating the German production in Irish and placing that information under the stamp.

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dimensions of life in the early twentieth century. The image that they portray of Northern Ireland is one embracing its past and also its industrious present. This is quite unlike the identity that French’s and Eason and Son’s photographs have generated for the South. Welch and Hogg were not relying on the desires of a foreign market to define their city’s image as they were sponsored by industry. The Northern Irish photographers record images that display the industrial revolution which has in turn brought about the camera and image making apparatus that they and the photographers of the South have come to use. It can be said that the photographs of the South have ignored the industrious developments that have enabled them to create the camera as image making apparatus, preferring instead to continue to capture images of an idyllic past.

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(opposite) Easons Book Stall Courtesy of The Wiltshire Collection, The National Library of Ireland

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Gardiner’s Royal Circus

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Merlo Kelly

Gardiner’s Royal Circus North Dublin routes and connected spaces (historic roads dotted) Merlo Kelly

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Like Mountjoy Square, the Royal Circus was a project being undertaken by Gardiner as a private venture. However, from 1790, the Commissioners’6 increased control over developments within private estates meant that developers had to seek approval for any new roads or significant new proposals. In July 1792, the plans for the Royal Circus were approved by the Wide Streets Commissioners. The proposed Royal Circus was to have been a ‘splendid range of private mansions’7, collected in an oblong oval around a landscaped enclosed park. The ellipse took the existing Eccles Street as its central axis and this set out the geometry of the remaining spaces. Two new streets radiated from either side of Eccles Street – the upper segment linking all the way to Beresford Place via Mountjoy Square and Gardiner Street and the lower one leading to the Liffey via Rutland Square and Sackville Street. It was a highly ambitious project and ‘was to have eclipsed even Merrion Square’.8 The scheme was no doubt influenced by the Woods family who designed the Royal Circus and the Royal Crescent in Bath, and incorporates elements of each.9 The large scale dwellings were arranged around the oval central space, one long unbroken crescent on the west side and four smaller curved segments divided by the radiating streets. No drawing was found outlining footprints of the properties so we have only the plotlines and the total frontages in plan. However, the deeds prescribe building widths, and control projections beyond the ‘window stools or door cases’10 so footprints of the dwellings are easily calculable. Only one drawing survives of the proposed building design, depicting the

McCullough, N. Dublin – An Urban History (Dublin 2007) p.69

Wide Streets Commissioners: Minute Books WSC MINS / VOLUME

Burke, N. Dublin 1600–1800; A Study in Urban Morphogenesis Ph.D. 7

Cosgrave, A.D. ‘North Dublin City’ Dublin Historical Record Vol.23,

thesis p.426 3

11–13 July 1792

Gibney, F. Castles in the Air, Dublin Historical Record Vol.17 No.3

No.1 (June 1969) p.13

(June 1962) p.96

Ibid.

Memories of the Past, The Irish Builder Vol. XIV No.306 (15

Burke, N. Dublin 1600–1800; A Study in Urban Morphogenesis Ph.D.

Cosgrave, A. D. North Dublin City Dublin Historical Record Vol.23,

September 1872) p.255

No.1 (June 1969) p.13

thesis p.426 10 Royal Circus Lease Agreement with Samuel Reed 16 July 1792, Gardiner Papers [National Library Ref : MS 36,566/2–3]

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The second half of the eighteenth century was a critical period in the development of the Gardiner estate, and consequently the north Dublin city. The proposal for the Royal Circus in the north city was Luke Gardiner’s most ambitious urban scheme, intended to provide coherency in an estate that had expanded in a somewhat irregular fashion. Three distinctive strands were to emanate from the elliptical housing plan in an effort to connect the various quarters of the estate, ‘proposing sophisticated Neo-classical sequences over a Dublin reality.’1 The Royal Circus and the adjacent Florinda Place featured in a series of Dublin directory maps over a period of nearly forty years but the plot remained empty until the construction of the Mater Hospital seventy years later. Though the scheme never materialised, its siting formed part of a series of urban design moves that were critical in the formation of the north city. The ellipse of the proposed Royal Circus was located on the highest ground of the Gardiner Estate2, ‘some 80 feet over sea level, or sixty feet higher than the lower levels of the city’.3 The title is thought to have come from the origins of the site on which it was to stand, which once adjoined a royal demesne.4 The site was also to have included ground beyond the North Circular Road, where the Mountjoy Prison now stands, and this is reflected in the partial construction of Cowley Place in 1792 – one of the few streets in the Royal Circus scheme to have been built.5 The scheme originally was to have a direct connection with the Royal Canal, as evident on Wilson’s 1798 map.

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east elevation of the Royal Circus11, signed by T.Cunningham. The design of the Royal circus, though set out and surveyed by Thomas Sherrard, is commonly attributed to Francis Johnston, who was the architect for St.George’s Church in Hardwicke Place and a resident of Eccles Street. There is speculation that the author of the drawing is Thomas Cunningham, a draftsman working for the architect Francis Johnston though this is unconfirmed.12 Despite theories that Francis Johnston was the architect for the Royal Circus, Nuala Burke maintains that Luke Gardiner himself was the guiding hand behind the design.13 Gardiner granted long-term leases on the Royal Circus plots, typically 999 years, and included exhaustive clauses which allowed him to manage the physical character of the buildings and control the nature of the activities within the dwellings. The level of detail prescribed in the Articles of Agreement, signed by the leaseholders was unprecedented in Dublin building practice. The ground floor storey was to be built of Glancullen stone and the remaining three storeys in ‘the best Red Stock Brick’.14 Stone vases adorned the ‘hewn Stone Cornice’15 that was to crown the parapet, all to be constructed with the ‘best Workmanship’.16 A degree of social engineering proved part of the plan with several more antisocial trades being outlawed – ‘Tallow Chandler, Melter of Tallow, Soap Boiler, Tobacco pipe Maker, Sugar Boiler, Baker, Cork Burner, Distiller, Butcher, Slaughter Man, Founder, Tanner, Tin Worker, Pewterer, Brazier Brewer or any or either of them’.17 Considerable fines were imposed where such activities were found to be

operating. This aspired ‘organic unity’18 as described by Burke, effectively banished trades to the back streets and lanes of the estate. The plots were all confirmed, with leases signed by a number of developers in 1792.19 Each lease agreement contained a detailed plot layout with dimensions and notes, drawn up by Thomas Sherrard, the city surveyor. A time limit of twelve years was set for development of the plots.20 In 1812, ‘one quarter’ of the Royal Circus is advertised for sale or lease in the Freemans Journal.21 The particular lots in question are not specified but presumably are those to the south of the site that had no developer attributed to them in the earlier leases. It is interesting to note that in 1812, twenty years after the leases were issued, the project was still seen as advancing despite inactivity. However, all that was built of the Royal Circus were the foundation walls of the enclosing base.22 The origins of the scheme can be traced in some of the street patterns but despite appearing on maps for nearly forty years, Gardiner’s ‘masterpiece’ was never realised. It seems astonishing given the level of detail and care involved in its planning and design. In reference to the Articles of Agreement for the lease of the plots, Nuala Burke observes ‘Such detailed planning and control does not seem to have been imposed in any other area of the city.’23 The site of the Royal Circus remained vacant for sixty years after its conception, until it was acquired by the Mater in 1853,24 with development closing in around it. The Dublin Directories continue to list the ‘Royal Circus’ on the Street Directory (indicating a break in Eccles Street) until as late as 1925.

11 WSC / maps / 23 / 1 + 2 : Dublin City Archive. [NOTE : This drawing

18 Burke, N. Dublin 1600–1800; A Study in Urban Morphogenesis (PhD,

is currently missing from the Archive so a reproduction was taken from the IGS Bulletin Vol. XV No.1 p.23] 12 Irish Architectural Archive: Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 – 1940 13 Burke, N. Dublin 1600–1800; A Study in Urban Morphogenesis Ph.D. thesis p.429 14 Royal Circus Articles of Agreement, 16 July 1792, Gardiner Papers – MS 36,566/6 (NLI) 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid.

TCD, 1972) p.304 19 Royal Circus Lease Agreements 16 July 1792, Gardiner Papers MS 36,566 (NLI) 20 Royal Circus Lease Agreement with James Lecky 16 July 1792, Gardiner Papers MS 36,566/4 (NLI) 21 Freemans Journal 22 July 1812 – Front Page / p.1 22 Memories of the Past The Irish Builder Vol. XIV No.306 September 15 1872 p.255 23 Burke, N. Dublin 1600–1800; A Study in Urban Morphogenesis Ph.D. thesis p.X 24 Harvey, J. Dublin, A Study in Environment (Yorkshire 1972) p.88

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‘characteristic beauty of Dublin’,31 he claims ‘It knocked on the head the most grandiose of the Gardiner schemes, the elliptical Royal Circus’.32 A new theory for the failure of the Royal Circus is put forward in an Irish Builder article of 1872. The foundation walls of the enclosing base were built, and it was intended to have been surrounded by first class mansions, as a rival for, or rather to eclipse, Merrion Square. But this magnificent undertaking was never realized, partially, we believe, from some dispute with the authorities respecting the new lines of streets required, and partly from some defects in title to lands which became necessary to enclose within its area.33 If this was the case, it is conceivable that Luke Gardiner, with his ambition for the project and his considerable political influence in matters of planning, may have been equipped to address these disputes and see the project come to fruition where his successor may have failed. However, this lack of clarity over ownership may explain why the site remained as wasteland until the construction of the Mater Hospital in 1861. The writer of the article, who remains anonymous, suggests there may have been other complications. Curious revelations might be made with regard to the granting of leases for building purposes, not on the part of the noble proprietor, but through the agency of subordinates; and this, it is said, (with what truth we know not), was one of the causes which contributed to the non-realisation of that project.34

25 Coleman, J. Luke Gardiner (1745–98) An Irish Dilettante in Irish Arts Review Yearbook Vol.15 p.167 26 Ibid. 27 Craig, M. Dublin 1660 – 1860 p.296

Despite the failure of the Royal Circus, its legacy remains in the street forms of Eccles Street and Synnott Place. The lines of Berkley Road and Eccles

28 Coleman, J. Luke Gardiner (1745–98) An Irish Dilettante in Irish Arts Review Yearbook Vol.15 p.167 29 Royal Circus Lease Surrender of premises by Samuel Reed to Charles John, 2nd Viscount Mountjoy 01 August 1808, Gardiner Papers [National Library Ref : MS 36,566/7] 30 Craig, M. Dublin 1660 – 1860 p.288

31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Memories of the Past The Irish Builder Vol. XIV No. 306 September 15 1872 p.255 34 Ibid.

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Theories as to why the ambitious scheme failed are plentiful, the most commonly accepted among them being the death of Luke Gardiner in 1798 and the Act of Union in 1800. However this would not explain how the scheme came to survive on Dublin maps for another thirty years. Luke Gardiner’s passing must have been a significant factor – he was the driving force behind the project and an active member of the Wide Streets Commission. He was ‘fired by a set of noble ideals’,25 and projected his vision for the city in schemes such as the Royal Circus and Mountjoy Square. Luke Gardiner was succeeded by his son Charles John Gardiner, who was created Earl of Blessington in 1816. He had a considerable income but lived outside of Ireland, travelling widely with his ‘London society hostess’26 wife. He was evidently not very concerned with the runnings of the estate, fullfilling ‘only a token occupation.’27 By 1846, the Gardiner Estate was dissolved following an Act of Parliament.28 The Act of Union between Britain and Ireland in 1800 meant that there was an exodus of MPs and lords from Dublin to London and consequently a lack of demand for the grand city residences. The excerpt of Samuel Reed’s deed surrendering his original larger Royal Circus plot in exchange for a more modest plot makes reference to changing circumstances of the time – ‘the War which hath long existed and the Union between Great Britain and Ireland and other unforeseen events which have occurred.’29 Maurice Craig attributes the downfall of the Circus to the building method of erecting houses ‘in batches of three or four, with no more than an approximate uniformity over a square or street’.30 Despite this method contributing to the

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Street reflect the approach roads to the Circus (of course Eccles Street predated the scheme) whereas Cowley Place has no trace, having been built over by a new wing of Mountjoy prison. The Royal Circus survives in historical and literary material, meriting a little known reference in Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake.

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Stephen’s odyssey towards the home of Leopold Bloom is too well known to mention. That HCE, a monomythic character in the Wake, is last envisaged at the ‘royal circus’ (a building development planned for the site of modern Berkley Road by Luke Gardiner, but never raised) from whence he orchestrates the city traffic, thus conducting the ‘panepiphany’ of the whole book in a single last gesture of symphonic art, is never adverted to.35 The Mater Hospital now stands on the site of the illfated Royal Circus and although it could be argued, as is contended in the Irish Builder article of 1872,36 that this is a more worthy use of the land than the siting of elaborate city mansions for the wealthy, the sense of loss to the north Dublin city, in an architectural and cultural sense, is considerable.

35 Stewart, B. Adamology, The Crane Bag, Vol.2, No.1/2, The Other Ireland p.48 36 Memories of the Past The Irish Builder Vol. XIV No. 306 September 15 1872 p.255

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Gardiner’s Royal Circus Northern Route Merlo Kelly

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REVIEW / LECTURE

Lunchtime Lecture 3: Peter Wilson Moleskine Notebooks: Inspiration and Process in the work of Bolles+Wilson 2 February 2012

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Tiago Faria

On reflection, there was something fortuitous about Peter Wilson missing his flight from Frankfurt. The Skype transmission echoed a theme of the lecture, about how one communicates and receives ideas. Listening to the invisible speaker, whose speech travelled faster through cyberspace than the images he spoke of and was always therefore that little bit ahead of them, was a reminder of experience as a function of space and time, a bit like knowing that light from a star, as seen at any point, has left that object many, many years ago. He spoke of his book Inspiration and Process in Architecture, which is presented in two sections: one divided into ‘Notes and Recordings’, ‘Notebook readings’ and ‘Place’ and a second on ‘Projects’. Drawings in the first section convey exquisite representation and documentation, where seeing, or taking the time to see, express a sense of questioning within a particular cultural context. This results in a personal mapping of ‘being in the world’. Peter Wilson spoke of this as a layering process, informed by time, like ‘slow food’.

(above) Electronic Rocks Bolles + Wilson

(opposite) Lecture Photo by Stephen Tierney

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When speaking of the projects, he referred to a different aspect of the architect’s thought process: the oscillation between the world of digital media, where a line has no memory and that of the hand drawing, where the physical act of committing to paper leaves a trace – even when erased – and becomes evidence of the thinking process. The figural quality of the hand drawings, where surface, colour and mass convey an abstracted sense of materiality imparts the buildings with an animalistic character, to use the author’s words ‘dangerously close to the picturesque’. These drawings are then mediated by the also evidently particular modus operandi of an Architekturbüro, transposing them into buildings that synthesize a somewhat surreal quality resultant from the association of regulated pragmatism and high abstraction, somewhere between praxis and poiesis. This applies generally throughout the range of work presented, but a case in point is that of the ‘electronic rocks’ designed for and built on the quay’s edge in Rotterdam, where the intended dislocation

of focus achieved by the highly abstracted nature of these perfectly made, finite and deliberately artificial objects, backing onto the gritty background of the docklands (along with the shiny glitter of corporate skyscrapers), has to the evident delight of its author, been completed by the addition of graffiti etched in the perfect skin of their surface. The human figure, implicit at the centre of the investigative work, but notably absent from the project drawings, has in this case taken it upon themselves to personally fill that particular gap and close the loop in the life of those rocks. You couldn’t miss the glint in the eye of Peter Wilson whenever he came into the picture. I’d say, looking at the assembly of people in Richview looking back at him through the mirror of his screen in nearly real time, gave his sense of relish at ‘being in the world’ a good boost.

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STUDIO / UPPER SCHOOL / SEMESTER 1

Bloomin’ Common

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Tutors Emmett Scanlon Jennifer O’Leary Orla Murphy John Tuomey

Students Suzanne Betts Moira Burke John Butler Segolene Charles Patrick Conway John Crowley Ray Dinh Denis Forrest Garret Fullam Shane Garvey Donal Groarke Seamus Guidera Lisa Halton Michael Hayes Donn Holohan

Jonathan Janssens James Kennedy Sean Lynch David Kennedy Barbara McShane Caoimhe Merrick Sorcha Murphy Banbha Nic Canna Fiona Nulty Aoife O’Leary Aisling O’Sullivan Adrian Sweeney Albert Tobin Simona Yonkova Marine Vignot

(above) Exhibition interior Photo by Orla Murphy

(left) Exhibition exterior Photo by Stephen Murray

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The setting for this studio was the Slieve Bloom mountain range that crosses counties Laois and Offaly, and more specifically the relationship between Slieve Bloom and five of the villages that surround it. These villages have the mountains in common, which though invisible from another, share a relationship between the productive landscape, commonage, historic settlement and routes that cross the mountains. The five villages, Cadamstown, Castletown, Coolrain, Kinnity and Rosenalis are perhaps at first glance unremarkable. The students began their observation of this landscape with detail close-up studies of the built fabric. The resulting details of

ways of making buildings, walls, surface, shelter, and junctions between the public and private realm informed strategies for new interventions, which included among others a community hub, hillwalkers shelter, wayfinding points, an elderly day care centre, and a farm. Students in each of the villages worked simultaneously on their individual projects and in their village groups and always presented their work in the context of that of their peers. In the final week, the group brought all of the work together into a single collective exhibition. The resulting work represents the threading of a new weave of activity on the closely observed fabric of these five rural villages.

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(above) Walkers clubhouse and path Suzanne Betts

(opposite top) Perspective Jonathan Janssens, John Crowley

(opposite bottom) Section Donn Holohan

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(above)

(opposite)

Detail Plan

If Rosenallis knew what

Ray Dinh

Rosenallis knows Donal Groarke

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Mountjoy Square

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Tutors Mary Laheen Marcus Donaghy Alan Mee

Students Eimear Arthur Darren Brennan Niall Carroll Rebecca Carroll Brendan Dalton Megan Etherton Elaine Fanning Lee Gavan Sarah Halpenny Nicole Hardy Fiona Harte James Hayes Lloyd Helen Leah Hogan Rachel Jennings Samuel Kane Vadim Kelly Hyung Joon Kim Donal Lally Bertie Landwerlin Paul Laurent Hughes Elspeth Lee Sara Madigan Sarah McKendry Emmet McKenna David McMillan Damien Milton Catriona Moloney Stephen Murray Ronan O’Boyle Su Wang Malin Wilander

Mountjoy Square remains, uniquely, the only livedin residential square of Dublin’s Georgian squares. This fact was discovered by the 2010 Vertical Studio students while carrying out a comparative study of the squares of Dublin. Urban life in the square continues even though circumstances change; and the intention, of making a garden in the city around which to live, survives albeit in a somewhat different manner than that originally conceived. This year, under the overall School theme of Inherited Landscapes, three specific sites in the area were chosen, all located within the Georgian section context. These were; The Square itself, with a brief to fully reinhabit it as a garden and open public space, reaccommodating current uses in a creative way, Fitzgibbon Court, a public housing site built in the early 1970s, with the brief simply to ‘enrich’ the overall site, No’s 65 and 66 Mountjoy Square, two Protected Structures, Georgian terraced houses, with a Brief to accommodate ten new families in the two houses and their re-created mews dwellings. The students also worked in groups, of six for strategies, and of three for linked individual projects, one located at each site. As well as learning from group work situations, the students gained valuable experience in distinct areas, including conservation, landscape, and public housing renewal.

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Section Donal Lally

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(opposite top)

(opposite bottom)

(above)

Mews to park

Perspective

Plan

Fiona Harte

Su Wang

Donal Lally

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(opposite top)

(opposite bottom)

(above)

Detail Study

Exploded Axonometric

Mountjoy Exhibition

Rachael Jennings

Sam Kane

Photo by Stephen Murray

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Workhouse and Society

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Tutors Sheila O’Donnell Tiago Faria Oran O’Siochain

Students Aisling Aherne Leila Budd Celia Brassart Emma Byrne Jonathan Cardy Rachel Carmody Dara Challoner Michael Corcoran Christina Devereux Andrea Doyle Rachel Dudley Jude Duffy Anais Drugeon Padraig Flynn Kate Griffin Eoin Horner William Hutch Greg Jackson Grainne Keogh Damien King Stephen Laverty Catriona O’Connor Brian Massey Helena McCarthy Aonghus McDonnell Catriona McGilp Conor McGuire Cathal Monaghan Scott Morton Jennifer O’Donnell Sandra Plantos

Some wings of the Callan Workhouse have been demolished and a housing estate and petrol station intrude into its original site boundary. Nonetheless it retains the key features of a Wilkinson workhouse. …like so many, partly mutilated by posterity and partly preserved by neglect… —Jeremy Williams on Callan Workhouse in Architecture in Ireland 1837–1921

Students were asked to study, measure, record and assess this building and in doing so, think about the re-use of workhouses and institutional buildings in general. The initial research and survey work included a study of the town of Callan and its immediate hinterland. Student groups made propositions for guidelines for intervention into historic structures; using fresh thinking to examine existing policies for dealing with our built heritage and to clarify your own position in relation to this subject. Projects were proposed at the scale of the workhouse or parts of it, its immediate context and relationship to the Camphill Community who occupy its southern wings, and at the scale of Callan town.

Callan Exhibition Photo by Stephen Murray

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(left) Being there Scott Morton

(opposite top) Section Emma Byrne

(opposite bottom) Farmhouse Perspective Scott Morton

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(above) Corridor Rachel Carmody

(left) Door Details Jennifer Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Donnell

(opposite) Callan Exhibition Photo by Stephen Murray

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Settlement

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Anthony Haughey

Settlement was a photographic and architectural exhibition at The Copper House Gallery, Dublin, during November 2011. The exhibition included a collaborative installation with UCD Architecture students, DIT NAMAlab and Mahoney Architects. Thirty-two A1 drawings formed the central part of this installation. Each drawing proposed a visionary plan to transform National Asset Management Agency controlled building developments around Dublin city and ghost estates in Co. Carlow into sustainable civic and community oriented buildings. Settlement charts the fallout from the collapse of Ireland’s ‘property bubble’, a result of the overheated Celtic Tiger economy. A series of photographs documents sparsely occupied and unfinished ‘ghost estates’.1 Images of empty housing estates feature regularly in the national and international media and have become a cliché of post Celtic Tiger Ireland. In the Settlement series however, a very different visual strategy and aesthetic is adopted, inviting a deeper reflective account of this moment of crisis. These photographs are produced between 1

To view photographs from the Settlement series visit: http://www.anthonyhaughey.com A dedicated exhibition website with an interactive map and all the architectural proposals, is available from: http://www.settlementexhibitiondotcom.wordpress.com

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Settlement installation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Monument to the Collapse of Capitalism in Ireland, 2011 Anthony Haughey

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dusk and dawn, in the penumbra or half-light. The combination of darkness, long exposures and artificial light draws attention to the destruction of the natural environment, a direct result of over-development. Stalled building activity stands frozen in time, a reminder of disastrous laissezfaire capitalism and planning legislation. These images attract and repel in equal measure, evoking a ‘dystopian sublime’. But imaging the sublime is not without risk. As Liz Wells warns, ‘we feel over-awed and dis-empowered’. How then she asks, ‘can artists effectively contribute to asking the questions that need to be asked and find different ways of doing so in order to keep issues alive?’2 One thing art can do, is ask difficult questions. It was my intention to combine these photographs with statistics, texts and other contextualized material to generate a critical ‘conversation’. During the research phase of producing the Settlement exhibition, I was introduced to Mahoney Architects visionary proposal to transform the abandoned Anglo Irish Bank Headquarters site into a Vertical Park, ‘where nature, rather than commerce, will re-colonize the abandoned concrete structure’.3 In Mahoney’s significant proposal, this toxic (and now defunct) bank – partly responsible for bringing Ireland’s economy to its knees, is repurposed as an anti-memorial, a repository for collective memory and a powerful symbol of the global crisis. Architecture, the built environment and landscape are ‘social products; reflecting cultural histories and attitudes’.4 It is our collective responsibility to re-imagine how the ruins of the present offer a unique opportunity to re-imagine how we want to live in the future. Mahoney’s proposal was combined with similar antithetical proposals. This included contributions from UCD Architecture students and DIT’s NAMAlab project to create an installation consisting of thirtytwo A1 architectural drawings. Each drawing was 2

Wells, L. (2011) Land Matters, Landscape Photography, Culture and

A full description of Mahoney Architects proposal is available from

Wells, L. (2011) Land Matters, Landscape Photography, Culture and

Identity, London: I.B. Tauris, 142.

http://www.treesonthequays.com [Accessed 25.01.12]

Identity, London: I.B. Tauris, 1.

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Settlement exhibition at the Copperhouse Gallery, 2011 Anthony Haughey

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From the Settlement series, 2011 Anthony Haughey

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To view the installation and for a virtual tour of the exhibition at the Copper House Gallery, visit http://youtu.be/d78q0YADpuA [Accessed 25.01.12]. A review of the exhibition with a short introduction by the artist was broadcast on ‘The View’, RTÉ (15.11.11) available from http://www.rte.ie/tv/theview/ archive/20111115.html [Accessed 25.01.12].

Rancière, J. (2004) ‘Problems and Transformations in Critical Art’, in Participation: Documents of Contemporary Art, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 83.

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printed as multiple copies, more than one thousand prints arranged on the floor of the gallery. This A1 paper stack was installed to visually reference the concrete foundation of a building. Quarry aggregate containing Pyrite was placed on top of an acrylic platform suspended above the stack with steel cables. This alludes to the recent discovery of Pyrite under the foundations of more than 20,000 new homes in North Dublin and Co. Meath, where it has caused serious structural damage. That Pyrite is also known as ‘fools gold’ is a tragic but fitting metaphor for the abrupt and ignominious end to the fortunes of Ireland’s property development prospectors. The installation was aptly titled, Monument to the Collapse of Capitalism, Ireland, 2011. Visitors to the gallery were invited to take an A1 drawing from the top of the stack, revealing further proposals underneath.5 This conscious act of ‘gifting’ avoids the tendency for art works to become commodified. It was envisaged that the act of taking a drawing home, and later reviewing its content would encourage a deeper reflection of what was being proposed by this exhibition, an opportunity to consider alternative ways to rebuild society in a more equitable and sustainable way, mindful of Jacque Rancière’s observation that, ‘critical art intends to raise consciousness of the mechanisms of domination in order to turn the spectator into a conscious agent in the transformation of the world’.6

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Settlement series, 2012 Anthony Haughey

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STUDIO / YEAR 4 / SEMESTER 2

How we might live Housing in the Liberties, Dublin

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Tutors Marcus Donaghy Orla Murphy Sheila O’Donnell Emmett Scanlon

Students Aisling Ahern Celia Brassart Darren Brennan Jo Anne Butler John Butler Jonny Cardy Suzanne Chan Segolene Charles Donal Crowe Anais Drugeon Jude Duffy Donn Holohan Paul Laurent Hughes Edwin Jebb Kathleen Kelly Tara Kennedy Grainne Keogh Gavan Lee Sean Lynch Catriona McGilp Emmet McKenna Jennifer McLoughlin Barbara McShane Ciara McCurtain Caoimhe Merrick Damian Milton Dawn Parke Joe Stokes Kelly Shane Twohig Marten Van Zutphen Marine Vignot Brona Waldron Becky Wallace Malin Wilander

The Annual RIAI Travelling Scholarship competition was used to inform the work of this studio, which took its programme, URBAN 2012 – to create new high density housing in Dublin’s Liberties – as a starting point. The brief asked students to make propositions for how we might live in our cities and to contest and challenge the engrained and somewhat limited understanding of multipleoccupancy dwelling in Ireland. As the urbanisation of the world’s population continues, there is an increasingly urgent need to create high density dwelling that can also provide long term multi-generational homes. New typologies are required that are inventive and provocative and which question what it means to settle in and occupy dwelling in the centre of the city. As a way of re-focusing the design of multiple-unit housing, students began the semester by designing homes for occupants with specific needs and desires. By translating the needs of the particular to the general and by shifting between the scale of the detail and that of the city a richer, a more deeply occupied vision of the city was investigated. After completing group research into the morphology, history, character and physical parameters of the site, together with a study of the demographic, legislative and cultural context, students worked independently to develop a strategic response. Selected projects were then progressed in groups to developed design.

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Concept Collage Joe Stokes

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STUDIO / YEAR 4 / SEMESTER 2

(left) Site Plan

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Joe Stokes

(below) Section Model Tara Kennedy

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Sectional Model Joe Stokes

(right) Weaver Square Barbara McShane

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(above)

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(above) Site Plan Kathleen Kelly

(left) Interior View Edwin Jebb, Donal Crowe, Maaten Van Zutven

(opposite top) Work / Live Kathleen Kelly

(opposite bottom) Concept Model Tara Kennedy

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REVIEW / LECTURE

Lunchtime Lecture 4: Jan Theissen JustK 24 February 2012 Brona Waldron

February brought German architect Jan Theissen of the practice AMUNT to Richview for Second Year Interim Reviews and to give a lecture on JustK, a one-off family house in Tübingen, Southern Germany which was selected from 200 entries to win first prize in

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the 2011 AR House Awards. Under the motto ‘less but better’ the house sought to provide flexible, functional living space to a family of two adults and four children with the minimum floor area necessary. Striking in its form, but comfortable in its context, the house questions preconceived notions of sustainability, achieving the rigourous ‘Passivhaus’ standard without compromising on spatial diversity and quality.

The award-winning JustK house was Jan Theissen’s first built project. As John Tuomey jokingly remarked in his introduction, ‘How annoying is that?’ Speaking to a room of fourth and fifth years in the Red Room in Richview, many on the cusp of freedom, it was a timely reminder of the possibilities ahead. More used to having guest lectures given by more established architects, it was nice to see the same fuss being made over a newbie. And rightly so. With a slide aptly titled ‘House with Hat’, Jan began the lecture by describing the sloped southfacing site nestled into a 1920s leafy suburb in Tübingen. The ‘open-minded’ clients – a family of six – wanted to live in an optimised passive energy house. This would be new territory for Jan Theissen and his colleagues in AMUNT Björn Martenson and Sonja Nagel. He described the learning curve that this provided. ‘It gave us a fresh approach and allowed us to question what sustainable construction actually means.’

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(above) Southwester/JustK Jan Theissen

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Theissen questioned the standard definition of ‘sustainable architecture’ by citing the Wikipedia entry for the term which leans heavily on the application of new technologies. It ‘sounds more like engineering than architecture’ which, according to Theissen, ‘isn’t very sexy’. He also lamented the lack of precedent taken from ‘the sensitive smart designs that you learn about in architectural history or from ancient cultures.’

Precedent was found in the crude pragmatism of the Black Maria film studio in New Jersey built in 1892 by William K.L. Dickson and the idiosyncrasies of the surrounding dwellings in Tübingen – the hipped roofs, the tough, compact grey forms upon which the roof sits ‘like a hat’. Perhaps the lecture’s most memorable image was indeed that of a hat – specifically a southwester, the simple cheap waterproof headgear for sailors, which inspired the strongly articulated roof shape. In studies of the pitched roof, AMUNT found ‘an enormous formal potential which was totally ignored by modernity’. Also perhaps by students? After presenting such a richly characterful roofing concept, Theissen was asked what he felt about the omnipresence of the flat roof in the work of secondyear students he had observed that day. He responded with the amusing analogy that ‘always designing a flat roof is like always having spaghetti for dinner.’ A lesson for us all. Theissen went on to describe the guiding principles and aims of the JustK project, citing early modern architect Josef Frank’s text The House as Path and Place as a strong influence on the tight choreography of the plan. He read a quote from Frank who says, ‘…there is no place that is not living space in a good residential home.’ Every corner and crevice of the house is useful. A balustrade becomes seating with storage underneath. A mini-office tucks itself into a cosy niche just off the living area. Taking into consideration the nature of the evolving family unit, the uppermost floor can be converted into a separate apartment if needs be. Part of the ‘strategy of perceived generosity’, the idea of appropriable spaces permeates through the house. Referencing back to an earlier slide, Theissen showed a newly amended Wikipedia page for Sustainable Architecture. In the table of contents, nestled between ‘Sustainable Building Materials’ and ‘Waste Management’ was now Theissen’s entry, ‘Efficient Ground Plan Design with Maximal Spatial Aesthetic Quality’. In JustK, Theissen and his colleagues sought to challenge the status quo of what sustainable architecture could be. Technology can and should be utilised, but that is only half the story. John Tuomey thanked Theissen for coming to Dublin to share his project with the students and staff of UCD. Indeed, to a room of would-be graduates, there could be no better inspiration than a young architect challenging preconceptions and questioning bigger issues through clever, thoughtful design.

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CENTENARY / EXHIBITION

A Window to Practice

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Orla Hegarty

A Window to Practice takes a simple format: 12 windows, 12 architects and 12 groups of students. In selecting the projects, all of which are domestic, Michael Pike has assembled a series of carefully considered and well executed schemes. The exhibition is in two parts – the wall panels are a series of drawings, photographs and descriptions of twelve windows. Each project is also represented by a plywood model at a scale of 1:20, made by Second Year students. This work was expanded as a parallel project through the Year 2 design and technology studio. Students attended a series of talks and workshops related to the exhibition theme and studied and designed windows in their own housing project in drawing and model at a range of scales. The first impression of this exhibition is the thoughtful resolution of each of the projects. Through different expressions, the projects address the balance of light and shade, view and privacy, within the constraints of technical performance. The exhibition brought to mind a lecture given by Professor Alistair Rowan in the School in the late 1980s: then Professor of the History of Art in UCD, Professor Rowan gave a talk about windows in Irish architectural history. My clearest memory from that time is the notion that traditional windows were always at the limit of technological developments at any particular time: the architectural expression being controlled by the manufactured size of a pane of glass, by the structural limitations of the framing material and by requirements for comfort in the internal environment.

In A Window to Practice, this argument is confirmed. The ultimate expression of developments in glass technology is in the ‘window in a window’ by Lawrence and Long Architects, where the opening section – framed in timber – is structurally supported by the glass. The majority of the projects use timber framing, and here, technical advances are expressed in the resolution of carefully detailed assemblies which achieve higher thermal performance and support larger panes of substantial double or triple glazed units. Weathering and structural considerations create opportunities to make transitional spaces by the placement of the window, the level of the cill and the composition of fixed and opening sections. The technical performance of modern windows has provided a new vocabulary for architectural expression. The photographs in the exhibition, in contrast to the drawings, take us through the glass to the spaces beyond. Domestic extensions, by their nature, are generally in the private realm of the house and garden, and this exhibition suggests the possibilities for careful interventions and the opportunities for an architectural expression which is driven by technology. The selected Irish projects are by ABK Architects, Anima Architects, Anne Gorman Architects, CAST architecture, Donaghy + Dimond Architects, Eden Architects, GKMP Architects, Lawrence and Long Architects, Lotus Architects and TAKA Architects. In addition, two projects in Galicia, Northern Spain represent the work of Antonio Pernas Varela Arquitectos and Beatriz Hermida Tomás Valente Arquitectos from the CESUGA School.

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Exhibition Photo by Stephen Tierney

RESEARCH / POSITION

PRACTICE – space|overlooked

PRACTICE is a design based group of five recent graduates of UCD Architecture – Brian Barber, Amélie Conway, Dominic Lavelle, Joe Swan and Jamie Young. Through a series of design projects, carried out between June and November 2011, we explored the potential of overlooked spaces and challenged the accepted perception of ‘site’ in Dublin’s city centre. The aim of the resultant projects was to preserve and regenerate the city’s finite building stock through the occupation of these spaces, while doing the most with the least amount of moves. Under the title ‘space|overlooked’, our work culminated in four proposed interventions – a shared working garden in Parnell Place, a community centre and sports ground in Molyneux Yard, an outdoor theatre in Crampton Court and a series of stacked gardens on Thomas Street. Each of these sites share the characteristic of being voids in an urban block, while also being currently viewed as inopportune. Through use of a common structural element, scaffolding, these projects are legible as part of the same overall scheme, while also conveying its themes – temporality, ease of construction, low cost, commonality and adaptability. Along with the guidance and support of Dublin Civic Trust, we were afforded the opportunity to exhibit this work in their premises on Castle Street. For the exhibition we prepared renders and axonometrics of each design, along with an intricate 1:50 model for each site. Space|overlooked was opened in November 2011 by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs Jimmy Deenihan and John Tuomey, and ran until early March 2012. Practice is currently editing and designing a publication which details and expands upon the research, process and design projects of space|overlooked. This will be launched during Summer 2012, when we also hope to reinstall the exhibition in a new venue.

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www.spaceoverlooked.com

Thomas Street, Street View

Exhibition

Photo montage by Dominic Lavelle

Photo by PRACTICE

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STUDIO / UPPER SCHOOL / SEMESTER 2

Architectural Technologies

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Project 1: Parametric Design

Tutors Emer Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Daly James McBennett

The intention of this module is to enable students to acquire a facility in digital computation and an understanding of emergent technologies and fabrication techniques. Each individual student develops skills in software such as Rhino, Autodesk Maya and 3dsMax as well as understanding new methods of fabrication using CNC milling and 3d printing. We discuss the capabilities of various software and advances in fabrication and how they impact upon architectural design and representation.

Project 2: Walls

Tutors Tiago Faria Pierre Long

This project consisted in the designing and building of prototype walls as a first step of an exploration leading to a self-build programme to provide living units for some of the Camphill Community members in Callan. As such, the premises of building in a manner compatible with the resources available to Camphill, informed the strategies adopted.

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(left) Earth Photo by Tara Kennedy

(below) Timber Photo by Shane Twohig

(following spread) Photo by Stephen Murray

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(opposite left) 3D Model Donal Crowe

(opposite right) Straw Photo by Joe Stokes

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RESEARCH / ESSAY

Professional Practice Essay Bláthmhac Ó Muirí

As part of the Diploma in Professional Practice, students are required to write an essay in response to a specific quote in relation to contemporary professional practice. The extract below is from an essay by Bláthmhac Ó Muirí.

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‘If you have any money to spare, now is the urgent time to let me have some…it is now a sheer matter of food and shelter.’ Louis Sullivan to Frank Lloyd Wright, 1921 The fate of Louis Sullivan serves as a warning to those pursuing a career in architecture. In university, the focus of studies in architecture tends to be on the works of architects, their completed buildings and commissions. While studying for professional practice, the focus shifts away from projects and more towards the architect’s practice. Unfortunately, the tale of Louis Sullivan is not a unique one. The story of Louis Kahn (1901–1974) serves a reminder of the fallibility of even the most renowned architects. In spite of having a career that included such acclaimed works as the Salk Institute and the Kimbell Art Museum, he died heavily in debt. This attitude to money and budgets would seem to be the greatest downfall among many architects where there seems to be a prevailing lack of understanding of the importance of business management. Recent British research suggests that 75 percent of architecture practices had no business plan and that 80 percent of practices fail within the first five years of business.1 This would suggest that a greater emphasis be placed

Assael, J. (March 2011). RIBA Journal .

on business management in university and that a business management module should be part of architectural education. A comprehensive survey was carried out in April 2011 by the RIBA, which revealed that a significant 42 percent of practices failed to achieve a turnover to profit ratio of 15 percent. The survey also asked the offices to break down their costs. Over half of practicing offices spent almost three-quarters of their budgets on staff salaries, with smaller practices allocating more of their expenses to wages than larger firms. The report urges architects to review their allocation of expenditure. The survey also reveals that practices allocate only 5 percent of their annual budgets to IT development, a perturbing trend, especially with modern public procurement procedures in the UK requiring all public projects with a budget of £50 million or more (and there are plans to have this figure reduced to as low £5 million) to utilise BIM (Building Information Modeling) technologies. The cost of training staff and acquiring software licenses is estimated as approaching the £3,000 mark per capita. This lack of investment in upskilling and infrastructure will see many offices ineligible for medium to large-scale public projects in the future. One last statistic is the fact that practices spent only 2 percent of their budgets on marketing. The fact that firms are not willing to invest in promoting themselves is worrying, as an opportunity is missed in raising their profiles and attracting potential clients. Louis Sullivan spent his entire professional life working solely as an architect. Other architects such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto and the Eames were involved in pursuits similar to (but outside of) the realm of architecture such as

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but by also diversifying, architectural firms have a greater chance of weathering the ebb and flow of the economic tide. Louis Sullivan was highly dependent on the whims of his clients, his work in the 1880s and 1890s being predominantly focused on commercial office tower construction. Unfortunately, the firm seems to have been too dependent on commissions for office blocks, and with the beginning of recession in the United States in 1895, the firm found itself extremely exposed. This was the beginning of the end for the Adler-Sullivan relationship and the two went their separate ways. Over one hundred years later the same remains true and again reiterates the strengths of an office diversifying. Frank Lloyd Wright adopted a more flexible approach to running an office and approaching design by founding the Taliesin studio. He was also open to designing other elements such as furniture and stained glass. If Sullivan had been more flexible in his approach and had he a more wide ranging palette, his firm may have survived. It is those practices that are willing to adapt that will survive. References Brooks H.A. Writings on Wright (1981) s:I s:N Construct Ireland Issue 8, Vol.5 August/September 2011 Kahn L. What Will be has Always Been: The Words of Louis I.Kahn (ed) Richard Saul Wurman (1986) Rizolli, Los Angelese, New York Rand A. The Fountainhead RIBA Journal Twombly R. Louis Sullivan: His Life and Work (1986) Viking Penguin Inc., Canada pp. 368, 385, 403 Zerbst R. Antonio Gaudi I Cornet: A Life Devoted to Architecture (2002) New York, Taschen p.6 www.hebrideanhomes.com www.architecture00.net

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furniture design, industrial design and in the case of Le Corbusier, painting. The same holds true for other past masters such as Christopher Wren, a physicist and an astronomer, and Michelangelo, a renowned sculptor. The current recession is forcing architects to reassess the role of the profession, with a new debate emerging about the subjects of specialisation and diversification. One wonders if the recent changes in the Technical Guidance Documents (TGD) such as Part L and Part M, could in fact be a secret boon, allowing architectural practices to develop departments based around the new building directives. The new Public Procurement Procedures (PPP) contracts, which are complex and cumbersome, could be seen as a new specialist field. Architects could specialise in PPPs and act as advisors within their own firms or independently to other firms. Specialisation within the profession may be one answer to strengthening the position of the architectural profession but diversification is equally as valid. Luis Barragan (1902â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1988) was well aware of the limitations of being an architect relying on commissions of wealthy clients. Mid-way through his career he decided to become a developer, which allowed him to have more control over his projects. Flexibility and a willingness to adapt to changes in circumstance is key for the survival of the profession. Firms such as Architecture 00:/, based in London are an example of this diversification and specialisation process. Calling themselves a design and strategy practice, they provide consultations in zero-carbon design but are also involved in filmmaking, publishing, research and organising exhibitions. Dualchas Building Design based on the Isle of Skye and in Glasgow, highlighted the issue of the glut of catalogue housing that was pockmarking the Scottish landscape and decided to create high-quality kit-housing in the form of a subsidiary company called Hebridean Homes. The process of kit-housing gives the architect full control over the construction process and by using industrial processes, the houses are of a high quality while also fulfilling passive house standards. By specialising

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RELATE

CENTENARY / EXHIBITION & EVENT

Convergence John Tuomey

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Group 91: On Collaboration was exhibited in the Front Room from October 12th to 26th, opening with a discussion between representatives from the eight practices. The exhibition used Group 91’s own exhibition panels (shown at the Architecture League of New York in 1998) and interwove these with written excerpts from new interviews conducted by Lisa Cassidy in 2011 with Yvonne Farrell, Shelley McNamara, Michael McGarry, Siobhan Ní Eanaigh, Sheila O’Donnell, Shane O’Toole, John Tuomey and Derek Tynan. Focusing on process, group structure and the specific roles taken by the individual architects within the group, the interview material was intended to reflect the organisational, strategic successes behind Group 91’s award-winning projects.

Twenty years ago a loosely structured cooperative of like-minded architects was announced as the unlikely winner of the architectural competition for the Temple Bar Framework Plan. Group 91 had come together after ten year’s occasional collaboration on cultural activism and counter-projects. It comprised friends and colleagues who had first met in the studios of the School of Architecture UCD. They had worked together in various combinations to volunteer urban propositions that were united by a common theme, the regeneration of Dublin as a living city. Group 91 were architectural advocates for the idea of Dublin as a European city. At that time it seemed that nobody would have wanted to live in downtown Dublin. Group 91 was formed in 1990, the year before Dublin was to take its turn as European Capital of Culture. After years of paper projects the plan was to build a practical working example of apartment living. Making A Modern Street was intended to demonstrate the viability of a European inspired urban alternative to the Irish aspiration of suburban living. Dublin City Council offered a site. President Mary Robinson opened the exhibition in the Riverrun Gallery, on the street corner opposite City Hall. Even the Taoiseach’s secretary showed an interest in the models and drawings. When the Temple Bar Framework Plan

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This experiment produced practical results because of a mixture of political circumstances, good fortune, common purpose and individual chemistry. Strategic planning and architectural design happened in tandem, in a relatively short time and with the minimum of bureaucracy. Although the members of Group 91 had been in training for this kind of participation in city building, nothing could have happened without the creative collaboration of particular personalities. Paddy Teahon was a man of action in the Taoiseachâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office, Laura Magahy energetically represented the cultural constituency, Owen Hickey was the poacher-turnedgamekeeper of the property scene, Michael Gough and Dick Gleeson were courageous planners with an exceptional enthusiasm for modern architecture. Many others contributed to the vision and joined in the adventure. Twenty years later, Temple Bar is the still-developing work-in-progress that was brought about by a convergence of people who were willing and ready to seize the possibilities offered by the changing times.

Group 91 Front Room Exhibition Photo by Stephen Tierney

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competition was announced it seemed that Group 91 would have to be invited to participate. And for Group 91, this was a make or break opportunity. The competition design drew on individual experience and collectively accumulated knowledge of the urban history of Temple Bar. It made the case for the retention of the scale of the streetscape. It argued that public space should be retrieved from existing derelict ground. Instead of a single landmark building, it proposed a series of interventions, small streets and squares threaded through the texture of Temple Bar. Winning the competition led to a continuous flow of satisfying work for the members of Group 91. Some disappointments were inevitable, but some were difficult to accept. The bridge approach to Meeting House Square, the north side of Temple Bar Square, the market square in the West end, and the permeability of Foster Place were all hard fought for and sadly lost. However, significant aspects of the competition proposals went through without objection and were built exactly as planned. By July 1992 planning permissions had been lodged for the redevelopment of Temple Bar Square, Curved Street, Essex Street apartments and Meeting House Square. Unprecedented projects for public spaces, public buildings and prototypical apartments were realised in the space of five years.

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CENTENARY / EVENT

Architecture for Society: Practices and Projects Centenary Symposium 24 March 2012

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James Casey

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The purpose of this one-day symposium was to highlight some of the work by experienced and more recent graduates, together with that of invited guests, and to seek to uncover alternative modes of practice that affect positive societal change. Speakers ranged from experienced practitioners, recent graduates, those working in NGOs, or crossing the boundary between architecture and art practice to question sometimes preconceived ideas of culture back to society. The day was divided into four themed sessions, ‘Shifting Practice, ‘Moving Back In’, ‘Out Far/In Close’ and ‘An Ongoing Conversation’. Each session consisted of one or two discursive presentations interspersed with five-minute ‘injection’ talks, followed by chaired panel/audience discussion.

This event was kindly supported by the National Concert Hall and the Norwegian Embassy.

Gerry Cahill Photo by Dermot McCabe

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In commemorating 100 years of the UCD School of Architecture, one of the aims was to explore the role of architecture in the shaping of society. Methods of practice and specific projects by graduates and current and former staff of the School have at times attempted to have affect beyond their immediate remit.

RELATE

(top) Erlend Blakstad Haffner

(middle) Killian Doherty, Paul de Freine, Peter

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Carroll, Kathleen James Chakraborty

(bottom) Lisbet Harboe

Photos by Dermot McCabe

CENTENARY / EVENT

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further discussion on the perceived gap between architects, the general public and other professions and how multi-disciplinary collaboration is an essential part of any design-centred project. Chairing the third session, Kathleen James Chakraborty introduced the second keynote speaker, Erlend Blakstad Haffner of Fantastic Norway. Haffner’s presentation described his practice’s ‘top-down/bottom-up’ method of working directly with communities by ‘moving in’, ‘becoming a local’ and engaging with the media. Peter Carroll spoke about value, drawing on his teaching work in SAUL. Killian Doherty discussed the social and political backdrop to his role as a humanitarian architect in Rwanda and in his involvement in KIST, the new School of Architecture in Kigali. Michael Hayes, currently a final year student in UCD Architecture, posed the question ‘why does nobody like housing estates?’ through his examination of alternative modes of inhabiting the typical Irish estate. Paul de Freine finished the session with a facts-and-figures account of the Health Service Executive’s building stock. The panel discussion questioned how the direct ‘bottom up’ approach of engaging with communities could be transferred into larger organisations such as the Health Service and Local Authorities. The final session of the day was chaired by Nathalie Weadick of the Irish Architecture Foundation. Nuala Flood’s presentation on community involvement in ‘Collaborative City Design’ was followed by Eddie Conroy’s refreshingly honest and highly entertaining appraisal of the strengths and failings of contemporary planning practice in relation to the development of new towns on Dublin’s western fringe. Aileen O’Gorman gave a sociologist’s perspective on public consultation processes and Gerry Cahill finished the day discussing the nature of slow and ongoing client/architect collaboration in the delivery of projects. Gerry’s closing comments reminded us of the importance of patience, persistence and communication, recording information through drawing and socialising with good food and wine and this, as Hugh Campbell commented, seemed like the ideal way to close proceedings.

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Earlsfort Terrace was the ideal venue. Not only is it six minutes by bicycle from my flat, it was also once home to UCD’s 100-year-old architecture course. It was interesting to hear snippets of conversations in the registration queue and during the coffee breaks from pre-Richview graduates (now well established in their profession) who pointed to rooms that had once housed their drawing boards. Professor Hugh Campbell opened the symposium in the Kevin Barry Room, commenting that the event’s title was selected to present the idea that architecture could be (/can be/is) both useful to and enthusiastic about society. Campbell chaired the first of the four sessions, which began with keynote speaker, Lisbet Harboe of Oslo School of Architecture and Design, who described her PhD research into architectural practices that have shown a clear social concern and conscience in how they operate. This was followed by a description of the artistic initiative, TransColonia by its director, Bláithín Quinn. Orla Murphy’s visually stunning presentation on her research work into the development of the Irish town came next and the session ended with Alan Mee’s quickfire exploration of spatial chaos and urbanism, which ended with the question ‘can architects do everything?’ Opening the second session, ‘Moving Back In’, Angela Rolfe of the OPW presented the history of the buildings at Earlsfort Terrace. Ali Grehan, Dublin City Architect, then discussed Pivot Dublin and the bid for World Design Capital for 2014. Joe Swan from Practice spoke next on an imaginative and beautifully presented project that examined the potential behind the use of vacant Dublin sites. GKMP’s development of their competitionwinning concept for living in the city, as presented by Michael Pike, expanded the idea of moving back into disused Dublin plots in innovative ways. Darren Gill and Lisa Smyth, working in Haiti for Architecture for Humanity sent a slideshow describing the collaborative design of recent school and housing projects with Haitian communities. During the open discussion at the end of the session, chaired by Gary Boyd, Peter Carroll emplored all present not to refer to those following career paths other than architecture as ‘non-architects.’ It also sparked

RESEARCH / DISSEMINATE

RELATE

Staff Research Output 2011/12

Vivienne Brophy

Hugh Campbell, ‘Peripheral Vision: Staring at

Miriam Fitzpatrick

Vivienne Brophy and J. Owen Lewis, A

the Suburbs, Glancing at the centre.’ [Invited

Miriam Fitzpatrick, ‘An Essay in Criticism.

Green Vitruvius – Principles and Practice of

Speaker], University of Amsterdam, 18 Nov. 2011

William Holly Whyte and the role of the media in the emergence of a critique of

Sustainable Architectural Design, Second Edition (London: Earthscan, 2011)

Hugh Campbell and Dan Sudhershan,

planning 1958–1959.’ [International Refereed

‘Learning Democracy – Scharoun’s schools

Conference] Peripheries, 8th International

Paul Kenny and Vivienne Brophy, ‘A Methodology

and the politics of postwar reconstruction.’

Conference of the AHRA, Queen’s University

to Develop Judgement Skills in Sustainable

[International Refereed Conference] Society of

Belfast, 29 Oct. 2011

Architectural Education’ in Proceedings of World

Architectural Historians 65th Annual Conference,

Sustainable Building Conference October 18–21

Detroit, 18–20 April 2012

186

Karen Foley Karen Foley, ‘The Tourist as stakeholder:

2011 (Helsinki: SB11) Hugh Campbell, ‘At the still point of the turning

the attitudes of different nationalities to

Vivienne Brophy, ‘Living a Bright Student Life’ in

world’ – the paradox of the urban portrait.

new residential settlement in the Irish rural

Architecture Ireland Annual Review. December

[Invited Speaker] Inert Cities: Globalization,

landscape.’ [International Refereed Conference

2011 (Dublin: RIAI)

Mobility and Interruption Symposium, Senate

Paper], Ethics/Aesthetics, ECLAS Conference,

House, University of London, 8 May 2012

University of Sheffield, September 2011

Gerry Cahill Gerry Cahill, ‘The Altered Edge: The impact of

Miriam Delaney & Anne Gorman

Mary Laheen

the construction boom on the landscape of

Miriam Delaney and Anne Gorman, Studio Craft

Mary Laheen, ‘Landscape and Settlement

the urban periphery’, in Irish Contemporary

& Technique. (Dublin: UCD Architecture, 2011)

in the Aran Islands’ [National Refereed

by Marie Mianowski (Basingstoke: Palgrave

Kevin Donovan

Architecture in Britain, Ireland and the Isle

McMillan, 2012) pp.183–188

Kevin Donovan, ‘Losing the Plot’, catalogue

of Man, University of Liverpool, June 2011

Conference], New Light on Vernacular

Landscapes in Literature and the Arts, ed.

essay, Dublin Dental Hospital: Embedded Space Hugh Campbell

(Dublin: Gandon, 2011

Pierre Jolivet Pierre Jolivet, ‘Time Transfuge’ [International

Hugh Campbell, ‘How the mind meets architecture: what photography reveals’ in

Kevin Donovan, ‘Building as Machine’ (building

Refereed Conference] Peripheries, 8th

Reading Architecture and Culture, ed. by Adam

review for Scott, Tallon and Walker) in Irish Arts

International Conference of the AHRA,

Sharr (London: Routledge, 2012) pp. 209–220

Review, Dublin, No.4, Vol. 28, (2011–2012)

Queen’s University Belfast, 29 Oct. 2011

Hugh Campbell and Alice Clancy, ‘The

Kevin Donovan, ‘A Civic Precinct’ (building

Samantha Martin-McAuliffe

Periphery as Frontier: Photographing the edge

review for ABK Architects, Kilmallock Library

Samantha Martin-McAuliffe, ‘Monument and

of inhabitation, from Timothy O’Sullivan to Alec

and Local Area Office) in RIAI Annual Review,

Landscape’ in The Prehistoric Burial Tumulus

Soth.’ [International Refereed Conference]

Vol. 2, (2011–2012)

AHRA, Queen’s University Belfast, 29 Oct. 2011

of Löfkend in Albania. (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 2012)

Peripheries, 8th International Conference of the Kevin Donovan, ‘Full Emptiness’ (building review for Robin Lee Architects, Wexford Co.

Samantha Martin-McAuliffe and Nathalie

Council Headquarters) Architecture Ireland,

Weadick, ‘A Prolegomenon to Architectural

No. 258, Vol.4 (2011)

Curation’. [Chaired Session], Curating Architecture Symposium, Dublin 25 March 2011

UCD ARCHITECTURE 100

Stephen Mulhall

Finola O’Kane, ‘An Absentee Family’s Suburban

Finola O’Kane, ‘Reluctant Tourists; Visiting

Stephen Mulhall, ‘Review of Beach House

Demesne; The Making of Mount Merrion, Co.

absentee landlords and their shifting views of

at Port Oriel by A2 Architects’ in RIAI Annual

Dublin’ in Terence Dooley and Christopher

eighteenth-century Ireland’ [Invited Lecture],

Review Vol. 2 (2011–2012)

Ridegway eds., The Irish Country House; Its

The Grand Tour in Britain and Ireland, Centre for

Past, Present and Future (Dublin: Four Courts

Eighteenth-century Studies, York University, 3

Orla Murphy

Press, 2011)

December 2011

Finola O’Kane, ‘Visual Subversion in Eighteenth

Orla Murphy, ‘Town’ [Invited Lectures] Arts Council/OPW Kevin Kieran Award Winners

Finola O’Kane, ‘Conversions at Borris House

Lecture, Architectural Association of Ireland,

and Demesne, Co. Carlow, Ireland’, in Loughlin

Century Dublin’ [Refereed Abstracts], The

September 2011, Westport Arts Festival,

Kealy & Stefano Musso eds., Conservation/

Sensory Suburb Inaugural Symposium,The

October 2011, Cashel Arts Fest, November

Transformation (Leuven, Belgique: EAAE

Suburban Culture Network, NUI Maynooth ,

2011, Engage Architecture Festival, Daingean

Transactions on Architectural Education, 2011)

9 December 2011

and Banaher, March 2012 Finola O’Kane & Stephen Daniels, ‘Projects

and Demesne’, in Loughlin Kealy and Stefano

for Patrimony; M.F .& F.W.Trench’s designs for

Conference] Untitled, All Ireland Architectural

Musso, eds., Conservation/Transformation

Dublin and London in the early nineteenth

Research Group Annual Conference, DIT

(Kilkenny:Ireland, 2011) pps 45–49

Bolton Street, January 2012 and [Invited

century’. [National Refereed Conference Paper], The London-Irish in the Long

lecture] Heritage as an Engine of Economic

Finola O’Kane, ‘Spatial Subversion in

Eighteenth Century (1680–1830), University

Growth in mid-sized Town, Heritage Council

Eighteenth-Century Dublin; The Suburban

of Warwick, 13–14 April 2012

Irish Walled Towns Network Symposium,

Design Practices of the Fitzwilliam Estate’

Dublin, January 2012

[Refereed Abstracts], Eighteenth-century

Finola O’Kane, ‘Moving Mountains; Radical

Ireland Society Annual Conference, Trim castle

Eighteenth-century Landscape Design in

Hotel, Trim, Co. Meath, 30 June–3 July 2011

France and Ireland’. [Invited Lecture], Images

Campbell and Lisa Cassidy] Architecture for

Finola O’Kane, ‘Patrick Pearse and his Magic

Palimpsest, The Centre for Medieval and

Orla Murphy, ‘About Town’ [Invited speaker and joint symposium organiser with Hugh

of the Garden; The French Garden as Cultural

Society: Practices and Projects Symposium,

Lantern Box; The Formation of Ireland’s

Renaissance Studies, Trinity College Dublin,

UCD Architecture, Dublin March 24 2012

National Landscape and Architectural Identity’

25/26 May 2012

FInola O’Kane

Authentic, Irish World Academy of Music and

Finola O’Kane, ‘To Lead the Curious to Points

Dance, University of Limerick, 26 October 2011

[Invited Lecture], Space, Identity and the

of View; The Eighteenth-century Design

Finola O’Kane, ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind; Representing Dublin City 1740–1801’ [International Refereed Conference],

of Irish Routes, Roads and Landscapes’,

Finola O’Kane, ‘Ireland and the Picturesque’

in Mari Hvattum, Brita Brenna, Beate

[Invited Lecture], SAUL Lecture Series: Ireland’s

Second International Meeting, Brussels,

Elvebakkampevold Larsen eds., Roads, Routes

Living Space, SAUL, University of Limerick, 9

Belgium, 25 May – 3 June 2012

and Landscapes, (England: Ashgate, 2011)

November 2011

European Architectural History Network

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Finola O’Kane, ‘Rapporteur for Borris House Orla Murphy, ‘Streetlife’ [National Refereed

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STUDIO / YEAR 5 / WORKSHOP

Making is Thinking Thesis Preparation Workshops

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Tutors John Tuomey Alice Clancy James Rossa Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hare

(above) Workshop Photo by Alice Clancy

(left) Photo by Stephen Murray

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In the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Making is Thinkingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; module 5th year students developed their theses through a series of workshops. The workshops alternated between physical making such as casting and assemblage and exercises in critical thinking, interpretive analysis and synthesis. The objective of the series was to equip the students with a set of tools and allow them to develop a work method thus enabling them to define and expand an individual position within the practice of architecture.

RELATE

City as Archive

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

Tutors Peter Cody Chris Boyle Students Emma Byrne Conor Maguire Aonghus McDonnell Fiona Nulty Jennifer O’Donnell

Aonghus McDonnell aims to examine relationships of scale and function within a mixed-use public building, through collage. As with Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Boîte en Valise’ in which disparate objects were collaged together,

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exhibition and archive will be interspersed and movable within a framework, contrasting

Collage Archive

with the static nature of archive buildings.

Aonghus McDonnell

(opposite) Section in context (right) Window study Emma Byrne

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Located in the Kulturforum, Berlin, the group has worked with the brief for the Archive Marzona Collection. Through several decades of analysis and historical research, Egidio Marzona has assembled an encyclopaedic body of documents on the avant-gardes of twentieth-century art, collecting sketches and letters, printed materials, posters, films, photographs, works on paper, paintings, and sculptures. The archive is now to be given a building of its own. The collection seeks to bring together all disciplines while at the same time decoding forms of expression that have inspired creative and critical thought. The brief was to combine space for displaying material with facilities for scholarly research on individual objects, genres and styles with the aim of examining and exploring the continuing interdependency and relationship between the archive and the city.

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Archive Model

Conor Maguireâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis seeks to investigate

Conor Maguire

overlap in Architecture, both at the scale of the city where a new monument is inserted into the inherited landscape of Berlin and at the scale of the archive where a strong duality exists between public and private.

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Jennifer Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Donnell is concerned with the development of horizon in architecture. To this end it investigates archive as cultural institution supported by civic, public life. The proximity afforded by simultaneously experienced forms of horizon is then the means by which the conditions of city, history, collection and knowledge are understood.

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Table Jennifer Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Donnell

RELATE

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

(left) Understanding Models Fiona Nulty

(opposite) Drawing Room

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Emma Byrne

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Something which is ‘of the zeitgeist’ breaks the

Berlin is a city characterised by isolation and

connection with the previous age, challenging

expanse. Emma Byrne’s thesis contracts the

our perception of the present, as Fiona Nulty has

city scale creating a place of interactions and

explored. Storage is of crucial importance to the

chance encounters. Domestically arranged, a

sustainable future of an archive and solid mass

public house for both collection and collector,

provides a reliable environmental condition for

open to the city as a library of conversation.

preservation. Moving through the mass, the visitors

Experienced like a child through tactile

experience defamiliarisation and reconnection with

procession, the object dictates the space,

context prompting them to see the world anew.

atmosphere and scale of construction.

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THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

Common or Garden

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Tutors Emmett Scanlon David Healy Students Megan Etherton Kate Griffin Michael Hayes Elspeth Lee Sarah McKendry

Architecture can be understood through the common or garden elements that buildings share. When theory falls away, we experience the built world through its walls, ceilings, corridors, stairs and windows. Each of the five students, electing to work in Dubin, selected one of these elements as a lens through which to develop their individual theses. Each element has been observed, drawn and documented and used as an intellectual, practical and methodological basis for the development of their individual ideas. This offers the students their own common ground and allows their work to build collectively.

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(above)

Elspeth Lee is interested in how the architecture

Group photo

of a place is an inherent part of its identity. In

Photo by Elspeth Lee

exploring the nature and craft of ceilings, and taking advantage of existing site conditions, she

(below)

is creating a public ceiling and market place

Ceilings in Blackrock

that will connect Blackrock Village back to the

Elspeth Lee

sea in a spatial, landscaped and ordinary way.

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THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

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Michael Hayes believes there is a value in suburbia that remains overlooked. The former use value of the old city has emigrated with the citizenry to the housing estate. In the oversized or oddly shaped green spaces are the greatest opportunities for the civic in urban life. Free of fences, closing hours, by-laws or even function these afterthoughts are the contemporary commons. Michael investigates his thesis using the common-or-garden wall.

(opposite) Walls of Suburbia Michael Hayes

(below) Stairs on Thomas Street Megan Etherton

Megan Etherton is studying the stair. She is making a training centre in Dublin that acts as an urban staircase, focusing on the duality of learning: seeing and doing, working alone and

or observed, looking inward or outwards to the city which is the ultimate educator.

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with others. On the landing one can be observer

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Sarah McKendry is using the window as a means to

(above)

investigate the nature of boundary and the individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Windows in Smithfield

connection with the city. Windows link public and private

Sarah McKendry

and are a moment of reflection in the city. Seeing the library as a window to knowledge and also the site of urban

(opposite)

social connections she proposes that community can be

Corridic City DĂŠrive

achieved through the appropriate use of boundary and

Kate Griffin

connections. Sarah is making a library at Smithfield Square.

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Kate Griffin is working with the corridor. She sees the city as a network of veins and arteries allowing life to flow throughout. In her project she proposes that the corridor is an extension of this, winding into an existing concrete building on South Great Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Street, bringing the social life of the city inside. Internal laneways create an architectural promenade through the existing building in which will be housed a college of business.

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RELATE

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

Continuity Inis Meáin, Aran Islands

Tutors Will Dimond Kevin Donovan

The stone walls of Aran link its geological past to its inhabited present, the grid of the walls developing with the pattern of the divided surface,

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creating a built landscape of interlinking rooms

Students Eimear Arthur Eoin Horner Samuel Kane Damien King Banbha Nic Canna

where horizons and views shift constantly. Banbha Nic Canna’s airport building (‘Framing Landscape and Horizon’) acts as a threshold to this unique place. A building activated by take-off and landing, which frames views of the landscape and of the horizons beyond.

Site Studies: Runway and Landscape Banbha Nic Canna

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Inis Meรกin is an island of gardens and stone, a manmade landscape in thrall to nature. There is an ingrained, centuries-old dependence on landscape as provider and community as facilitator, with an attendant finely-honed sense of resourcefulness, improvisation and self-reliance. Here, the future of island life and its built infrastructure is fragile, threatened by falling birth rates and dearth of employment opportunities. The interdependence of man and environment is delicately poised, where almost every aspect of human activity is felt and leaves its mark. Continuity describes a process of operating within the continuum of landscape: weighing and evaluating existing patterns, finding opportunities for transformation. This group aims to draw energy from the inheritance of Inis Meรกin and to speculate usefully, at diverse scales, on its future.

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Damien King (‘Context as a Resource’) aims to draw on Inis Meáin’s self-sustaining past by returning to its culture of production and co-operation. Using vernacular forms with modern technologies, the island’s climate and expertise can be harnessed to generate crops for the community, reinstating the productive landscape as a vital component of island life.

(above) Context as a Resource Damien King

(opposite) Site Process Diagram Eimear Arthur

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A community traditionally based on resourcefulness, adaptability, and self-sufficiency, Inis Meáin is now heavily dependent on the mainland. Seaweed – a product growing in value on the international market – is a natural resource that is currently underexploited. The landscape of the Aran Islands is essentially a productive one, and as such, is best sustained by production. Eimear Arthur’s project (‘Harvesting the Sea’) is a seaweed farm, taking traditional methods, materials and mastery and re-appropriating them, making them relevant again, to ensure their survival into the future.

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(above) Casting Blocks for Perforated Wall Eoin Horner

(right) A Seasonal Approach Samuel Kane

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

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Built objects can reveal the cultural context that produced

Samuel Kane’s thesis (‘Seasonal Containment’) focuses on

them. Eoin Horner’s thesis project explores how building

human crafted seasonal architecture, mediating between

type and construction technique can derive from, reflect

man, nature and inherited landscape: an architecture that

or embody the exigencies of culture and place. These

participates in the continuum of place by encapsulating

themes are studied through the design of an abattoir/

the spirit of material, tradition and living on Inishmaan,

craft butcher facility. Construction techniques draw on the

past and present. The building harvests rainwater during

island’s inherited knowledge of craft and place-making.

winter months for consumption by its summer seaweed harvesting inhabitants and the wider population.

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THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

Ecology

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Tutors Marcus Donaghy James Rossa O’Hare Students Sara Madigan Scott Morton Aoife O’Leary Aisling O’Sullivan Albert Tobin

Aisling O’Sullivan interprets ‘building in context’ as a

Re-drawing footprints

complex interrelation between the inherited landscape,

Aisling O’Sullivan

existing monument and architectural design. The project builds from an existing footprint, applying methodical interventions to the over-subscribed typology of the Irish bungalow. The brief seeks to encourage the social potential within the island community, creating a hybrid of civic and social spaces existing in the logic of the landscape.

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The arrested and other development of islands is a subject in itself, from Dafoe to Darwin to Synge and Praeger – anthropologists, ecologists and dystopian novelists. Clare Island is the subject of our investigations. From 1901–1911, following an earlier survey of Lambay, Robert Lloyd Praeger and his band of amateur natural historians set the Clare Island Survey in motion. The second Clare Island Survey – a multiannual project conducted by the Royal Irish Academy 100 years later – is drawing to a conclusion. A wealth of documentary material is available to us from this Survey. This thesis group considers how we as architects might draw upon and act in such a physical & intellectual context. Michael Viney notes the absence of a living picture of the island – ‘I do find it disconcerting, however, that “folklife’’ seems to deal almost exclusively in continuities with the past…’ The students’ work grows out of desk and fieldwork, including interviews with islanders. The work projects ideas about how architecture might sustain current and future inhabitation, suggesting resettlement in a topography that has been overwritten by 19th century Congested Districts Board remodeling and subsequent dislocated 20th century ‘development’?

RELATE

(opposite) Ground and Horizon Aoife Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Leary

(below) Social Infrastructure

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Scott Morton

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

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What can be learned in an island landscape? Using the topography of Clare Island, Aoife O’Leary’s project explores the duality of island learning. Learning is both looking back into and out from the island. A site which moves from the intimate confines of the harbour to an extreme eastern edge offers the medium through which this can be explored.

Situated in the Old Castle Harbour on Clare Island, Scott Morton’s thesis seeks to create a space of shelter and interaction, a communal space for leisure and labour, for islander and tourist. The brief is for a boathouse and sailing club/pub.

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THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

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Through the lens of ecology, as a network of

Clare Island is one of the few remaining places

connections, Sara Madigan aims to explore the

still displaying a link to traditional agricultural

relationship between the individual and their

methods. Albert Tobin proposes to re-establish

context. The architecture seeks to engage with the

productiveness within the historical landscape

landscape and investigate spaces of navigation

of the island, to counteract the dormancy

between the community and the domestic, the

that has befallen its fields and to distill

ground and the horizon. The organization, form

within their shelter, a productive vibrancy.

and orientation are generated by a consciousness of the individual. A type of hybrid house where, enclosed, a space for solitude is found.

(above) Working Ground Albert Tobin

(opposite) Settlement Patterns Sara Madigan

RELATE

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

Horizon

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Tutors Tiago Faria Stephen Mulhall Students Rachel Dudley HyungJoon Kim Brian Massey Adrian Sweeney Su Wang

‘Horizon’ is a process-based, nonprescriptive theme. It follows the work of last year’s thesis group, and enables students to explore their personal interests through observation and questioning. Investigations into the terms of reference within each field of research, using the simultaneous layering of work at different scales, led each student to a gradual clarification of their thesis, and the emergence and formulation of distinct architectural problems.

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(above)

Adrian Sweeney proposes to make work and

Thresholds

office life more accessible, through the design

Adrian Sweeney

of diverse spatial journeys and a heightening of the sense of domesticity. Architecture

(opposite)

should communicate and make manifest

Lovely water, swim no. 1263, 23/08/2004

cultural values: using threshold, journey

Photo by Gary Coyle

and transition. My intention is to make the post industrial world – in this case, Boland’s Mill – accessible to all intended users.

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

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RELATE

Liberty Hall

Proposing the renovation of Liberty Hall, HyungJoon

HyungJoon Kim

Kimâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis uses horizon as a process and applies it at three scales: the city, the building and the scale of inhabitation. The project is in direct contrast with the current redevelopment plans by Gilroy McMahon Architects, and aims to economically adapt the building, rather than destroy and rebuild.

UCD ARCHITECTURE 100

Sometimes there is a tendency to look to the

Rammed Earth Construction

finished project on the horizon and ignore

Brian Massey

the journey made, and the amount of work undertaken to get there. Brian Masseyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis is based on designing a building process as much as designing a building as a finished article.

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RELATE

Su Wang’s thesis explores the idea that the

(above)

order of a building reflects a certain way of life

No.3 Henrietta Street

which is embodied in communal circulation

Su Wang

space or circulation space. It takes the inherited order and life of a Georgian mansion

(opposite)

and attempts to synthesize it with a new way

Boland’s Mills and Grand Canal Basin

of life – a school for the disadvantaged.

Rachel Dudley

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219 The rapid decline of the docklandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s industrial past exemplifies the dangers of mono-functionality and closed systems. Rejuvenation has scarred the landscape and left curious disjunctions: moments which lack continuity, and residual buildings defunct of purpose. Rachel Dudleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis investigates how they might be incorporated into sustainable, open processes, to embrace their new neighbours and be embraced by contemporary function.

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Inside Outside

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

Tutors Sheila O’Donnell Jennifer O’Leary

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Students John Crowley Ray Dinh Denis Forrest James Kennedy Jonathan Janssens Rachael Jennings

John Crowley’s thesis is a reaction to the inherited (social, cultural, historical, political, economic, architectural) landscapes of a standardised National School system. John’s response is to design a Local School that tells its own story, relating to local context by its own specific means. The architecture and program are driven by the perceived latent potential of the community within which it is based.

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(opposite) Thomas Court School John Crowley

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This studio examines the relationship between inside and outside in its widest sense. It explores the nature of thresholds, enclosure, cover, screens, under and over, light and dark, views into and through spaces. It looks at contingent spaces that exist in the in-between, where a person can pause without committing to entering or leaving, and how these spaces may enrich the experience of buildings. It considers architecture’s capacity to reflect, or indeed inform, the values and culture of a society. Following on from work completed in the Inside Outside group over the last two years, students are asked to investigate the nature of learning environments, to explore a school of the future. In response to the theme ‘inherited landscape’, the work explored the role of the school in society. Students are encouraged to focus on the amplification and celebration of the everyday.

RELATE

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

Ray Dinh explores education as a social function, rethinking the role of the school in the community. Teaching and learning spaces are organized to provide spatial and visual connection, enhancing the engagement with our inherited landscape. Circulating through the school campus exposes us to new perspectives

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and influences, helping us find our place.

(right) Heart of the School Ray Dinh

(opposite) Abbey Street School Denis Forrest

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Looking at the individual/collective, Denis Forrest is interested in how the different groupings within the school structure, particularly the class unit, can express their individuality through formal expression while tempering their autonomy in relation to the whole by means of sensorial connections.

Inside/Outside: indoors/en plein air, classroom/street, here/there, us/them.

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THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

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(above) Market School Jonathan Janssens

(left) Riverbank James Kennedy

James Kennedyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis is about transformation. The school is seen as a place of constant activity, always changing. The project transforms a derelict site along an ever changing river bank. The school is designed for flexibility and to redefine the right of way along the river bank, engaging with society and offering itself to the public realm.

UCD ARCHITECTURE 100

Jonathan Janssens deals with the tension

External Space Sketch

created between an abandoned existing

Rachael Jennings

structure, the memory of a market building and the grain of an existing context. Structure becomes the dominant theme informing the creation of flexible and adaptable learning spaces which respond to both the scale of the body and scale of the city.

Exploring the nature of the in-between

Jenningsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design for a Gaelscoil in inner city Dublin. The project includes the rehabilitation of a former Magdalene Asylum and engages the cathartic process of renewal, moving from the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oppressive history to a hidden park in the city.

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or interstitial space informs Rachael

RELATE

TownLand

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

Andrea Doyle examined the backlands of Tuam as a series of connecting public spaces, passages and gardens. An existing nursing home located outside the town, is re-conceived in the centre of Tuam, now supporting both independent and assisted dwelling. The potential for the elderly to play an important role in the social function of the town is examined in the connection between the private space of the occupant and the public interior and exterior spaces.

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Tutors Fiona Hughes Orla Murphy Students Andrea Doyle Padraig Flynn James Hayes Stephen Murray

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View from upper floor of elderly care home to the square Andrea Doyle

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This year, through a focus on the town of Tuam in Galway, the group sought to analyse the role of the territorial division of townland and how it has defined the character of the Irish rural town. Themes of identity of people with place, the relationship between the town and its rural hinterland and occupation and vacation over time were used to inform group and individual responses to this inherited landscape. The townland structure emerged as a dynamic mechanism, which had potential to be used as a tool in the re-ordering of the town. Taking a new reading of specific townlands as a starting point, four distinct but connecting projects were designed which responded to the challenges raised in the contemporary rural town.

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Two peripheral housing estates bordering the

(above)

extinct railway line in Tuam are re-oriented in

Community Landscape

James Hayesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; design for a community farm

James Hayes

and supermarket. The productive landscape of the two adjacent townlands provides food and

(right)

energy crops for the existing suburban community

Inverted Settlement

and surplus is sold in a market which re-casts

Padraig Flynn

the function of exchange as a public space.

The future of unfinished housing estates is explored in Padraig Flynnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis. A strategy is proposed based on a combination of partial demolition, re-ordering of the existing, and the careful addition of new homes and shared buildings. These moves are woven into place by a remade landscape that creates shelter and connects the homes to their extended landscape.

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A new building to accommodate the Tuam Gaelscoil and community theatre bordering the centre of town and the former demesne landscape is designed by Stephen Murray. The school is conceived as a series of spaces that foster learning through doing, and this philosophy is extended to the public elements of the building that thread the public life and routines of the town into that of the school.

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Entrance Perspective Stephen Murray

RELATE

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

Untitled (inherited landscapes)

Tutors John McLaughlin Peter Tansey

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Students Rachel Carmody Niall Carroll Lisa Halton Donal Lally Sorcha Murphy

The group seeks to explore methodologies and energies found in arts practice as a means of opening and occupying inherited landscapes – cultural, institutional or site-specific. We consider how artists have re-read architectural space, adopting it as a palimpsest. Artists have given new sense and perspective to buildings through their installations. Their work can expand and refresh our notion of architecture, offering a lateral view. In parallel we recognize that the role of the architect – which has always been multifaceted – is splintering into new forms, from urban event facilitator to professional researcher. Here, too, we can examine the experience of recent shifts in arts practice.

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Donal Lally’s thesis explores our perception and experience of architecture. The work of Gerhard Richter, Gregor Schneider and Marcel Duchamp are investigated. Duchamp’s ‘Door 11 rue Larrey’ is an idiomatic reference. The one door serves two doorways, defying a clear-cut solution. Spatial games around doubles run through the project to house NIVAL, the National Visual Arts Library, in a double house at the corner of Mountjoy Square.

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Window study Emma Byrne

THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

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Lisa Halton’s aerial shots of the landscape

At a time and place where the public realm

(above)

illustrate the vast scale and extent of the

is most vulnerable and vibrant, Niall Carroll’s

Kilaskillen Cement Works

control of our environment through planning

thesis reasserts the role of architecture as

Lisa Halton

and architecture. The images also appear

the means by which to frame and enable

like painted canvases. Taking a cement plant

public exchange and to enshrine our civic

(opposite)

in County Westmeath, Lisa’s thesis takes on

values. At the corner of Dublin’s incomparable

Civic Exchange

architecture as infrastructure, landscape and

Moore Street, he elaborates on themes of

Niall Carroll

economic catalyst by investigating possible future

permanence and transience in a public eating

scenarios for the site with its deep quarries and

place and cookery school.

massive steel and concrete constructions.

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THESIS RESEARCH GROUP / UPPER SCHOOL / YEAR 5

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(above) Inherited Landscape Rachel Carmody

(opposite) South Channel Hub Taxonomy Sorcha Murphy

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Sorcha Murphy’s project is held between two complementary concerns – how Contemporary Art interrogates and respects the space in which it is exhibited and in how a building character is bound up in its retained memories. The ‘invisible’ multi-storey FÁS building in Cork city centre is developed as a creative hub. This inherited landscape is explored as a spatial organisation and emotional landscape, and looks to its transformed presence and meaning in the city.

Rachel Carmody’s thesis looks to the role of the architect as a social-political agent. Idiomatic is a project by Brazilian artist Vik Muniz, made for and with a group of men and women working on the world’s largest rubbish dump in São Paulo. Rachel’s project matches the need for homeless accommodation with the abundance of vacant property in the city centre.

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REVIEW / EXHIBITION

Foundation Mimmo Jodice Naples, Italy

Tutors Peter Cody Chris Boyle

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Students Ciaran Conlon Joseph Flood Conor Morrissey Kieran Murray Cian Scanlon

A new foundation to house the work of the Italian artist and photographer Mimmo Jodice was located within the historic core of the city of Naples. The project was undertaken by the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;City as Archiveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; thesis group in UCD in the acdemic year 2010/11 as part of a collaborative programme between Schools of Architecture in Berlin, Cagliari, Dublin, Glasgow, Naples, Vienna and Weimar. On 16 December 2011 a selected exhibition of the work opened at the Gran Salone della Meridiana at the Museum of Archaeology in Naples. Two keynote speakers Alberto Campo Baeza and Tony Fretton addressed the opening. On 24 March 2012 the exhibition opened in Vienna with a keynote lecture given by Joseph Rykwert. This was followed on the 30 May by an opening in Weimar, in the historic room of the Oberlichtsaal, where the famous Bauhaus exhibition of 1923 put together by Walter Gropius took place. This year the programme will move to Berlin and consider a new archive to house the extensive modern art collection of the collector Egidio Marzona.

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Exhibition Photo by Peter Cody

REVIEW / EXHIBITION

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Cian Scanlon presents his work to Mimmo Jodice Photo by Peter Cody

(opposite) Exhibition Photos by Peter Cody

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Lunchtime Lecture 5: Christopher Platt

REVIEW / LECTURE

Christopher Platt was appointed Head and Professor of Architecture at the Mackintosh

Lisa Cassidy

School of Architecture in September 2011, and is a director of StudioKAP Architects in Glasgow. He visited the School as a guest critic for the thesis interim reviews and gave a short

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lunchtime lecture on 1 March 2012.

Patio and Pavilion Christopher Platt

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Taking the question of context further, Platt went through the design process for a project done without the possibility to visit the site, a competition entry for a housing settlement in Luanda, Angola. He showed a workflow chart by Robert Maguire (Maguire & Murray), What architects do when they design, and noted the assumption in a project that the architect can get to site to learn. In the absence of a full understanding of the site, they decided to work with construction methods, using very thin local clay tiles which could be used to create vaults without a need for formwork. The competition entry was a spatio-structural system, a framework allowing dwellings to be built on half of their long, narrow sites at first and then expanded – permanently or with fabric coverings – to take in the second half when they could. In contrast to the single-space buildings shown before, here the parallel walls were the key component, providing the basic spatial and structural elements as well as working with the idea that the poor, rural community would value enclosure of land. The dwellings were shown to be potentially grouped as a settlement, creating thoroughfares and potential public spaces as well as purposeful variety in the clustering – the opposite of the disconnected dwellings Platt felt were suggested by the title, Patio and Pavilion. The final drawing shows a colourful, lush and sociable settlement full of people engaged in normal life, with community buildings in primary shades sitting at crossroads between the groupings of vaulted homes. It was an unsuccessful competition entry, but right until ‘we didn’t win the competition, by the way’ ended the lecture and broke the spell, Platt’s enthusiasm made it seem perfectly real.

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‘For me, the idea of place and the idea of placemaking is fundamental to architecture.’ Platt began by describing place and its identity as ‘the DNA of architecture’, using photographs from a visit to Ethiopia as an example. The first showed a small church building on a hillside, compact and self-contained beside a large tree, with Platt having assumed the building was the main place. The second photograph revealed that the real action was happening under the tree, with a small school taking place underneath the canopy – place, he noted, crosses both the constructed and unconstructed domains. Looking at vernacular buildings in the Yorkshire countryside – objects in a landscape – Platt discussed how the most interesting aspect was not how they sat formally on the land or how they were constructed, but what they said about the lives that went into producing them. He described the ability of architecture to speak of things other than itself as a high aspiration, and showed a project on the remote Isle of Lewis where the practice restored the ruined main building and built a neighbour for it, commenting on how structures built out of necessity were often single-space ones. Whether ancient buildings or modern and temporary, shelter at its most simple is about covering yourself, lending the interiors a relaxed feeling Platt ascribed to a primitive impulse for containment. Settlement was introduced as the next component part, with an example from Cranfield (‘a sort of Irish Cape Cod’) near Belfast where a string of single houses lie along a beach, with a sense of place coming from feeling like an ensemble, not because of any clustering or attempt to enclose shared space. The postwar suburb appeared too, succinctly described by Platt as being about the individual: ‘every little building wants to be a mansion house.’ Through a quick sequence of images from StudioKAP projects, the practice’s approach to context was shown, using it to provide clues for design, ideally engaging with the setting rather than having the architecture dominate.

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REVIEW / LECTURE

Lunchtime Lecture 6: András Pálffy

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John Parker

It is somewhat unorthodox to suggest that the reviewer enjoyed an architectural lecture by way of its ‘omissions’, but in the case of the brief and elegant lunchtime presentation by András Pálffy, I might just about get away with it. It might even be taken as a compliment (as it is intended) particularly since the work of Jabornegg & Pálffy Architects could be described as being an architecture of omission.

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Again in Altenburg Abbey, a project involving the stabilisation and reconstruction of a terrace overlooking a forested valley as part of works to a Baroque monastery, the architect is presented as a somewhat neutral participant. Early excavation of the site revealed layers of inhabitation from the twelfth to the seventeenth century, from which the architect was required to ‘excavate’ a new museum. Here, the architect’s actions are comparable to those of a surgeon, involving the cutting out of layers, stabilising and, with hints of prosthesis, the introduction of precise beams that ‘followed need and weight’. The final result is pure negative space. Natural light, stone and white concrete come together to create a masterful route that treads through archaeological fragments, revealing to visitors traces of the past. Of the exterior expression of the project there seems to be nothing. Well, nothing but an exquisite balustrade (assembled from timber lathes sourced from a local penal institution) and a stone terrace with extraordinary views of the abbey above the valley beyond. It wasn’t only the clinical hand of the architect that was presented that afternoon. Suggestions of another aspect of the visitor’s take on life slipped through: in a passing reference to a hat factory that once occupied the site of the Generali Exhibition space, (before the demise of such an essential item from a gentleman’s wardrobe), a delightful image, seemingly snatched from some fragment of early cinematography, was conjured up of exuberant fans throwing their hats in the air at a football match. And ten years of painstaking graft on Altenburg Abbey was balanced by Pálffy’s simple explanation that on occasions the architect had been afforded access to the monastery’s cellar and had shared moments of conviviality with the monks over a glass of the very best wine that Austria has to offer.

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In a rather sonorous, Germanic monotone, the lecturer invited the audience to interpolate the full output of his studio from 2003 to 2012 from the presentation of two projects that neatly book-ended this period. The first project, and the first completed project to emerge from his office, involved the creation of an exhibition space in the centre of Vienna for The Generali Foundation. The second, and one of the office’s current projects, involved extensive works to Altenburg Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Lower Austria. ‘Somewhere in between these two projects, something happened’ Pálffy hints, that ‘something’ being the entire oeuvre of Jabornegg & Pálffy and the ‘in between’ being the entire existence of their studio. And ‘In between’ might seem an appropriate sub-text to this lecture which addressed the matter of working with existing historic structures. Pálffy outlined for us an architecture which is as much an act of ‘clearing out’ so as to discover the space that might lie within as it is an architecture of construction or addition. The project for The Generali Foundation was at first presented as a process of careful excavation where space was carved from the centre of a city block deep within the historic fabric of Vienna to create a series of exhibition rooms for contemporary art. Pálffy described a methodology where, through forensic study of existing built fabric, decisions were made as to what was of value and what was not. It is not a matter of ‘what you like and what you don’t’, he stated. Such decisions are presented as being ‘a matter of fact’. Pálffy went on to describe the act of designing as the masterful technical resolution of the myriad constraints of any project, be they fire regulations, day-lighting, conservation, or structure. The wilfulness of the architect is never to be seen. The final work is the inevitable result of ‘techne’, he suggested, being comparable to a modern car engine – precise, beautiful and giving us no clue as to the effort of its production or its function. (This analogy I do understand, but not my car engine.) If this resonates with early modernist propaganda, so do the images of the final work, precise, white interiors revealed through the wonderful play of natural light. Quite beautiful.

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REVIEW / EXHIBITION & TALK

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Brick O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects April 2012

O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects were selected for the London School of Economics New Students’ Centre through a two-stage international design competition in June 2009. On 16 April 2012, John Tuomey spoke to the School about the use of brick in this project, to accompany the opening of their Brick exhibition in the Front Room.

(above) John Tuomey

(opposite and following spread) Brick Exhibition Photos by Stephen Tierney

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CENTENARY / ESSAY

Talking to Architects

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Lisa Cassidy

Right from the first discussions about the Centenary celebrations in early 2010, we began thinking about how the life of UCD School of Architecture could be captured and communicated. It had to be about the collective narrative, and most of all, it had to be interesting. With nine heads, hundreds of staff, thousands of students and tens of thousands of studio projects, millions of hours of people’s lives have been spent in the School. It seemed like the personal accounts of these people might allow us to bring to life the personalities, events, and cultural and educational changes that formed the School’s history. Recording their voices, these stories could be put together to let the background story of the School itself to come through too. I started interviewing people in the summer of 2010. Once we’d decided to produce an oral history, the first major question was who to approach. It was never going to be possible to speak to everyone who’d passed through the School, constrained as much by logistics as by mortality, but at the very least, we could try to be balanced. Most people said yes right away. A couple of people said yes after a sustained campaign of persuasion that, yes, we really needed their stories, and a couple of people firmly declined to be interviewed.

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Table by Michael Hayes and James Kennedy Photo by Alice Clancy

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CENTENARY / ESSAY

The Professors of Architecture were going to be important, of course, and Cathal O’Neill, Loughlin Kealy and Hugh Campbell gave honest, often radical accounts of long histories beginning as students and broadening to a consideration of how education should and does work. John Tuomey, as the first Professor of Architectural Design, was considered and outward-looking. J. Owen Lewis and Dermot O’Connell, who were both Professors of Environmental Science, were infectiously enthusiastic about their teaching and technical research. The most dramatic single episode in the School’s history ran from the late 1960s to the early 70s, triggered by the threat of losing RIBA recognition – unique to UCD among the Irish schools, and important as a universally understood qualification when emigration was the default option upon graduation. The School had lagged behind the advances in education and architecture happening worldwide, there was poor communication within the staff hierarchy, and the students began agitating for change. Parts of this story were told through interview by Ruairi Quinn (now Minister for Education and Skills), Wendy Barrett, Loughlin Kealy, J. Owen Lewis and Cathal O’Neill. These actions resulted in Professor Desmond FitzGerald relinquishing the active Headship but retaining the Chair of Architecture, and Professor Ivor Smith was brought in as Director of Architecture. Ivor Smith stayed for four years and overhauled the School and its curriculum and brought in a series of visiting staff (the ‘Flying Circus’), on a rotating fortnightly basis, while also retaining a number of local staff members. The period had the excitement of a great experiment, and a number of those visiting tutors have been recorded describing their side of the experience: Fenella Clemens (then Dixon), Edward Jones, Christopher Cross, Michael Gold and Charles MacCallum, as well as Ivor Smith himself. Somehow, they make it sound perfectly normal and straightforward, like just another day’s work, even though student descriptions from Gerry Cahill and Wendy Barrett make it clear how novel and significant the period was for the School.

It was equally fascinating, personally, to hear the accounts of the School long before the events of the late 1960s – to me, the period was a complete unknown beyond the bare facts of graduation lists and Professors. Charles Aliaga-Kelly (B.Arch 1941) is the earliest graduate interviewed and his recollections were vivid enough to make the 70 intervening years seem like mere weeks. Kevin Roche (1945), who briefly taught at the School before going to the USA, generously described his education being useful because you had to find things out for yourself. Noel Dowley (1961) also described both UCD and American experiences, coming back to teach in Dublin for decades, as did Jim Murphy (1967) later, while Patrick J. Quinn (1954) talked about making his career in the USA and unlearning, then later appreciating, what he had learned in UCD. John (1951) and Mary O’Reilly (née Gardiner, 1952) described their time at the School almost in the present tense because they have remained in contact with classmates, and Sean Rothery (1954) related his own experiences as well as his extensive knowledge of overlapping architectural history. The period after the Flying Circus included architecture students involved in political action, the periodical Column and the annual Annexe, and at the beginning of the 1980s, the move to Richview, told through the experiences of Shane O’Toole, Jim Roche, Ray Ryan and John O’Regan. Simon Walker, Ruth O’Herlihy and Emmett Scanlon brought the story through to the mid 1990s and more recent teaching experience, and the organisers of the Now What? Summer workshops in 2009 – Alice Clancy, Fiona Hughes and James Rossa O’Hare, with David Healy – described the planning and realisation of the project, as well as what excites them about teaching in the School right now.

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Some interviews, especially the early ones, led to other people who would have to be included, and the second and subsequent rounds of interviews developed from there. In particular, Wendy Barrett, John Tuomey, Cathal O’Neill and Ivor Smith graciously helped with moving the project forward. Everyone was generous, and even listening to the recordings for the twentieth time, through transcription and editing, they’re still so interesting: honest and funny, in love with architecture and concerned with making – and teaching – architecture as well as possible. I’ll never meet Arthur O’Connell, Mattie McDermott, Johnny Griffiths or ‘Dem’, but their characters are made vivid enough by the stories that they seem familiar and present. The audio documentary is still in progress, to be released by the School in the summer of 2012. Detail of table by Michael

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Hayes and James Kennedy

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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The editors would like to thank the following: BCD Architects, Dermot Boyd, Gary Boyd, Peter Carl, Paul Carney (Forbo), Peter Carroll, Kathleen James Chakraborty, Andrew Clancy, Eddie Conroy, Tom de Paor, Killian Doherty, Noel Dowley, Adrian Durcan, Yvonne Farrell, Nuala Flood, Paul de Freine, Ali Grehan, Erlend Blakstad Haffner, Lisbet Harboe, Anthony Haughey, Darren Gill, Loughlin Kealy, Paul Kelly, Ryan Kenihan, Steve Larkin, CJ Lim, Patrick Lydon, Níall McLaughlin, Shelley McNamara, Colm Moore, Colm Murray, Jim Murphy, H.E. Norwegian Ambassador to Ireland, Roald Næss, Sandra O’Connell, Aileen O’Gorman, Cathal O’Neill, Shane O’Toole, TAKA Architects, András Pálffy, Nigel Peake, Christopher Platt, Bláithín Quinn, Angela Rolfe, Irenée Scalbert, Lisa Smyth, Jan Theissen, Simon Walker, Barry Walsh (National Concert Hall), Nathalie Weadick, Peter Wilson, Jamie Young, and all the staff and students who contributed so generously of their time in the making of this book.

(previous spread) Preparing the ceiling Photo by Alice Clancy

ISBN 978-1-905254-65-1

EDITORS

UCD Architecture

Orla Murphy

University College Dublin

Lisa Cassidy

Richview, Clonskeagh

Stephen Tierney

Dublin 14, Ireland

Tel: +353 1 7162757 www.ucdarchitecture.ie

ISBN 978-1-905254-65-1

EDITORS

UCD Architecture

Orla Murphy

University College Dublin

Lisa Cassidy

Richview, Clonskeagh

Stephen Tierney

Dublin 14, Ireland

Tel: +353 1 7162757 www.ucdarchitecture.ie