In Donnybrook, an inner suburb of Dublin, the studio complex of Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), the Irish national broadcaster, is dominated by five buildings that exemplify late modern architecture in Ireland. The masterplan for their strictly rectilinear combinations of concrete, steel, and glass was laid out by the architect Ronnie Tallon in 1960, following which Scott Tallon Walker (STW) designed the various buildings in the subsequent twenty years. When first opened, they were celebrated for their cutting-edge aesthetics and engineering, combining functionality and beauty on an integrated campus that advertised Ireland’s modernity [1]. Today the buildings are under-appreciated, though they were added to the Register of Protected Structures (RPS) in 2019 [2].

‍

Recent controversy has once again put a spotlight on the future of RTÉ, including its campus architecture. Twelve months on, the organisation may now be recovering, with a ‘New Direction’ strategic plan and several reports on its governance and finances providing a roadmap for reform [3]. The Irish government provided the national broadcaster with €56m of emergency funding in November 2023, but this is a small fraction of RTÉ’s needs. It has a long way to go to persuade a doubtful public and politicians of its sustainability, and future funding has been made contingent on organisational changes that may or may not work, including a 20% reduction in the broadcaster’s workforce, a redistribution of some activity to smaller studios in Limerick and Cork, and increased outsourcing of its productions to independent companies.

‍

Though downplaying it, the strategic report keeps open the possibility of a partial or total sale of RTÉ’s studios to improve the company’s finances and its corporate size and shape. It calls for “a streamlined RTÉ … operating on a smaller footprint within the Donnybrook site and with more modern facilities that require less maintenance … enable modern working and production practices and meet regulations, compliance requirements and sustainability targets”. It admits that “relocating RTÉ off the current Donnybrook site … does not appear to be economically viable” but it remains open to “exploring options for the vacated areas or land sale”. Politicians and independent media producers have often asked if we might ‘lift and shift’ RTÉ’s headquarters to a less prominent location, and in 2017 RTÉ sold 8.64 acres of its Donnybrook site for €107m as a temporary solution to its long-running cashflow crisis. Its latest plan notes that its remaining 24 acres are currently valued at only €100m due to challenging conditions in commercial real estate and the addition of RTÉ’s most important buildings to the RPS, but the possibility is left open that a higher price might be achieved in the future.

‍

‍

Of course, in a capitalist economy, most properties are disposable, and our built environment rapidly changes. Nonetheless, further sale of RTÉ’s lands would be a bad idea. Its Donnybrook base is not only a group of world-class buildings but an internationally important centre of cultural production. Elsewhere, similar studios are accepted for their specialised engineering, their need for frequent capital investment, and their skilled workforce that cannot be easily replaced. Some major studios have been repurposed – for example, the recent conversion to apartments of the former BBC Television Centre in London’s Shepherd’s Bush. But the BBC has been under siege from private media conglomerates and frequently hostile governments for forty years. In other cities, especially in the EU, public service broadcasters have kept studios running, modernising in situ, sometimes with nearby additions. Hence, the longevity of the Maison de la Radio in Paris, the RBB Television Centre in Berlin, and the Via Teulada studios of RAI in Rome, all originating in the 1930s-60s and transformed for the digital age.

‍

Even in Los Angeles, the famous CBS Television City, designed by William Pereira, continues to grow in studio buildings first opened in 1952, while Sony, Fox, and Paramount operate studios that were founded in the 1910s and 1920s, with many of the original buildings still in use today. Los Angeles has less prominent public service media and more property speculation than most cities, but its studios remain central – economically, culturally, and geographically – while modernising, densifying, and diversifying. Unfortunately, RTÉ has been caught in an unproductive financial tug of war in which citizens and public representatives praise its work but question its value for money. Competing private sector media companies naturally call for the state broadcaster to be restructured. However, the international history of studios should encourage us to protect not only RTÉ’s buildings but its Donnybrook site as a whole – an invaluable concentration of talent, expertise, equipment, and services that is in prime metropolitan real estate for good reason.

‍

The economic geographer Allen J. Scott highlights the distinctive ‘clustering’ of media industries around dense networks of specialised facilities, skilled workers, and suppliers that are often unique in a given region or country. Scott’s influential analysis of Hollywood emphasises the long-term benefits of integrating media industries in large cities – as does the recent PwC report The Role of the BBC in Creative Clusters (2022) [4]. Relocating RTÉ would run counter to their findings, dispersing a cluster instead of consolidating it. In Ireland, we have relocated large public facilities – moving UCD to Belfield in the 1960s, moving TU Dublin to Grangegorman – but those moves centralised disparate units. Efforts to decentralise – for example, government departments – have proven much more controversial. The high value of RTÉ’s estate is sometimes cited to argue for its sale, but this misunderstands the industry. Media studios are not like other manufacturers for whom large amounts of mass-produced inventory account for much of their total value. RTÉ’s physical estate makes up a greater proportion of its worth because the commodities it produces are relatively small, unique, and transient: digital images and sound, not objects made of metal, plastic, or timber.

‍

‍

Several film and television studios now operate outside of Dublin – Ardmore Studios in Wicklow, Troy Studios in Limerick, Titanic Studios in Belfast – and new studio construction has been having a moment worldwide, driven by demand for new product from streaming media services, government incentives, and institutional investors looking for new opportunities at a time when other kinds of commercial real estate are in difficulty. But reports suggest the trend may be slowing; the most recent new studio planned for Ireland – Hackman Capital Partners’ Greystones Media Campus – has been delayed by the recent actors’ and writers’ strike in Hollywood [5]. So new studio construction does not always go smoothly. And all of these are private sector companies mostly making movies or television dramas, often for overseas clients, frequently subject to seasonal or economic fluctuations in activity and not heavily involved in broadcasting, news gathering, or live entertainment – so not directly comparable with a public service broadcaster like RTÉ.

‍

RTÉ did have an ambitious investment plan for Donnybrook, Project 2025, but it was shelved during the financial crisis circa 2010 [6]. It would have provided a large integrated multi-functional studio facility with state-of-the-art technology, greater floorspace and production capacity, and a better environmental rating. However, shockingly, it would have required demolition of most of STW’s original buildings which, it was claimed, could not be modernised or upgraded to the standards required by digital media – an unconvincing claim given comparable developments in other countries (eventually RTÉ did manage a relatively modest but effective upgrade of its Studio 3 building for television news in 2019). A substantial revision of the Project 2025 plan now could strike a better balance between innovation and preservation while serving the needs of RTÉ and the Irish public. Reduction or closure of the site should be ruled out, and the studio buildings should be renewed. Though still photogenic, they are not in good condition. RTÉ’s small but elegant modernist canteen was closed several times last year by rat infestations and its other buildings also need repair. This costs money but would give the country a flagship media facility of enduring value.

‍

‍

To this end, RTÉ would do well to make its Donnybrook site more approachable, and this might aid the company’s PR. Studios are usually secure and secluded from the public – to protect their intellectual property, for the privacy of celebrities, and to encourage a sense of mystery and audience anticipation. Nevertheless, comparable studios run popular studio tours, on-site physical archives, and performance venues. Some of these were anticipated by Project 2025. Adding them now – as well as, say, a museum and educational centre – could enhance public understanding of RTÉ, improve media literacy, and protect RTÉ’s campus and buildings for successive generations to enjoy. Ancillary benefits might include independent media companies leasing some of RTÉ’s site but maintaining the media cluster, and improved pedestrian street life between Donnybrook village and UCD, which have densified over the years. Relevant international comparisons suggest we should double down on RTÉ’s Donnybrook site rather than reduce or vacate it.

‍

This would also serve environmental priorities. It is increasingly recognised that the ecological cost of growth is often high. To ‘lift and shift’ RTÉ to a new location, rather than update and expand its current facilities, would consume a lot of building materials and energy while disrupting supply routes and workers’ commutes, increasing RTÉ’s carbon footprint. This would contradict its sustainability goals, which include a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. Since Project 2025 was launched, the tide of international opinion has turned against demolition, as adaptive reuse initiatives such as House Europe and the New European Bauhaus demonstrate [7]. RTÉ’s sustainability goals could be better achieved by maximising its options in situ. Another way the state might do this would be to buy back the portion of RTÉ’s campus that was sold to a private company for residential development. The state often buys land for strategic infrastructure, and the land that was sold has been idle since 2017. That sale was first proposed in 2002 at the height of the Celtic Tiger property boom and it would arguably never have happened if RTÉ had been properly funded in the first place. Instead, its revenue shortfalls, which have now been constant for twenty years, were a function of neoliberal trends towards deregulation and privatisation that have since come in for scrutiny in Ireland and worldwide. We now have a chance to address these for the good of our media and built environment alike. Even Tánaiste Micheál Martin recently opined that RTÉ should not rush into further land sales because “very often selling land is something you will regret later” [8]. This is not to argue for a state monopoly – Ireland needs a thriving, diverse, creative, and entrepreneurial media sector. But it also needs vibrant public service media anchored in vibrant public places.

Space-heating accounts for 35% of total energy-related emissions in Ireland today. As one key component of its response to the National Climate Action Plan, South Dublin County Council (SDCC) committed to the decarbonisation of its county-town, Tallaght. Nationally, decarbonisation will rely on increasing renewable generation assets – wind and solar – on the grid to a target of 85% by 2030. This will enable significant carbon-savings through the widespread electrification of the heat and transport sectors.

‍

The Tallaght District-Heating (DH) Scheme was identified as a pilot project to promote this switch to low-carbon, renewable heating. 70% of the Dublin region is suitable for adaptation to DH (increasing to 86% in the city centre). There are sufficient waste heat sources in Dublin to service the equivalent of 1.6 million homes; DH can recycle and harness this waste heat as a low-carbon resource for space-heating.

‍

In 2016, as part of a five-city EU Inter-Reg programme to foster DH technology in northern Europe, €950,000 was made available (including €347,000 from SDCC resources) to underwrite initial work on the Tallaght DH network. This seed-funding allowed the formation of South Dublin District-Heating Company – Ireland’s first not-for-profit, publicly-owned heat utility, now trading as ‘Heat Works’.

‍

The DH network was envisioned, championed, and project managed by the SDCC Architects Department, building on experience installing CHP, solar arrays, heat pumps, and bio-mass boilers in public buildings over a twenty-year period. The DH scheme was a collaboration between SDCC, Amazon, Fortum (the contractor), and the Dublin energy agency Codema, which has provided a low-carbon solution, optimising the potential of recyclable heat combined with innovative heat-pump technology. Heat Works is set up to act as an exemplar heat-network business in Ireland, delivering economic, environmental, and social benefits for residents and businesses while supporting the local and national climate action plans by reducing our carbon footprint.

‍

Heat Source

At this time, Amazon Web Services (AWS) were planning a large data centre in Tallaght. As part of pre-planning discussions with SDCC, AWS agreed to collect and make available waste-heat from the data-centre’s cooling-system to the DH network. As part of this agreement, waste-heat collection equipment and ongoing heat delivery to Heat Works will be at the expense of AWS in line with their company commitment to global carbon-reduction. The Tallaght DH network is the first scheme in Ireland to capture and efficiently re-use waste heat from a large-scale data centre using bespoke 4G district-heating technology. 10MW of waste-heat is available for use in the Tallaght network on this basis.

‍

‍

It is currently estimated that by 2028 data centres may be using up to 29% of the national grid, and by 2030 will have added 13% to carbon-emissions on the grid. While not eliminating all primary energy use, DH can seriously offset the generation of both heat and carbon for space-heating required by DH customers and greatly reduce carbon emissions discharging energy-intensive waste-heat from cooling systems in data centres.

‍

The Energy Centre and Pipe-Network

To utilise the waste-heat generated by AWS, a distinctive zinc-clad Energy Centre was constructed adjoining the data centre to collect, consolidate, and distribute hot-water to the DH network. The hot air from AWS is collected and run through a heat-pump to raise the temperature of water to 25-27°C. This water is then transferred to the Heat Works Energy Centre building where the temperature is raised again through bespoke centralised large-scale heat pumps to 85°C and sent through the pipe network. In turn, the servers in the data centre are provided with cool air as a by-product from the Energy Centre. The Energy Centre also includes full peak load back-up via a 3MW electric boiler to ensure heat supply to the network can be met at all times. The scheme is fully electric with no on-site combustion resulting in the elimination of particle emissions. In addition, the carbon content of the heat will continue to reduce over time in line with the decarbonisation of the national grid through increased deployment of renewable sources, e.g. onshore / offshore windfarms, solar power, etc [1].

‍

This Tallaght DH scheme is currently providing both space-heating to buildings on the DH network and cooling to the data centre [2]. The scheme currently has planning permission for 400m³ of thermal water-storage. In time, this will enable greater flexibility and utilisation of off-peak electricity, which will increasingly enable the DH network to support the grid by providing greater demand-side response services to regulate large fluctuations associated with wind-power generation. The initial pipe network measures 1.6km in length, utilising different sizes of pre-insulated pipes to ensure minimal thermal losses. Hot water is distributed to customer buildings through the pipe network from the Energy Centre. Heat exchanger substations are located within the customer buildings with an indirect system (the network water crosses and heats the customers’ water, but they do not mix). Energy meters measure the amount of thermal energy used by the customer for heating spaces, HVAC systems, and sanitary hot water.

‍

‍

Overall, the Tallaght DH Scheme produces CO₂ savings of 1500 tonnes per annum in the first phase of the scheme along with a reduction of 528kg in nitrogen oxide emissions. This will increase as the scheme expands and the input of renewably-generated electricity increases. In effect, fossil-fuel usage will be reduced by 100% as the grid is made fully renewable. The lack of combustion onsite eliminates particulates and provides cleaner air for Tallaght town centre.

‍

In addition to road testing DH generation and control technologies in Ireland, the Tallaght scheme was set up to trial the legal, financial, procurement, and governance structures required for a heating network in Ireland. A series of innovative contract types had to be developed for the project carried out under the skilful direction and experience of Philip Lee and Associates Solicitors. The fledgling company required an experienced energy-supply company (ESCO) to design, construct, and operate the DH network. This role was tendered across the whole of the EU using the OJEU process. The tender was arranged as a ‘Competitive Dialogue’ in three stages culminating in the submission of a final design and financial bid. This included the design of the Energy Centre and the distribution pipe network. The preferred bidder was Fortum, a multi-national ESCO based in Finland with extensive experience in DH across the Nordic countries and Eastern Europe.

‍

Procurement Models

A Local Energy-Supply Contract (Design, Build, Operate, & Maintain – DBOM) between the ESCO and Heat Works was agreed. This contract is divided in two phases – Construction Phase (Design & Build), and Operation Phase (Operate & Maintain). Heat Works buys the heat produced from the ESCO based on a fixed operational carbon-efficiency figure. The manner in which this heat is produced, and the risks associated with its production is the responsibility and risk of the ESCO, and the cost of electrical supply is at the risk of Heat Works. A separate new contract had to be developed and agreed to address the transfer of waste heat from AWS to Heat Works, and the return of lower-temperature water from the DH network to AWS to assist in cooling within the data centre.

‍

‍

A customer-contract was also required addressing the sale of heat from Heat Works to each customer. Heat Works are responsible for customer relations and calculation of customer bills. Monthly customer bills include fixed components (two standing charges for administration and network maintenance), and a variable charge for quantity of heat supplied. The initial customers are SDCC (County Hall and Library, the Innovation Centre, and two-hundred affordable apartments) and TUD Tallaght (main campus building, SSRH sports building, and the North Block Catering College). To date, 70,000m² of space are connected to the Tallaght network, and total investment stands at €8 million [3].

‍

The contract for Design, Build, Operate, and Maintenance was signed in October 2020 and works commenced in 2021. Works were directly affected by COVID-19 government-imposed site closures. Testing began on the plant and network during October, November, and December 2022. Heat was delivered to first customers from 19 January 2023 with Substantial Completion achieved in July 2023. Since then, the district-heating scheme has been in its Operation and Maintenance phase.

This case study maps the route from Pearse Street train station to St Stephen’s Green. This is a well-walked city journey with ample architectural and historical features; passing Leinster House, the National Library, and Trinity College Dublin. It features bustling cafés which spill onto the street and a plethora of office buildings. Embarking from a main commuter station, it is a route travelled equally by locals and tourists.

‍

The choice of this route was personal in origin. I left my office on Molesworth Street one evening, hoping to board the Dart at Pearse Station within ten minutes. En route, I grabbed a pear. Ripe and juicy, it was a quick snack to placate a familiar after-work hunger. What started as a carefree nibble would soon motivate my reevaluation of Dublin’s inner-city street infrastructure. Along my 700m route in the heart of this European capital city, I did not pass a single bin on my footpath in which to dispose of the pear remnants. Vexed by my sticky hands and a fruit core that had abandoned all its structural integrity, I could only expel the smushed remnants once I had crossed Westland Row and reached Pearse St Station.

‍

As indicated on the map below, the only two public bins to be found on either side of my route, this main city artery, were outside the National Gallery on Clare Street and St Andrew Church on Westland Row (both of which are on the easterly side of the street). Typically, city infrastructure is almost invisible to me, only noticed when it obstructs a footpath or disrupts a vista. However, when critically assessed, the traffic lights, electricity boxes, bus stops, waste bins, street lamps, make up a substantial jumble of street-junk. The lack of aesthetic consideration and coordinated layout for these components belies the strategic vision of the Dublin City Development Plan to create: “a connected, legible and liveable city with a distinctive sense of place, based on active streets, quality public spaces and adequate community and civic infrastructure… ensuring quality architecture, urban design and green spaces to provide quality of life and good health and wellbeing for all” [1].

‍

This map was made to record the contemporary urban condition by honestly depicting all the city infrastructure and footpath interruptions, with particular focus on public refuse and pedestrian crossings. It also notes the street lamps, bus stops, bollards, and bicycle parking along this route.

‍

‍

Approximately 900m lie between Pearse Station and the gate to St Stephen’s Green from Kildare St. Along this route there are twelve pedestrian crossings managed by traffic lights. To travel this journey, the minimum number of road-crossings is four and the (most reasonably direct) maximum number of crossings is seven.

‍

Following the route from Pearse St Station to St. Stephen’s Green, the westerly path is 925m. It immediately crosses Westland Row from the station, and travels along the path hugging Trinity College Dublin. From Nassau Street, and onto Kildare Street it crosses Setanta Place, Molesworth St, and Schoolhouse Lane before reaching St Stephen’s Green. A point at which the urban infrastructure feels congested is the pedestrian island at the south of Kildare Street (marked location A). Here you will find a street barrier, sign posts, traffic lights, bicycle parking, electricity boxes and a reflective traffic bollard. Along this route there are no public bins.

‍

The length of the route walked along the easterly path is 920m long. Turning left onto the path on Westland Row leaving Pearse Street station, it travels along the street before using the traffic island to cross onto Lincoln Place. Continuing along the bollard-lined curve to Clare Street, the third pedestrian crossing of this route brings you to Nassau Street. After rounding the corner to Kildare Street, it is a straight 260m to the Shelbourne Hotel, where you find yourself crossing to the westerly path to reach the Green. A point along this side of the street at which the urban infrastructure feels crowded is at the south corner of the National Museum of Ireland on Kildare Street (marked location B). Beside a grid of established trees around a statue of William Conyngham Plunket, there are two postboxes straddling an electricity box, several bus stops, signposts, and bollards. Leaving the station on Westland Row, along this route you pass three bins. The first two are clustered at the station, and the third can be found at the National Gallery. This confirms that from St Andrew’s Church to the Shelbourne Hotel, there is only a single public rubbish bin.

‍

By recording the erratic distribution of street infrastructure, this map also highlights that simply providing physical infrastructure is not sufficient when aiming to protect and enliven urban character. While the DCC Development Plan states “The preservation of the built heritage and archaeology of the city that makes a positive contribution to the character, appearance, and quality of local streetscapes and the sustainable development of the city” [2], this is not reflected in the layered mess of electricity boxes, sign posts, and bollards. It is important to acknowledge the architectural richness and quality of the street in this case study, and that this issue of street-junk is just as evident throughout the city, on streets such as Camden Street, Church Street, and Frederick Street.

‍

‍

In its endeavour to foster “a distinctive sense of place” in this area of the city, DCC has been successful. However, while the overriding impression is a civic character envisioned by the Georgians and Victorians, it is hard to ignore the layers of haphazard and visually disruptive infrastructure that have been added in recent times.

‍

There is an understandable conflict between the provision of urban services and the maintenance of our architectural heritage. Yet, looking at previous generations of lamp posts, manhole covers, and paving, this wasn’t always the case. In The Ancient Pavement: An Illustrated Guide to Dublin’s Street Furniture, O’Connell explains that the nineteenth-century street lighting would have begun as traditional oil lamps, before being modernised to gas, and then, in the 1890s, electricity. While this resulted in the preservation of traditional infrastructure, the decision to adapt the existing lamps would have been an economic one: “During times when many other cities introduced more modern lighting schemes Dublin, through economic necessity, was often forced to adapt such new fittings to older lamp-posts” [3]. The more frugal decision at the time has unconsciously allowed the preservation of beautiful nineteenth-century lighting street infrastructure, including manhole covers, bollards, and railings: “Street objects were accidentally preserved from many eras to produce what is now one of the most unique city collections of street furniture in Europe”. Kildare Street still acts today as a palimpsest of Dublin ironmongery. The ornamentation of earlier interventions reflect a dedication to both place making and necessary modernisation.

‍

Working in the relatively well-preserved Georgian core of south Dublin city is a privilege – today’s converted office buildings, galleries, and cafés are identifiable in the terraces of Smith’s 1846 map of Dublin, first published by the Illustrated London News. In addition to the red brick and sash windows, the architectural character of the small city blocks are defined by granite curbs that have been smoothened by thousands of footsteps, railing-lined light wells, and generously proportioned streets. This emphasises that fostering a sense of place does not solely depend on the buildings, but how they touch our public space.

‍

This case study concludes that in order to achieve a vibrant urban realm, more thoughtful, place-specific, infrastructural design is needed. And some more bins for a pear. 

In the privileged and privately owned site of the Pumphouse in Dublin Port, architectural students spent a week thinking about alternative means of building public space through appropriation, without the limitations of traditional building and material supply chains.

‍

The Pumphouse sits in the Alexandra Basin within Dublin Port, a space offering residencies and opportunities for cultural and public events. A large, mostly empty, pseudo-public space left over from the remnants of a filled-in graving dock, the site consists of a historic industrial structure and an open paved area, under the shadow of vast infrastructural elements, cranes, silos, and passing ships. It was once a site of maintenance and repair for ships coming to and from Dublin Port. The pump houses, after which the nascent cultural space is now named, would drain and refill the water from graving docks to allow workers to access below the hulls of ships. The older pump house of the two, where our workshop took place, is now considered a site of historical interest, while the other remains a concrete remnant, inaccessible to the public, perhaps also quietly waiting to be granted historical significance.

‍

‍

The week's workshop however, could be indiscriminate – with an arsenal of temporary paints, and a collection of borrowed, rented, and waste materials from sites around the city, we could occupy the site as we pleased, with the understanding that everything could be taken away shortly after, leaving no trace. These materials would be bound together with removable and demountable connecting elements – the connecting elements being the only new parts purchased for construction. The site was free to become a testing ground; for methods of community construction, public space interventions, parasitic and guerrilla architectures, and to facilitate the performance of construction without the implications and consequences of long-term interventions.

‍

‍

Inside the older of the two pump houses, the back corner was set up to host lectures from international speakers and members of the workshop, on a borrowed monitor and speakers facing rows of leftover solid wood benches. Behind us lay a backdrop of materials gathered from recycling centres, construction schools, salvage yards, building sites. The workshop’s initial exercises allowed us to familiarise ourselves with these materials, first as individual shapes, then as relational objects, and finally as broken still lifes, stacked and arranged outside on a grid previously painted over the tarmac. These compositions formed the first temporary imposition on the space, necessarily functionless, forming spatial relationships between building, space, body, and material.

‍

‍

The exercises shifted between scales, from 1:1 assemblages to analytical and experiential drawings which zoomed out to the scale of the site. The painted grid overlaid on the site accented its abstract nature as an empty and previously un-intervened upon space, a piece of land reclaimed from the sea, distant from the dense architectural narratives layered upon the nearby city centre. From the vantage point of an opening on the first floor of the pump house building, we discussed these surveys which were drawn on 1:25 representations of the painted grid. The grid, 25m squared, formed a referencing tool to quickly and easily survey important conditions on site, outlining the primary workspace, presenting opportunities to work in the margins, major and minor spaces, imposing a temporary order onto the site which we encouraged students to disregard, engage with, or undermine as they saw fit.

‍

‍

Reflecting on the idea of building out loud, a term coined by the Belgian artist and designer Jozef Wouters, in which building and designing occur simultaneously in dialogue with one another, we engaged in a process of making, discussing, drawing, revising, dismantling, and making again; while also devising a brief and negotiating spatially between a series of undefined proposals. Given that many of the materials needed to be returned at the end of the week, and encouraging a general principle of demountability, a system of connecting disparate objects needed to be established. Through using a stock of ratchet straps, threaded rods, nuts and washers, clamps, rope, and bungee cords, a language of combining and dismantling objects was developed. As the proposals materialised, some began to form standalone objects, which could be moved and placed on site; erratics of disjointed scrap timber, blocks, and rubble. Framed by the grand and imposing space, these oddities were defined, given importance as monuments which became emblematic of the work built throughout the week. Other proposals were more deliberate in their functions: a bench, wall, roof, table, lantern, or seesaw.

‍

‍

A closing event drove the direction of the design – considering how visitors might engage with the objects, where to gather, to dance, to sit and talk, where a DJ could stand. With the constraints of the amount and size of existing materials, the challenge became unifying disparate constructs into one proposal for occupying the Pumphouse. Methods of connecting were shared and re-used across different designs as each participant found their own ways of building with the materials gathered; techniques for threading rope, stacking blocks, or making clamps with threaded rods became a common language in many instances. This was important as the materials themselves were so varied – the challenge became how to unify them and build a public space containing our own individual ideas, to be used in conjunction with one another.

‍

As the week came to an end, the act of designing through making paused. A process which might otherwise continue to revise and resolve problems through testing and altering froze in time. As tools and equipment were taken away, the aberration of a proposal presented itself, the result of an experimental process engaging critically in ideas founded on public space in the city represented now as an assortment of objects, imprinted onto the large open space between the two pump house buildings. The immeasurable quality of the old graving dock is briefly given definition, engaging with these ideas of the city in this elsewhere space. As the final evening progresses, the interventions seem to settle in as they are leaned on and danced around, one structure being carried inside by the party’s attendees, enclosing late night conversations and cigarettes against a backdrop of an active port – simultaneously in the centre and the fringes of Dublin city.

‍

Driving Ireland’s looping system of isolated rural roads, you'll spot a common sight: walkers decked out in hi-vis, singly or in groups, tracking the footpath-less edge, keeping out of your way and waving gratefully as you pass. Rural roads are the most dangerous in Ireland: the site of 71% of road fatalities in 2020, according to the Road Safety Authority (RSA) [1]. In that year, forty-four pedestrians were killed on Irish roads (the RSA didn’t differentiate between rural and urban deaths), more than passengers (thirty-four) and cyclists (eight) combined.

‍

People may choose to walk because they can’t drive, because it is the cheapest option, or simply for walking’s sake. If those living rurally haven’t access to private land, a footpath, or a designated public route, their only option is the roadside, with limited visibility around bends, speed limits up to 80km/h or 100km/h, and the fear of distracted drivers.

But there could be options beyond the roadside. In Scotland, people have a "right to responsible access" [2], meaning the public can access most private land and inland water for recreation and other purposes, including walking. Sweden, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria have similar statutory rights of responsible access to all land, regardless of ownership. They don’t have to call ahead, or worry that they’ll be reprimanded for walking through someone’s property.

In England, where open access to 8% of private land is legislated, there is a growing campaign to move closer to the Scottish model. The Right to Roam campaign proposes that while ownership of the land may allow landowners to "take rent, mine, and make money from the land", it should not permit them to exclude the public [3]. Some farmers, in response, argue that the public doesn’t know how to use the countryside, and could impact agricultural production [4]. Farmers in support of the Right to Roam suggest it should be accompanied by a public education programme.

Access in Ireland is at the discretion of landowners [5], and may be withdrawn at any time, even when access has been agreed with the state, and even to sites on which public money has been spent [6]. 78% of land in Ireland is private, while 8% is public (the remaining 14% is unmapped, likely residential). Most of the private land is farmland [7]. A 2009 study of farmers’ attitudes towards allowing walkers to access their land found that 51% were opposed to any such scheme [8]. Those opposing public access usually had limited experience of walkers passing through their land and were concerned about interference with farming activity. Farmers who were familiar with walkers were more willing to engage with the scheme, and more willing to do so for free. In general, it was found that farmers were more supportive of creating public access if paid about €0.27 per metre of walkway, if full public liability insurance indemnification were provided, maintenance costs covered, and no permanent right of way established.      

‍

‍

The question of liability is an important one. Under Irish legislation, landowners are considered responsible for those on their land, meaning concerns around public liability are justified, though recent changes to the duty of care have given more weight to personal responsibility [9].

‍

The government’s National Outdoor Recreation Strategy acknowledges that access to the countryside rests on the goodwill of landowners [10]. The strategy vaguely aims to develop permissive access and "encourage innovative solutions". Creating a legal right of responsible access in Ireland would open up the countryside, allowing us to hop over fences and explore the land around us. Of course, for that to work, certain responsible behaviours would need to be normalised. Dogs should not be brought near to livestock, and walkers must respect the land, leaving no trace [11].

‍

There’s a strong environmental case for making land more accessible to all. Studies have found that connection to nature increases people’s willingness to protect the environment [12]. 84% of people surveyed by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2020 thought walking in nature benefitted their mental health [13]. More places to walk safely in the countryside could foster a rural walking culture. Health benefits of walking in nature include stress reduction, cognitive development, and lowered likelihood of cardiovascular disease [14].

This map of walking locations in Ireland shows clear gaps in public access to land. Depending on where you live, the nearest public walking route might be a drive away, and an alternative one even further. These designated routes allow you to get out, to move your body and breathe the air, but what about your curiosity, your sense of adventure, your wish to follow your nose or the call of a bird? Those desires cannot be met by the same stretch of land every time, or by planning a round-country day trip to a faraway route. With the right to roam, people could explore nature and build custodianship with the land. Why should this require a pleasant interaction with a landowner beforehand?

Crafting public spaces that respond to local climatic conditions demands careful consideration. The ground plane bears the brunt of numerous responsibilities: foot traffic, accessibility, servicing and managing fluctuating climatic conditions – specifically rainwater.  

Met Éireann's preliminary data for 2024 shows that March’s rainfall surpassed long-term averages [1]. Further climate change research conducted by Met Éireann also reveals significant increases in heavy precipitation events, particularly during winter and autumn months, with a projected rise in extended dry periods [2]. This poses challenges for both water scarcity and abundance, necessitating prompt design solutions and adaptations to our public spaces and wider built environment.

Rainwater in cities isn't just an inconvenience, it holds potential. Rather than condemning rainwater into stormwater drains, through careful planning and management techniques there are ways we can redirect and collect it, enhancing the spatial experience and climate resilience of our public realm.

‍

Hardly working

The surface of the pedestrianised core in Galway city over the years has succumbed to the inherent complexities of climate and water, with rainfall historically and consistently being a challenge. It averages at 2,800mm per year, in comparison to Dublin with an average of 680mm per year [3].

Since its pedestrianisation in the late 1990s, the street has undergone various phases of maintenance, resurfacing, and redesign. Previously paved with a cobble lock paving, this surface quickly deteriorated after years of heavy foot and vehicular traffic, compounded by poor drainage, and was removed in 2019.

Since then, it has been temporarily resurfaced with tarmac, and in many ways, is symbolic of the widespread soil sealing occurring across Irish towns and cities. This practice, along with the selection of visually unattractive drainage systems permeating the built environment, reflects a gradual erosion of the importance of aesthetic value in pedestrianised zones. These drainage systems are engineered to direct polluted runoff towards natural watercourses, such as rivers and streams, or in some cases to designated stormwater management facilities. Consequently, the resultant waste has been described as a "toxic cocktail of pollutants’’ identified by the EPA (Environment Protection Agency) [4].

The material surface of Shop Street in Galway city is currently under review as part of a broader public realm redevelopment and city enhancement strategy [5]. The strategy, while ambitious and impressive in terms of its quality of urban place making and accessibility standards, is conservatively reliant on impervious hard surfaces with traditional methods of surface rainfall drainage. The strategy, apart from its introduction of small areas of sustainable drainage systems (SUDS), misses a massive opportunity to effectively integrate and creatively link rainfall drainage from streets to new and existing public spaces, a critical characteristic of nature-based solutions (NBS) to urban run-off and climate resilience. 

‍

‍‍

Working hard

The streets and sidewalks encircling Benthemplein in Rotterdam serve as its water veins, creating a living rainwater laboratory, a ground-breaking urban space known as the Water Square. Designed by De Urbanisten, and completed in 2013, it serves as a multifunctional public space that dynamically integrates water management with recreational and social amenities.The project aimed to address the city's challenges with urban flooding and water management. It not only successfully achieved this, but also exposed these challenges to the public through conscious and clever design [6].

Three basins gather rainwater: two shallow ones collect water whenever it rains nearby, while a deeper basin accumulates water during periods of sustained rainfall. Rainwater from the square flows via stainless steel drainage channels into the basins, visually mimicking natural waterways, while in dry weather, the space is accessible to all [7].

Here, linking the drainage channels to a large public space creates visual interest and dynamic interactions with water, enhancing the sensory experience of the square. The sound of water flowing through the channels contributes to the space’s ambiance, creating a playful, inviting atmosphere that attracts people to linger and engage.

The incorporation of street drainage into the design of the Water Square at Benthemplein exemplifies the seamless integration of water management infrastructure with urban design principles. By combining functionality with aesthetics, these channels contribute to the square's resilience, sustainability, and appeal as a vibrant public space in Rotterdam.

‍

Conclusion

Despite notable differences in context and scale, the Dutch model offers insights and an attitude to climate adaptive design that can be applied to the Irish urban environment. Fundamentally, the Water Square at Benthemplein demonstrates that it is plausible to effectively manage and even embrace heavy rainfall within urban areas.

It is important to recognise Shop Street in Galway not just as an isolated segment of the city's fabric, but as an integral component of interconnected systems within the broader urban water landscape. This perspective acknowledges the wider context and interdependencies within the urban environment, encompassing flood prevention, the preservation of biodiversity, water quality maintenance, and ecosystem wellbeing. This calls for a change in how we perceive and handle our conventional drainage systems, prompting a fundamental question: are we designing what's right for our rain?

Ireland faces a critical housing shortage. Our financial system means a short-term reduction in house prices is unlikely [1], and analysis points to a shortage in supply as a key contributing factor. To build ourselves out of crisis, housing will need to be delivered at large scales. State agencies, housing bodies, and developers are masterplanning significant swathes of land. In the face of a climate crisis, hitting our housing targets is just the first step. A major challenge will be how we can sustain our housing supply for generations to come.

‍

When we consider our building strategies through the lens of repair, a key factor that emerges is scale. Repair has a certain set scale because buildings are not precise. The rolling list of repairs that a building demands does not lend itself to a top-down, large-scale approach, but instead requires careful, human attention. Learning to build is a lesson in measuring twice, cutting once, and allowing for errors. This is not precision engineering; small misreads can become gaps you can put your hand in. Our houses are full of filler; half of Ireland is held together with Tec7. If we more carefully consider this complex and often unkempt side of construction, we can enable the continual transformation of buildings over time.

‍

Large-scale, new-build construction might seem re-assuring for hitting housing delivery targets at first. At the macro level, however, it remains challenging to strategise for ongoing repair work: problem-solving with limited clues, incorporating room for error, and facilitating creative on-site responses. The onus for delegating and procuring repair in private housing typically falls to management teams, resident committees, and individuals. Not surprisingly, meaningful change is impeded by financial realities. We are fast approaching a crisis point; a 2018 report by the Royal Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland found three-quarters of apartment complexes do not have enough funds set aside for long-term upkeep [2]. Post-occupancy evaluations are unfortunately neither mandatory nor regularised. There is a glaring absence of data on maintenance and repair in our climate and economy.

‍

‍

If we reconsider housing with repair in mind, then we begin to look beyond the hoarding of new-build construction sites. We have a country filled with crumbling brick terraces, mistreated stone townhouses, and swathes of cold, damp bungalows tucked into the corners of fields. While this dimension of construction might not be appealing to large-scale investors, for owner-occupiers, repair and restoration could present an invaluable opportunity to obtain and customise a place of one's own. The state is attempting to encourage these small-scale repairs by offering grants of up to €70,000 to homeowners undertaking renovations of derelict properties. But this money is only released once the project meets a number of strict conditions, and is only available to projects involving a contractor [3].

‍

The potential for this mode of construction is significant. A high proportion of an entire generation are currently locked out of the property market. Their powerlessness to enact change is contrasted with our historical culture of self-building in Ireland. Although a frequent topic of derision, the Bungalow Bliss building phenomenon in Ireland was a remarkable feat of small-scale building, happening en masse. The effect of this goes beyond housing quanta, as writer Adrian Duncan notes: "There's more of a direct relationship with a home you build for yourself when compared to moving to a house built by a stranger". He describes the Bungalow Bliss period as "one of the last few unselfconscious instances in Ireland of the traditional meitheal" [4]. This could equally apply to a house one maintains, repairs, extends or retrofits.

‍

However, current government supports fail to reach self-builders and DIYers. Instead the system relies on the appointment of contractors. David Byrne, a self-builder I spoke to, lamented the lack of support available to him: "The government, while meaning well, is giving money to the middle man, while the person at the bottom isn't getting any benefit" [5]. His current project fits many of the criteria that the government seeks to encourage, but as he is aiming to do the work himself, the need to have a contractor involved removes any chance of receiving support. With the uncertainty of older buildings, the need to pay for work upfront, and inability to carry out the work by oneself, many of the grants are a helping hand that is simply out of reach.

‍

There is also a lack of nuance in these government supports that is stifling the building economy. When it comes to thermal improvement, many grants rely on using an improved BER rating as evidence of a job well done. But the reality of retrofitting is far more complex. In David Byrne's case, he is removing the non-breathable elements from the existing stone walls, to restore their innate thermal and hydraulic functions. Yet he struggles to find support for this approach: "Ninety percent of people I talk to in the building industry tell me to dry-line the stone walls" [6]. How can we expect to harness the energy and desire of self-builders, if we cannot offer them more flexibility in financing and delivering their projects?

‍

‍

Enabling DIYers will require a surge in specialised education and training, funding and political vision. Currently, a significant barrier to a widespread DIY approach to housing is the availability of clear and accessible information. Some efforts are being made; enterprises like Common Knowledge aim to teach lay people construction skills with in-person courses. Similarly, architects and engineers will have a role to play in encouraging this shift in building culture. Already advocates for self-building – Walter Segal internationally, and Dominic Stevens domestically – have proven the potential for architects to enable self-building. The effort could be worth it, a widespread self-build and DIY revolution has the potential to tackle a number of the problems faced by the current Irish housing landscape: supply, lack of tradespeople, and vacancy.

‍

If we can navigate this successfully, we could create a new self-perpetuating system for housing delivery and maintenance. If we want the job done right, we'll have to do it ourselves.

Graduates of architecture in the Republic of Ireland are facing a new significant barrier to accreditation, much discussed among affected individuals for the past year. What is a long journey to becoming an architect has, since the beginning of 2023, become implausibly longer again for many students as one of the two universities that offer the Professional Diploma in Architectural Practice in Ireland (PDAP – legally labelled the Professional Practice Exam, or PPE) decided to cease its offering to new applicants for at least three years – up to 2026 at the earliest [1]. This reduced the number of places available from a previous average of roughly 140 per year to the seventy places remaining at the only other university in Ireland which offers the course. In September 2024, this number will reduce again, as the remaining university removes twenty-two places from its offering. With five Irish universities producing roughly 200-250 graduates per year, combined with the number of expatriates working in Ireland in the architectural profession and requiring professional exams – this has resulted in a situation where there are, at the time of writing, around 400 expressions of interest vying for forty-eight places for the single PDAP course. This means that only one in eight to ten applicants will get a place, with the possibility for further growth to these numbers year-on-year.

‍

‍

In April 2024, while the RIAI issued an updated statement on the dwindling capacity problems, with the welcome proposal of facilitating the PPE themselves from 2025, they did not specify how many graduates this course would accommodate, nor give any indication how much it would cost [2]. The problem is inevitably clogging the system with graduates, who have project and salary expectations that are determined by the timeline within which they complete the PPE. The current delays consequently are affecting their plans of a rational timeframe for career progression. Employers, too, will be directly affected, as they become encumbered with graduates who cannot progress through the system reasonably, and who they thus cannot expect to charge for as registered architects, or whose CVs they may not use to their full potential to win work. What should be even more alarming for the renowned richness of the profession in Ireland is how the backlog is delaying the beginning of the careers of potential sole-practitioners, previously a significant proportion of practising architects. In facing the current delays in starting the PPE, all graduates objectively must contend with a lag before they are provided the opportunity to contribute their ideas, ability, and energy to the industry in Ireland. Professional roadblocks could, and are, becoming repercussive personal reckonings for many, that arguably conclude with emigration to countries with more responsive registration systems as the only viable solution.

‍

While legal protection for the title 'Architect' has been a persistent part of the RIAI’s two-fold aim of protecting and promoting members since 1885 [3], the role of the architect and the associated PPE was only legislatively defined by Part 3 of the Building Control Act 2007, which also bestowed upon the RIAI with the legal responsibility to manage accreditation of that title [4]. Part 3 of the Act was not “intended to exclude anybody, but, rather, to include all those who meet a defined minimum standard” [5]. In the current climate, the backlog in achieving accreditation has become so restrictive that graduates of the industry are potentially being prevented, legally, from working independently in it. This hard-won and necessary tool to protect the profession is now rendered as the means by which its reputation is tarnished – through exclusion of new members.

‍

‍

The situation reveals a functional issue within the increasingly fragmented structure of the pathway to becoming an architect. The industry’s typically younger members, who have studied as long and as hard as those before them, have danced through the same rules but have reached a surprise stumbling block right at the very end. These members are becoming extremely frustrated with the slow pace of any resolution to a worsening problem. The immediate function and future of an industry cannot and should not subside because of the decision to close one course, and improved access to the profession should be increased in line with demand for university places and PPE courses to secure its future. The welcome development of a new course by the RIAI should be the beginning. Members of the industry at all levels should also galvanise government support for the formation of new courses that maintain sustainable access to the PPE. After all, as noted in the RIAI’s statement, architecture’s importance in the symbiotic development of the built landscape with the abstract social values of the people it shelters exists in governmental policy [6]. High-quality design of the future built environment, and surely by consequence, the place and skills of its future architects, is in its heart.

‍

Update 04.05.24: UCD is reopening the Professional Diploma (Architecture) next January (2025) with a limit on forty places. A process of random selection is being applied for these places. Further details are available here.

"Architecture has no meaning unless in relation to nature". 

— Alvaro Siza [1]

We used to build in quite sensible ways.

Before industrialisation in Western Europe, we mainly built relatively simple structures of load-bearing walls using materials sourced in the locality. These materials – stone, brick, earth, timber, lime, plant fibre – required very little energy to produce. The walls were generally formed of one or two materials and the craft skills required were passed from one generation to the next. These vernacular buildings responded to local climatic conditions, making careful use of volume, the sizes and positions of apertures, cross ventilation, the thermal mass of the wall materials, thermal buffers to the most hostile orientations, and rooms of differing temperatures, to moderate the climate and achieve a relatively comfortable indoor environment without requiring significant additional heating or cooling. The buildings worked with nature and made the most of the natural conditions.

The industrialisation of construction over the last two centuries has created a change, from buildings as assemblies of materials based on craft practices to buildings as sums of subsystems, elements, and specialised layers of proprietary products. This change from materials to products greatly increased the embodied energy of building, as the standardisation of products requires significantly more complex manufacturing. Bricks, once produced locally from terracotta and fired at low temperatures, now require homogenised clay, must be fired at very high temperatures to meet industrial standards, and are transported large distances from centralised production facilities. Wood is now subjected to shredding, gluing, and shaping under pressure to homogenise its properties in the required formats [2]. We have also developed an ever-increasing number of industrial materials – steel, aluminium, PVC, concrete – that need vast quantities of energy to produce.

‍

In parallel with these changes in construction, we have created a situation where buildings are increasingly isolated from the natural environment, relying on technology to achieve comfort, instead of working with the local climate and conditions, as buildings did historically. In this era of the hermetically sealed building, the architecture discipline has surrendered responsibility for the design of the internal environments to engineers and other specialists. Key architectural issues affecting the well-being of inhabitants, such as air-quality, temperature, and humidity, are delegated to specialists and handled by technology. These issues, which should be central topics of the architectural project, are treated as merely problems to be solved. The construction industry and design professionals have become obsessed with the idea that we can completely isolate the insides of our buildings from the natural environment, like habitable thermos flasks. Yet, as Kiel Moe describes in his book Insulating Modernism, Isolated and Non-isolated Thermodynamics in Architecture, this isolation is illusionary and denies the physical reality of the building and the way it acts in the world: "literal isolation is thermodynamically impossible to achieve in the context of buildings" [3].

Based on this flawed thinking we have developed policies and regulations aimed at ever greater levels of insulation and airtightness, pursuing the holy grail of zero-energy buildings. Passivhaus is perhaps the most extreme version of this, creating buildings so airtight that they rely on expensive and complex technologies to provide ventilation.

The goal of these policies is energy conservation above all else, drowning out any more balanced discussion about how carbon emissions can be reduced to combat climate change. A new industry of simulation and certification has been created to drive a massive technological upgrade of buildings, but the promised successes will never be realised in real life. We have rushed to encase all our housing in thick layers of polyurethane and other oil industry by-products without consideration of the destructive impact of this practice. We don’t consider that having the bulk of our energy generated via renewable sources will reduce the need to insulate [4]. We are caught in a mindset that believes that more and more industrialised production and technology will solve any cost, quality, or time problem in the construction industry while helping to resolve a climate crisis that is the direct result of industrialisation and technological growth.

In recent years an increasing number of architects have begun to realise that we are making buildings too complex to design, too expensive to build, and too difficult to operate. Worse still, we are slowly becoming aware that the indoor environments we are creating, the settings for an increasing proportion of our lives, are not healthy. We realise that buildings are not empty shells, that they are filled with air, in the physical sense, and that this air is the main source of nourishment for the human body.

‍

Alarmed by these realisations, some architects are returning to first principles. They are beginning to study how vernacular architecture managed to create buildings that intrinsically required very little energy to heat in winter and that did not overheat in summer. A change of mindset is emerging, from the modernist isolation of the building and reliance on technology to a new sensibility about simpler, more robust forms of construction that engage in a dialogue with the natural environment.  

One example of this new mindset is the work of the IBAVI in the Balearic Islands. This government housing agency has developed a whole series of really interesting social housing projects that rediscover vernacular materials and construction techniques such as the use of the local Mares stone, and a seagrass called Posidonia as insulation. In their projects, thick stone walls and vaults are deployed to stabilise the indoor environment without needing any applied technology.  

These architects have been leading a rediscovery of how the fundamental spatial elements of architecture – walls, roofs, floors, ceilings, and apertures – can generate an environmental performance in which the building is not isolated from its surroundings, but instead takes advantage of the innate opportunities they offer to achieve comfort without the need for complex technologies. There is also a growing realisation that buildings inherently require a great accumulation of matter and energy to exist and persist, that they can never be zero-energy, and that a building’s success in ecological terms is characterised by its capacity to exchange and harvest energy from the natural environment. This emerging school of thought has the potential to establish a more coherent agenda for architecture and to reestablish its relevance and importance to contemporary society.

‍

While Cork city is often likened to Venice for its comparable canal system beneath its main streets, its architectural and urban characteristics draw parallels to another Italian city: Naples. Like Cork, Naples is a port city with a rich architectural history stemming from the mediaeval and industrial periods, however, their architectural characters and urbanist developments diverge significantly. 

‍

The city of Naples embodies Venturi’s ideas, through its honky-tonk architecture, with various contrasting epochs stitched together into one elevational run. Structure, facade, stairs, fenestration: all elements become urban characters of a centuries-old play known to the locals as La Città (The City). This eclectic approach to urbanism results from the continual layering up of architecture upon architecture, fragments upon fragment, all with a keen desire to preserve, protect, and most importantly, maintain each architectural style. 

‍

Cork city has an opportunity to draw inspiration from the Neapolitan character by investigating its development through the lens of Venturi's theories presented in his text, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. By juxtaposing similar examples from both cities, a connection between Neapolitan theatrics and Cork city’s architectural and urban framework can be discerned.

‍

‍

City gates

Monumental gateways of former entry points are present in both cities. Portas are embedded into the Neapolitan urban environment, creating porous penetrations into the city’s historic centre. Traversing beneath these oversized portals is a colloquial experience. While most of these city gates have been demolished or disappeared over the centuries, fragments of their existence are scattered throughout the city. Four of the most intact examples are Port'Alba, Porta San Gennaro, Porta Nolana, and Porta Capuana. Nolana and Capuana are former entry points of the Aragonese fortification walls, flanked by two towers on either side. Both are embedded into the surrounding urban fabric, with housing blocks capturing portions of the former fortifications. This variegated facade, which conjoins the massive scale of the Aragonese arch and the human-sized domestic architecture into one elevation, embodies what Venturi refers to as ‘superadjacency’.

‍

‍

Looking at Cork city, similar giants appear, however, they take on an alien appearance compared to their surroundings. This is the case for the gateway that serves as the entrance to Bishop Lucey Park, known to Corkonians as the People’s Park. The double-arched entrance is reconstructed from the 1850’s Cork Cornmarket, a former marketplace, not located on the park’s derelict site, but instead at Coal Quay less than 500m away. Flanked by low stone walls and metal railings, recent development plans for the park include the removal of these adjacent structures while allowing the gateway to remain. The threshold becomes monumental rather than transitional. This form of symbolic architecture, represented as fragments of the whole, can be understood as “economical because it implies richness and meaning beyond itself” without the need for the whole [1]. However, care for its continuing existence in the chosen context is key. The gateway to the park rescripts its history into a fraudulent one, a contradiction, but not necessarily the form which Venturi discusses. Approaching by means of inversion, removing the deceptive, and creating a void to signify this entry adheres to the Venturi's idea of fragmentation while remaining faithful to Cork's history.

‍

Urban ecclesiastics

Venturi's theories are not lost on Cork city. It is in the ecclesiastical spaces where these theories are effectively realised. This effectiveness may stem from the proximity of neighbouring buildings, resulting in a densely complex and interconnected urban fabric reminiscent of Neapolitan city development. One example is St Augustine’s Church on Washington Street. The second of its kind on the site, this church designed by architect Dominic O’Connor and completed in 1943, embeds itself into the streetscape, matching street lines and eave heights [2]. Contradictions appear in its material usage and elongated stained glass windows. The scale of the chiselled stone facade compared to the adjacent brickwork follows a height ratio of 3:1 and 5:1 and a width ratio of 2:1. Glazed openings extend to the fourth-storey height with no external breaks. The entry point on Washington Street is marked by a Hiberno-Romanesque style archway, double the height of its central door and those surrounding it. 

‍

‍

Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo in Naples follows a similar over-scaling of architectural features with a more theatrical approach. Typical fenestration proportions are kept, while the scale is magnified to an almost caricature-like quality. Duality is present in its glazed elements; becoming what Venturi describes as “as both structural and ornamental, frequently redundant, and sometimes vestigial” [3]. 

‍

By allowing these structures to play both against and with their architectural context, each element becomes a character in the city’s shared theatrical stage. This extreme multiplicity “reads like a unity through a tendency of the parts to change scale, and to be perceived as an overall pattern or texture”, creating an architecturally theatrical city that seeks to celebrate and conserve its elaborate and paradoxical history [4].

Virgin materials are any materials extracted directly from nature that lead to destructive impacts: trees being ripped from the ground, soil contamination, illness, and pollution. It takes an abundance of energy to process these materials and can, in some circumstances, lead to a displacement of communities. In a linear economy, the focus is on single-use and permanent disposal of materials. In the context of the climate and biodiversity crisis, these methods will have devastating future consequences. According to the World Economic Forum, the effects of the climate and biodiversity crisis are seen as the top tier risks for the next ten years and beyond [1].

‍

An example of this is evident in the process of creating aluminium. The mining of bauxite, the ore needed to produce aluminium, has been linked to deforestation, community displacement, and environmental destruction in places such as the Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, China, and West Africa [2]. As bauxite is found near the earth’s surface, bauxite mines strip large areas of land, frequently impacting local ecosystems and communities. Bauxite refining creates an alkaline waste product called ‘red mud’ that contains heavy metals and other elements.  If the waste is not stored correctly and enters local water sources, it can be harmful to humans.

‍

There is a non-violent and earth friendly alternative: using reclaimed materials. A key advantage offered by reclaimed materials is they require minimal to no reprocessing. Shifting to prioritising reclaimed materials would foster a circular economy, a nature-based system which would be regenerative. In a circular economy, materials never become waste – and waste production is considered an avoidable design flaw. Members of the construction industry need to constantly ask where a material is extracted from, and what is its end-of-life strategy. Asking shows a conscious approach, where we care about respecting the earth and leaving a liveable planet for future generations. Asking shows we understand climate justice, and how people who are suffering the most from the climate crisis have done very little to cause it. Asking shows an awareness that we, as members of the construction industry, are part of the problem currently, and shows a desire to become part of the solution for the climate and biodiversity crises.

‍

‍

‍

Three main challenges exist for this non-violent approach to materials. These are, namely, psychological, practical, and regulatory challenges.

‍

Psychologically, we need to accept that the way we are building now is harmful, and while changing to using reclaimed materials is not going to be comfortable for those in the industry, change is rarely comfortable. However, with a growing consciousness of the devastation caused by the climate crisis, key players within the construction industry are beginning to reflect on where materials come from, and the social and environmental impact of the extraction of these materials.

‍

The practical challenge is tracking, storing, and quantifying the sustainability of our materials. We can start with establishing material passports, that will give materials an identity and help to map out elements that are being removed from buildings for refurbishment projects. We need to remove demolition out of our standard construction vocabulary and replace it with conscious deconstruction. We also need the state to provide storage for reclaimed construction materials, as is happening right now in Germany [5]. This will lead to an ease of use of reclaimed materials.

‍

On a governmental level, we need the regulatory framework to be immediately updated – the regulations currently serve the linear economy, with reclaimed materials not being stated or encouraged in the documentation. There is scope in Section 1.1 ( c ) of the Technical Guidance Document D: Materials and Workmanship that enables materials to be reused under specific conditions, but we need the state to provide funding for anexisting secondary material marketplace (such as the Irish Green Building Council’s Construction Materials Exchange). In cases where demolition is absolutely unavoidable, planning compliance should mandate that a pre-demolition audit is carried out and that high-value materials are given a material passport and to be either directly transported to another live site or stored (temporarily) to be reused in the future.

‍

Ultimately, we need support from everyone in the industry to do this. Most individuals in construction could start immediately, by following these steps:

1. Observing how we build now.

2. Assessing the damage caused by extracting materials.

3. Examining alternatives such as using reclaimed construction materials.

4. Requesting that manufacturers, design teams, and the government use unharmful ways of building, so we can protect the environment we are part of.

‍

As the forward-thinking activist bell hooks stated in her book The Will to Change: "The way things are is not the way they have to be" [6] We can change how we relate to the earth, and our disconnect to the materials with which we build. We need to advocate for non-violence, lean into the will to change together, and make a concerted effort to build with reclaimed materials.

The last decade had seen technology companies grow at a rate at which commercial property developers cannot keep up [1]. The majority of office space had been designed on a speculative basis. Build a ‘Grade A’ office, and they will come – but this is changing. Demand no longer exceeds supply, and the way we work has changed, while the way we occupy our offices is changing too. With lower occupancy and flexible working, the role of the ‘HQ’ has arguably become more important in its physical presence for larger companies. An office location, design, and provision of amenities are the bricks-and-mortar branding an organisation often requires. The machismo associated with office buildings of the past is no longer the best means to externalise one's values. Hugh Pearman once described Wilford & Sterling’s No. 1 Poultry as “exuding an astonishing sense of power and purpose” [2]. Kevin Roche, decades earlier, used similar power and purpose to make the workers of the Ford Foundation feel important. In an Irish context, Arthur Gibney strove to make the user feel important in Merrion Hall (1973), introducing his client to the Burolandschaft concept of office interiors, and an "exercise in the geometry of the module" [3] in both building and landscape terms, accentuating the structure of the pre-cast concrete frame. The theory goes that these important workers tended to be happier, more productive, and stay with the company longer. However, the design of these workplaces is changing again, and the changing culture of work is the first reason why.

‍

The second reason is the elephant in the room. According to the UKGBC, 80% of buildings that will be occupied in 2050 have already been built [4]. 85% of Irish office buildings are below a B rating [5] and c. 15% of commercial buildings in Ireland are vacant [6]. We have an increasing amount of low-grade office space, bound for obsolescence – the dreaded stranded asset again. A change of use to residential makes perfect sense for some buildings, but not all. Site values, and potential return on office developments still hold more value than an occupied block of apartments in central locations. The structural design of more recent office buildings also limits the potential change in to residential. The office building of twenty-first-century Dublin, with small atria, deep floor plates, and bulging plot ratios are not well suited to change of use. If we believe in a future for the office, then we need architecture to ensure existing buildings can become offices of the future.

‍

‍

What does this mean in design terms? Simply put, this is about design either side of the facade, while the facade remains. Feature facades have become ubiquitous with high-end new build offices – leading to monikers such as the ‘Cheesegrater’, ‘Gherkin’, etc., which all add to the value a potential tenant puts on their choice of building. These building exude a company’s core perception of itself, and its place in its community. Fit-out design, and place making give tenants a real ability to make staff feel important, and, of course, to be good neighbours. The opportunity for a cloud-based company to drop anchor and show their staff, and indeed their community, that they care is most often done through building. The best building to do this in, is one that already exists.

‍

We need to embrace the large-scale refurbishment of existing office buildings to provide the next wave of ‘new offices’ as and when they come. The way we have designed speculative offices in the recent past, with an unknown future user, has been wasteful. We have provided fit-outs to entice a tenant, which will subsequently be ripped out and replaced. We have designed structures, vertical circulation, and sanitary spaces to allow for maximum occupancy, when this is often not required. The constraints that come with an existing building should, and can, be embraced. Floor-to-ceiling minimums of 2.8m are an arbitrary, agent-led, recommendation without taking in to account the depth of the floor plate. The over-design for floor loadings, mechanical ventilation, WC provision, lifts, etc. all encourage us to build new. As architects, we can strive to prove the workability of retention, and more so prove that future workplaces can change, grow, and adapt as required.

‍

‍

The main reason to retain what we have, is not accreditation led – it is common sense. We have an abundance of flexible buildings in Dublin, and few have been designed to be flexible. The houses of Merrion Square were not designed to cater for tenements, nor offices, but they have operated as both throughout theire lifetime. 1970s speculatively built offices were not designed to be converted into apartments, but they are well suited to it. We don’t know what flexibility we are designing into the office buildings of the last decade, but it is our job as architects to make it work, and to lead the conversation in designing the headquarters of the future.

Picture the last hospital you were in – there are reasons it looked like that. At any moment, a healthcare setting is balancing the needs and priorities of patients, clinicians, management, and administrative and support staff. Efficiency, servicing, privacy, infection control, comfort, safety, and cost add further complexity. Design guides, evidence-based solutions, and building regulations are guide rails for the architectural process. But established processes often engender established solutions.

‍

Now, picture an oncology day ward. A row of treatment chairs and drip stands separated by curtains, buzzing overhead lights, nursing staff filling notes on their knees. But what if those treatment chairs were more comfortable, more functional? What if jump seats [1] created useful spaces within a corridor, taking advantage of city views while maintaining required clear widths? What if instead of tired divider curtains, privacy came in the form of beautiful, artist-designed screens?

‍

This is the kind of 'fresh perspective' design students offer, says Cathal Mac Dhaibhéid, doctor and 2022-23 Innovation Fellow with HSE Spark Innovation. HSE Spark is a frontline, staff-led initiative to improve healthcare using design principles and innovation methodologies [2], which has run many successful partnerships with students of design. Mac Dhaibhéid cites the example of Interaction Design Master’s students who whittled a 'fifty or sixty' page nursing admission form to just twelve pages, through a series of user interviews and prototyping. 'These students look at problems through a design lens', says Mac Dhaibhéid, 'and they’re not jaded by working in the public health system'.

‍

But up until the recent ‘Healing Spaces’ elective – delivered with TU Dublin School of Architecture, Building and Environment (SABE), the Mater Transformation Team, and the Mater Hospital’s Oncology Day Ward and Inpatient Unit – HSE Spark hadn’t collaborated with architecture students. Like many good ideas, Mac Dhaibhéid’s engagement with schools of architecture was borne of frustration. Galvanised by the spaces he encountered in medical practice – some illogically laid out, some poorly functioning, some merely uninspiring – and Christine Nickl-Weller and Hans Nickl’s 2013 book, Healing Architecture [3], he became increasingly interested in the therapeutic potential of space, and the missed opportunity that is unimaginative design. He says, 'You have all these advances in how cancer is treated, but where it’s treated hasn’t really changed'.

‍

For Emma Geoghegan, architect and Head of Architecture at SABE, Mac Dhaibhéid’s proposal to collaborate was too good to miss. There are established postgraduate programmes in healthcare architecture, but a focused module on healthcare spaces is absent from most undergraduate architecture syllabuses. Geoghegan notes that this is a 'gap', saying the design of healthcare environments is 'not just about typology, it’s about how you engage with people'. User engagement is key to the profession of architecture, and though many final-year architecture students have worked in practice, few have much experience of engaging with end users – this task generally falling to more senior team members.

‍

In designing and delivering ‘Healing Spaces’, it made geographical and ideological sense for Geoghegan and Mac Dhaibhéid to work with the Mater Hospital. The hospital is within TU Dublin's direct community, and 'Community Engaged Research and Learning' is a stated aim of the university [4]. Critically, the Mater is, according to Mac Dhaibhéid, 'fertile ground for doing things a bit differently', as evidenced by the existence of Mater Transformation, an embedded unit within the hospital that’s dedicated to working with frontline staff to co-design and deliver change [5].

‍

Regularly collaborating with both HSE Spark and the National College of Art and Design, Mater Transformation has extensive experience of running collaborative problem-solving processes. ‘What we’ve done is set up structures that can bring people together,’ says Aileen Igoe, Mater Transformation’s Lean and Systems Thinking Lead. These structures were critical to tackling potentially sensitive issues related to working in a functional hospital, such as GDPR and access, says Geoghegan. 'Things that might normally be challenging, we were able to resolve very quickly' [6].

‍

Healing Spaces 'definitely felt like something special', Igoe says. Students were tasked with the redesign of the Mater Hospital’s Oncology Day Ward and Inpatient Unit, which sits within a building that’s less than ten years old, and is, as Igoe – who studied architecture – points out, generally well designed and considered. But the service has expanded, and healthcare architecture is often constrained by budgets, timelines, and HBN (Health Building Notes) standards [7]. Whereas by listening very carefully to staff needs, and through them, the needs of the patients [8], the SABE students gained a 'nuanced understanding of service' that allowed them to achieve 'the attention to detail that you might see in a domestic extension'.

‍

Geoghegan, Mac Dhaibhéid, and Igoe all stress that the project’s success would not have been possible without the enthusiasm and openness of the Mater’s 'fantastic' clinical staff. Alongside oncology staff consultation, the SABE students received expert advice from Jennifer Whinnett, Senior Healthcare Planner at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust; Ailish Drake, an architect and landscape designer at Drake|Hourigan Architects with extensive user engagement experience; and Clare White, Director at O’Connell Mahon Architects.

‍

Nine students – eight studying architecture and one studying interior design – [9] worked collaboratively, each tackling different issues to develop a cohesive solution. Daniel Herbst considered how spatial efficiency could be maximised to create more staff workstations. Alannah Hayes redesigned the bridge corridor to incorporate glare-free recessed lighting and jump seats with views of the city. Balancing the therapeutic value of nature, against the maintenance and infection control issues that planting brings [10], Isobel Walsh proposed commissioning Irish artist Sasha Sykes [11] to make operable resin privacy screens, embedded with flowers. The breadth of the students’ thinking surprised and impressed Mac Dhaibhéid: 'The final presentation was incredible'.

‍

‍

It’s likely that Healing Spaces will have a life beyond the module’s twelve-week duration, both in terms of the students’ actual proposals and in fostering future collaborations. Geoghegan says that within a few days of the students’ final presentation, Tracy Fitzpatrick, the Mater’s Directorate Nurse Manager for cancer, had sourced quotes for different aspects of the proposals: 'That really impressed me'. This being Mater Transformation’s first time working with architecture students, they don’t have established pathways for delivering architectural projects, but Igoe’s undaunted: 'We’ve manged it with NCAD in other design disciplines, and there’s various funds we can apply to'. She stresses that they’d like to keep the SABE students involved in some way, as the designs are theirs. Of working with Mater Transformation, Geoghegan says, 'It feels like a natural partnership for SABE. My hope is that we will continue to run an elective like this and build on it'.

‍

As for the module’s first run, the SABE students have shown that, with focused, informed imagination, a healthcare environment can be both clinical and beautiful. An oncology ward environment can stimulate and comfort patients who may be there for extended periods, distressed, fatigued, or bored, awaiting or receiving treatment. There is so much energy and innovative thought in architecture schools, often applied in the abstract. Healing Spaces allowed students to channel their energy and creativity towards 'something really useful"', says Geoghegan.

"We have found safety with all things undying,

The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,

The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,

And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth".

Extract from ‘Safety’ by Rupert Brooke, 1914.

‍

Located on the southern edge of Phoenix Park in Dublin is the Irish National War Memorial Gardens (1930-39). On arrival one is drawn to a modest structure framed by trees. Inscribed here is a fragment of a poem by Rupert Brooke, the great English war poet. He wrote these words at the tender age of twenty-seven, and was shortly to depart for war, where he perished soon after.

‍

‍

The Irish Memorial Gardens were designed by the English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) at the height of his creative powers, in the twilight of his career. His masterpieces in New Delhi and Thiepval were complete, and he was designing Liverpool Cathedral, feted to rival that of St Peter’s in Rome. Under the auspices of the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) – and its visionary director Fabian Ware – Lutyens had been directly involved in the design of 137 cemeteries and memorials following World War I, and was the spiritual and architectural lodestone for hundreds more. Yet his career began with domestic work in the Arts & Crafts style, commissions and acclaim garnered through the unique patronage of Country Life magazine. As his reputation grew, he was increasingly tasked with civic projects. His mature style, commensurately, is in the Classical tradition; yet bridging the domestic and civic is in many ways the story of his life, and that of the Irish Memorial Gardens.

‍

While civic perhaps falls short of the breadth of Lutyens reach, he was also seeking the universal. He had a belief that perfect shapes and relationships have an eternal relevance, and are reflections of divinity [1]. This is evidenced in the layout he devised at the Irish Memorial Gardens. By composing a series of circular spaces, connected by linear routes, he established a network of cosmic geometries. These are situated within the constructed landscape of Phoenix Park – albeit separated by the River Liffey – with a planned connecting bridge never realised. These cosmic territories hold a family of monuments. In many ways the Irish Memorial Gardens is an exercise in ontology, on the nature of things and their relationships, over many scales.

‍

Following Lutyens proposals, the centrepiece to all IWGC cemeteries and memorials is the War Stone. A neutral but enduring symbol, not overtly related to any particular religion, in line with Lutyens’ humanist values. This final proposal is reflective of his first striking instinct for a memorial, communicated in a letter to his wife, after visiting the Western Front: "a solid ball of bronze!" [2]. Yet as with all commissions of this scale and significance, more conservative voices held sway. These were led by Herbert Baker, another prominent architect, who called for the traditional iconography of the cross. The compromise reached is evident at the Irish Memorial Gardens, with the War Stone twinned to the south with a monumental stone cross.

‍

Lutyens had been working for many years with the classical language of architecture, manipulating its grammar in the Renaissance mannerist tradition. His fascination with the work of Palladio and Wren is clear in the elements that frame the War Stone. A wall encloses this to the south, east and west, with axial entrances to the flanking circular gardens marked by pavilions which borrow the ancient Roman model of the tetrapylon. Openings in the four corners of this central space provide access to radial routes into the wider landscape, framed by gateposts, sentinels guarding their thresholds. These are figurative in character, over-scaled, in the manner Michelangelo Buonarotti depicted the human body. Constructed from sharply dressed and jointed white stone, they contrast wilfully in tone and texture with the more informally coursed walls which they interrupt. They are playful, personal, balancing mass and volume as a painter or sculptor would, roundly rejecting the assumption that the classical tradition is an imitative pattern book. To the north, a view of Phoenix Park connects this outdoor room to its broader context – a recurring motif in Lutyen’s work for the IWGC. Despite its scale, this space truly does feel like a civic room, embedded in its landscape and roofed by the heavens, delivering on Lutyens intent: "The big stone to the East, the flanking pyramid oaks and the sky forming the vault to them all" [3].

‍

The notion of an outdoor room, or ‘garden-room’, is a strand which connects all of Lutyen’s domestic projects, under the influence of his lifelong collaborator Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932). Jekyll’s career began as a painter, before shifting to garden design, inspired by William Robinson’s revolutionary book The Wild Garden [4]. The domestic qualities of the spaces that Lutyen’s and Jekyll spent decades refining together are evident in the Irish Memorial Gardens, individual moments afforded amongst the universal set-piece, a contradiction delicately negotiated, elevating each experience. It is this layering from the scale of the cosmos, receding to landscape, city, building, room, aedicule that uniquely allows us to situate the presence of our individual bodies in the context of a broader continuum. To feel the presence of the earth below, and the firmament above. Another duality that is masterfully explored by sculpting the ground. The majority of landscapes are illusionary, surreptitiously urbanised, with few as skilfully executed as this one. Our experience is also illuminated through the topographic adjustments that have been imposed on this place. The more intimate circular gardens – to the east and west of the central outdoor room – uniquely feel both below the ground and elevated above it, simultaneously buried and projecting skyward.

‍

‍

Rudyard Kipling described Lutyen’s memorials and cemeteries as "silent cities". The 49,400 Irish soldiers that lost their lives during World War I inhabit these gardens, their presence is felt, the empty rooms hold an emotional density. The Irish Memorial Gardens recalls paths not walked, public spaces not shared, domestic rooms not inhabited. The tragedy of this place is that it was made to memorialise WW1, just as WW2 was about to commence. Yet it also carries hope. In the grand tradition of public space, it reminds us that the individual only makes sense as part of the collective. It also fractures our participation in the everyday – for a moment at least – connecting human life with the landscape which we inhabit, a valuable lesson in the context of a climate emergency.

Dublin’s Capel Street is like the airport: a place where languages mingle. At the airport, signs for arrivals and departures carry the names of distant places, and on Capel Street, the signs above shops, restaurants and cafés do the same: Moldova, Marrakech, Ephesus. Space is dislocated by these international arrivals. Hà Nội Hà Nội comes twice; Tokyo is smuggled in with a pun (eaTokyo). The Spanish send only A Taste Of Spain. It’s hard to know where one is when on Capel Street, among consumable simulacra of the world’s cultures; the shop on the corner of Strand Street insists that this is Real Brazil.

‍

On Capel Street, writing systems from different cultures speak with and over each other, translate and misunderstand each other, inviting and excluding readers. On restaurant facades and on the packaging of imported products, graphic utterances in Arabic script, Chinese characters, Korean Hangul, and the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets call to the consumers of Capel Street.

‍

Often the languages come in pairs. On the fascia of Hilan Chinese & Korean Restaurant, the largest text – 海兰江 – will not be understood by many passersby but will be recognised as an indication of Chinese cuisine. Hilan offers Chinese writing for the illiterate anglophone to consume, while around the corner on Strand Street, the Chinese and English sign for Fly Star Design & Print / 星飞 告印刷 lets Chinese customers know that this establishment speaks their language. Discretely tucked into the corners of shop windows and menus, handwritten and untranslated Chinese, Moldovan, and Portuguese notices reveal linguistic communities in private conversation.

‍

On Capel Street, writing systems start to behave like one another. At Korean restaurant Arisu / 아리수, the red and blue taegeuk symbol from the South Korean flag moves from the dot on ‘i’ to the circle in ‘아’. At Marrakesh, the flowing forms rendering the words ‘Restaurant & Karaoke’ would have us believe they spoke Arabic (there is one true Arabic word on the door: حلال / Halal). The multiscribal grapholect of Capel Street is most perfectly embodied in the name of the beauty salon, U美. Transliterated on the sign as YOUMEI, it means, roughly, ‘you are beautiful’. Like all Chinese characters, 美 stands for a syllable-length sound (‘mei’) and a meaning (beautiful). In U美, ‘U’ works in the same way: it stands for a meaning (the second person) and a syllable-length sound (‘you’).

‍

‍

Capel Street is linguistically diverse, but not equal. Irish might be a minority language, but it’s one of only two languages on official signs issuing orders that you must obey or risk arrest. At the beginning of the last century, when an independent Irish national identity was first forged, it was essential to distinguish Irishness from Englishness. The published proceedings of the first sitting of Dáil Éireann in 1919 used two typefaces: a standard one for English and French, and for Irish, a nineteenth-century Frankenstein of historical sources. We find remnants of this crumbling artefact of Irish national identity whenever the State speaks to us on Capel Street. The large, round uppercase ‘A’  on a sign reading ‘Ach amháin Tramana / Except Trams’ is there to remind us of the Book of Kells. Stranger still: that’s not a seven in the middle of the Irish for ‘Pay & Display — Íoc ⁊  Taispeáin,’ but a Tironian et: a symbol from a Roman system of shorthand used by eighth- and ninth-century monks in island monasteries off the British Isles. Capel Street is a strange place in a strange country.

‍

With official expressions of national identity come others, offering competing conceptions. At The Boar’s Head florid faux-historical letterforms are used to pitch a commodified Irishness to pint swillers. There are unofficial political nationalisms speaking on Capel Street too. Affixed to a lamppost at the corner of Mary Street is a corriboard sign reading, ‘Remembering our Republican Heroes. 100th anniversary of the death of IRA Vol. Matthew Tompkins, who was fatally wounded at this location by Free State forces on 30 June 1922’. More than it purports to be, the sign memorialises the ideology of another time, when hardline nationalists were still upset with Michael Collins.

‍

On most streets in Dublin’s city centre, the lampposts and bollards are saturated with the stickers of ‘Ultra’ soccer supporters and fringe activists, but the political neutrality of Capel Street is upheld by cleaners who peel away the proclamations stickered to surfaces the night before. However, if you look closely, you can find traces lingering in half peeled stickers of another, emerging figuration of Irish identity: ‘our past, our freedom, our future, our watch’; a line from Padraig Pearse – ‘Ireland belongs to the Irish’ – originally written to oppose despotic British landlordism, ripped from its nineteenth-century Irish historical context; a paradoxically, generic ethno-nationalism fed on American memes, symptomatic of the global flattening of culture it purports to oppose. Meanwhile, among Capel Street’s confusion of scripts, Babel Academy of English is training international students in a powerful weapon which may ultimately be Capel Street’s undoing: the English language.

‍

Political and commercial expressions of national identity often appeal to ideas of permanence and clear distinction, but when we read and look at the texts of Capel Street, we see Irish and global cultural identities in transition and negotiation.

Throughout Europe, contemporary best practice approaches to urban development strive to balance complex and urgent social demands with heightened requirements for climate mitigation and ecological repair. Initiatives such as the European Urban Initiative exist to lead in the definition, funding, and guidance of such practices [1]. Although evidenced in emerging policies and strategies at both EU and national levels, processes of urban development largely preclude the meaningful participation of urban inhabitants and lead to arduous disputes during regeneration projects. While socially engaged architectural practice is evident in Ireland [2], formal structures for community participation in built environment regeneration projects remain inadequate [3].

‍

TEST SITE is a socially engaged architecture project responding to a derelict site earmarked for urban regeneration on Kyrl’s Quay, Cork city centre [4]. Located on the central island of Cork city centre, the Kyrl’s Quay site is home to a wealth of natural and industrial heritage, neither of which are protected under current development standards. Combining art, architecture, and ecology, the TEST SITE project acts as a temporary agora to encourage public collaboration with the city, in particular this vacant site. Co-created with artist Aoife Desmond, the project encompasses a practice that is person-centred and co-designed. The project is dedicated to the examination, and promotion, of diverse and sustained social engagement within the built environment. It functions as a curated public meeting space facilitating discussions, workshops, and social activities that bring people together centred around themes such as heritage, identity, and the concept of belonging to a specific space. TEST SITE recognises the value of situated knowledge in the delivery of equitable urban development; the value of both expert-by-experience and expert-by-specialism knowledge.

‍

‍

Expert-by-specialism knowledge is primarily leveraged in making decisions concerning long-term urban development strategies in the built environment. Decisions are predominantly informed by quantitative data sets such as that gathered by sensors and monitors. Expert-by-experience knowledge, also referred to as lay or community knowledge [5], can exhibit heterogeneity when acquired through collective explorations such as living labs. Within urban neighbourhoods, living labs are projects that occur amid communities, incorporating collaborative and participatory processes. These processes involve a spectrum of diverse and underrepresented spatial experiences, providing essential insights for achieving urban development that is both equitable and resilient.

‍

In her novel Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Potawatomi botanist, describes the shifting responses and actions of students to scientific instruments during academic botanical field trips – how they recurrently shy away from their own senses and become heavily reliant on the readings of scientific instruments [6]. Through a series of grounding and landing activities, Kimmerer guides students to return focus to understanding and trusting their lived sense of place and not just the measurements and readings of the scientific equipment employed.

‍

The intention behind activities undertaken at TEST SITE could be considered as an urban equivalent to Kimmerer’s field trip grounding activities, moving from a reliance on policy and quantitative data alone towards knowledge building that includes engagement with complex and varied hands-on comprehension of the urban built environment. The project works from the position that the human experience of urban inhabitants is a valid and crucial source of data in need of robust and formal consideration in relation to the long-term strategies for sustainable and equitable urban development.

‍

‍

Lived experiences are fleeting and ephemeral. In order to be drawn upon in a formal capacity, it is crucial to capture and translate the lived experience of the protagonist of the built environment into spatial knowledge [7]. TEST SITE is undertaken from the informed position that a socially engaged practice of architecture can capture ephemeral and complex socio-spatial qualities of the built environment, as experienced by urban dwellers. With this comes the need to develop processes that capture the situated learnings that emerge through hands-on experience of a place.

‍

One such means is to co-produce socio-spatial representations [8]. Tangible and lasting lessons emerge from temporary spatial activations once a structured process of reflection and representation is instigated to complement ongoing activations.

‍

Through TEST SITE we continue to test methods that encompass the contributions of wide and varied voices; be they regular contributors, collaborators or once-off visitors from extended civil society. Ultimately intending to expand the complex web of knowledge that can shape long term strategies and approaches to sustainably developing our local built environment.

‍

Returning to and concluding with the writings of Robin Wall Kimmerer, she describes the importance that the Potawatomi elders place on ceremonies as a means of “remembering to remember” [9]. Perhaps temporary activations of vacant, derelict, and public land can act as a form of ceremony and learning in the built environment; a means of remembering to remember and value the lived experiences of a city's residents when formulating plans and strategies for its future.

It is a strange time. Conflict is general, but there is one area of surprising consensus: Una Mullally and Michael McDowell are writing columns that agree with each other [1]. The cause of this congruence between left and right is the proposed reworking of the St Stephen’s Green shopping centre – a design both correspondents decry for its blandness and generic expression [2]. In the absence of full-time built environment critics in the Irish popular press, Mullaly and McDowell have each written extensively, with different emphases, about matters of architecture, urban form, and planning. Their critiques of the proposed development express views common in our society. While James Toomey Architects’ shopping centre might not be the most important building, with its clip on "Mississippi river boat façade" [3], the journalists’ point stands: so many facades, reworkings, and new builds betray a lack of consideration of threshold, of contribution to public space, of the linking to and protection of communities, or of seeking to create humane and delightful places to live. This is not a critique of architects per se, but of our planning system.

It is worth briefly setting out the status quo: most buildings are constructed by private individuals or companies, each acting in its own self-interest. These individuated projects become the public faces of our cities and towns, shaping our movement patterns, our ability to find repose or respite, and the network of social encounters that constitute a society. Acting to regulate and temper these disparate development processes is our planning system. ‘Forward planning’ teams within local authorities shape policies in the short, medium, and longer terms, while ‘development management’ departments consider specific applications for development permission. Beyond this, An Bord Pleanála adjudicates on appeals to planning decisions throughout the state.

There is something quaint about this, a simple system for a simpler age. It assumes an episodic pace of development – where extant works can be reasoned against proposed, at a pace which allows things to cohere. It’s a system ill-equipped to respond to the contemporary pace of development. While pre-planning systems exist, feedback tends to be high-level, strategic. Points raised may often be set aside by the applicant in the aspiration that a higher body may overrule local planners. Tactics shape decisions. Sometimes a flat refusal is not in the public interest; conditions requiring the omission of a floor, or even an entire block, are reasonably common. But these retroactive measures are probably the least useful ways to ‘manage’ development.

Applicants, for their part, assemble ever more complex design teams with specialisms added as tools to bolster a case, not necessarily to improve design. Many anticipate An Bord Pleanála as the final adjudicator. There is little incentive to justify the increased time (and therefore fee) an architect or landscape designer requires for a more thoughtful approach, as this will rarely have demonstrable impact on the planning decision or the financial modelling of the proposal. None of this is the planners’ fault, but a product of the system. As we consider a major overhaul of planning regulation here [4], it is curious that there is not more debate about this aspect. The primary effect of the proposed planning reform will be a more robust and streamlined system, but not one necessarily delivering better design.

It is time to consider using design review panels. These exist in many forms in various parts of the world. Some, such as those common within universities or major corporations, are specific to institutions, or to special planning areas, while in countries such as the UK these panels form part of the general infrastructure of the planning system. Design review panels bring together diverse specialisms to critique designs as they develop. A panel may include architects, landscape architects, housing experts, community engagement experts, and many more as required. These experts, paid for their time, review applications at early and late stages and provide non-binding feedback. Review events may resemble a design review in university, with a verbal presentation and conversational feedback.

The best design review processes are timely, occurring at an early design stage. They are proportionate, recognising that not every project warrants the process: perhaps key sites, streets or scales of work are identified as triggering a review. They involve rotating panels of diverse and skilled experts, offering objective feedback in a transparent and accessible manner. Most importantly, they are advisory: they do not act to design, but to inform a design process. However, their impact can be profound, allowing decisions taken early on to greatly improve anything from a proposal’s integration within an area, to the nature of housing layouts, and even aesthetic expression. Planners naturally draw on the transcripts of these sessions – and developers, knowing this, seek to bolster the design strength of their proposal. Conversations led by design review panels can, say, make a case for increased density coupled with clear qualitative improvements. In other cases, panels may act as powerful advocates against demolition, or champion the adjustment of early ideas to cater for the full breath of diverse needs that exist within our communities.

Design review can be malleable, recruiting and developing expertise across local authority boundaries and making space for arguments which may greatly improve the built environment over time. They also make explicit to applicants a requirement for skilled, adequately resourced designers. This impact ripples beyond the specific sites being reviewed and modifies the entire development eco-system over time. Substantial literature exists internationally on the benefits of the system [5], literature which will be vital in designing a successful Irish approach. Trials are key, to allow the new system to adjust and develop in light of how it is working.

None of the above is a panacea, but it might be a way to begin responding to the valid critiques raised by commentators left and right. Design review panels have the potential to positively reshape our cities and towns, setting out a new vision of our country for decades to come.

What is it that makes a good public space? We know one when we see it but often find it hard to define why one place works and another one doesn’t. Arthur's Quay Park in Limerick is a sort of accidental public space; it was never planned and yet it exists, anchoring the north east corner of the Georgian grid of Limerick city, balanced by the People’s Park to the south west. The park was an incomplete Georgian Square, planned to be surrounded by houses but never finished due to the Great Famine (1845-52).

‍

‍

Hardly working

Arthur's Quay Park sits on a piece of reclaimed land, originally a harbour, and was filled in by Limerick Corporation in the 1970s to create a car park, before subsequently, in the late 1980s, being transformed from a car park to a civic space; completed with a tourist office as a focal point (the tourist office won the RIAI Gold medal in 1989-91). The park is greatly valued by the people of Limerick, however, there is also a deep sense of frustration as the space never seems to quite live up to its potential. Various interventions have taken place over the years, such as the removal of planted railings to address safety concerns and improve visibility, but it still feels as though it is an underperforming public space. And in recent years, with the boarding up of the tourist office, it lacks a sense of purpose. The park has one great asset in its favour though – the spectacular views up the river towards King John’s Castle and the mountains beyond. Notwithstanding this, it still feels disconnected from the city core and remains remote from most people’s mental map of Limerick city.

‍

Working hard

Hamburg is also a city defined by its relationship with water. The advent of container shipping has meant that the main commercial port has moved further down river, leaving the historic port area available for transformation into a new city known as HafenCity. This area has been transformed over the last thirty years and one of the first decisions taken was to raise the new ground level of buildings to protect them from flooding. The landscape is arranged on three planes, ensuring that there is always a level that provides safe access during times of flooding, while for the rest of the time the landscape tiers down to the original harbour line, ensuring that the citizens of Hamburg are able to stay connected to the river that is at the heart of their city.

‍

‍

The quayside spaces in HafenCity are part of a continuous promenade with a variety of inviting public spaces, abundant greenery, and strong connections to the water. Some spaces change with the tides, while others are at a higher level providing a prospect over the river. There are also new water features integrated into the landscape providing a very immediate opportunity to engage directly with water.  

‍

It is not just the innovative landscape design that makes HafenCity such a success, it is the buildings that surround it, providing places for people to live, work, and play in the city. There is a very intimate relationship between the new buildings in HafenCity and the quayside. The space is overlooked by six- to eight-storey apartment and office buildings, the ground floors of which are generally active, containing retail and commercial uses. The traffic has been carefully planned to minimise the impact of the car, allowing connections between buildings and animated public spaces.

‍

Lessons to be learned

While the scale of HafenCity is vast in comparison to Arthur's Quay, there are some key lessons that can be learned. Namely, that it is possible to plan for flooding without cutting a city off from its river, and that a quayside is a space of transition that should be thought of as part of a riverfront promenade rather than an isolated space.

‍

For Arthur's Quay to reach its potential as a space that supports the life of the city, it needs to be more connected and integrated into the wider urban landscape. This will mean transforming the surrounding car-dominated highway into a civilised pedestrian friendly street that can serve as a route for traffic that is accessing the city centre, instead of supporting through traffic that does nothing to contribute to the life and activity of the city. In addition, the surrounding buildings should be redeveloped or reimagined so that they engage with the park through vibrant ground floor uses – offering shops, restaurants, and cafes. Convivial spaces with terraces overlooking the river can serve a new population living, working, and playing on the floors above.

‍

What are we waiting for, the quay is the key.

‍

The holiday as we know it today arose in the last century during the post-war era with the rise of globalisation. Instigated by the economic boom felt in Europe and the US, and the availability of commercial flying, the idea of mass tourism developed. The exclusivity of travel dissolved and offered holiday experiences to a wider audience. This new wave of global movement was felt in Ireland with Aer Lingus enrolling the charm and mysticism of the small Celtic Island, attracting visitors with slogans such as "Holiday in friendly Ireland: So near from home, so far from care", "For the most romantic holiday of your life; fly with Aer Lingus to Ireland", and "Ireland: Fisherman’s Paradise" [1].

‍

Typically, a holiday village is constructed for overseas visitors, often in picturesque locations. Accommodation is typically supported by adjoining facilities enabling the village to become self-sufficient [2]. They are not intended to be permanent dwellings, but temporary experiences of a leisure lifestyle, in contact with nature and other people, sometimes taking the form of a ‘micro-city’ [3]. The success of the holiday village typology is undisputedly linked to the spread of prefabricated construction methods and the principles of mass production during the 1950s, enabling low-cost, speedy construction.

‍

Castlepark in Kinsale, Cork, was a holiday village designed by architect Denis Anderson in the early 1970s. In an era when modern architecture was undergoing a reckoning, with architects and the public exploring more traditional alternatives to exposed concrete, steel, and glass, Castlepark was much-feted in the architectural community as a potential solution. It integrated modern design with traditional elements and the local environment [4]. A scheme of twenty-five houses, of which only nineteen were built in the mid-1970s, it was situated on a sloping landscape overlooking Kinsale Harbour. The architecture of the buildings disguised the modern dwellings as a cluster of modest vernacular cottages with innovative roof profiles and roof lights allowing more generous internal lighting [5].

‍

‍

The 1978 Trabolgan holiday village, again in Cork, is a less-celebrated architectural precedent but would grow to be a very commercially successful one. The holiday village was designed by Brady Shipman Martin, who also provided landscaping services. While Trabolgan’s origins as a holiday village began in the 1940s, it underwent significant expansion when purchased by a Dutch Coal and Metal Industry Pension Fund in 1975.  Ironically, it was a Dutch company that would finance the restoration and clearance of the surrounding woodland. Architecture in Ireland magazine described how "the house units echo the traditional building forms of the area while offering modern standards of comfort and convenience" [6]. Its original target market during this period was for "continental visitors" [7].

‍

Aesthetically, the original holiday village bears some resemblance to Castlepark, with white-washed walls and dark asbestos slate roofs. The original cluster of holiday homes were organised around three courtyards. In a forward-thinking vision for the era, cars were prohibited from entering the centre of the village, perhaps recreating a calmer, historic feel. In later years, some of these courtyards were converted to parking courts.

‍

1500 kilometres away, high in the Veneto region of the Dolomites, one will find a peculiar community tucked unassumingly under the sheer face of Monte Anteloe. Villaggio Eni was a purpose-built holiday complex for the employees of Eni (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi), Italy’s leading multi-national oil company. Planned as a complete living environment for ENI’s employees to sojourn, the village is rooted in a social construction that symbiotically benefits the employees and employer. Modest in appearance and organisation, Villaggio Eni generates a distinctive architecture reflecting its Dolomite surroundings, reiterating its community ethos and revering in functionality. On a much greater scale than the Irish precedents, it features a variety of architectural features and community infrastructure [8].

‍

Austrian-Italian architect Eduardo Gellner was tasked with translating Eni’s vision into an architectural agenda. Gellner combined lessons from English landscape gardens and Olivettian urban planning, in a new form of Alpine regionalism [9]. Mattei hoped for a complex structure that could be appreciated by "technicians and connoisseurs", yet understandable to all [10]. Critic Bruno Zevi insists that the following architectural moves underpin Villaggio Eni’s success; these become particularly interesting when compared with the Irish precedents:

‍

      Insertimento nel paesaggio – Insertion into the landscape.

      Organismo urbano – Urban organisation.

      Ambiente communitario – Community environment.

      Espressione architettonica – Architectural expression [11].

‍

Today, the wider public beyond Eni employees can visit and stay in several of its accommodation types. Dolomiti Contemporanee, an art organisation working on the prioritisation of the Dolomites’ physical and cultural importance, launched Progetto Borca in 2014. The project enables new readings to be undertaken of both Villaggio Eni and its neighbouring villages, and proposes an expansion of their function beyond solely tourism. Such organisations enable holiday villages to engage and contribute to their long-term preservation and future. The adaptation of Eni Villaggio has allowed it to retain continuity, function, and perhaps most arguably, relevance. Their initiative emphasises how facilitated studies of holiday villages can assist in their reintroduction into today's world and enable further insight into aspects of twentieth-century life.

‍

The economic success of the Center Parcs holiday resort in Co. Longford demonstrates that today, holiday villages do have to function as micro-cities to compete with the AirBnB market and the convenience of the city break. The transient nature of holiday villages presents itself as a valuable characteristic to interrogate how our existing holiday architecture can be reimagined. As demonstrated in Eni, it does not take a lot to begin reaffirming these places into the twenty-first century. Through understanding, enhancing, and preserving our existing holiday villages, we may even encounter a new, nuanced approach to leisure; just as the typology originally so amply provided. One could hope for a national programme of documenting and reviving small-scale holiday villages in Ireland that would generate vibrancy throughout the country, helping us understand our recent past and adapt for our uncertain future.

Prior to entering the West Bank, one cannot ignore the large red warning signs indicating that entrance by Israelis is dangerous and forbidden. Passing through the checkpoints, barrels of machine guns are pointed directly at passing buses, ready to fire at any unexpected occurrence. Multiple soldiers in their 20s hover around the gated barriers and concrete pods, scrutinising the documentation of the people passing through.  

‍

Growing up singing Christmas carols, I became familiar with Bethlehem, only to realise that it is not just a mystical place existing solely in religious stories but a real city. The people living here are subject to a dystopian reality, living under brutal occupation. They are observed by snipers, hindered by military checkpoints restricting their movement, and surrounded by the constant sounds of gunshots, keeping them in a perpetual state of fear. Facial recognition cameras subject them to discrimination, while AI-controlled machine guns ensure pinpoint accuracy if fired upon [1].

‍

In August 2023, I arrived in Bethlehem, West Bank, to participate in an international camp at the Lagee Centre in Aida Refugee Camp. Aida is surrounded by a nine-metre-tall wall made of precast panels that encircle and spatially confine the community. Under the vigilant gaze of the Israeli military, watchtowers punctuate at irregular intervals along the wall of occupation and control, overseeing the 6,000 refugees, displaced since the Al Nabka (the catastrophe) of 1948. Ask any child in Aida about their origin, and they will instantly name their grandparents' townlands, showing keys that no longer unlock any door. Following the initial tents of the 1950s, their grandparents were given a 7m² plot of land on which they built their home. As families expanded, each generation added a new floor. Reinforced steel bars pierce the rooftops, inviting the next generation to build upon them, resulting in a densely populated 0.5km².

‍

‍

Even in the Palestinians' places of refuge, the Israeli military dictates harsh living conditions. Aida is often used for military training exercises, and under the cover of darkness, they forcibly enter Palestinian homes, arresting and abducting blindfolded youths for interrogation [2]. From a distance, tear gas canisters are fired into the camp, and remnants litter the streets, playgrounds, and soccer pitches of Aida. The lingering toxic fumes persist for days, ruining clothes and exacerbating respiratory illnesses. Artists repurpose discarded metal into jewellery for tourists, who can narrate stories of visiting the most tear-gassed place in the world. Here, Palestinians are subject to the overpowering presence of the Israeli military occupation which oversees every aspect of their daily life.

‍

What remains of the West Bank is further gobbled up and reshaped by illegal Israeli settlements, continuously expanding and threatening existing Palestinian communities in contravention of the Oslo Accords. These settlements are connected by segregationist roads inaccessible to Palestinians, further isolating them and marking them as ‘other’ in the mindset of occupation. Thousand-year-old olive trees are uprooted and placed near Israeli settlements to create an appearance of historical continuity. Contrary to the spacious Israeli settlements, with hundreds of flags fluttering, Palestinian housing is densely packed, with water towers on roofs – another signifier of a population controlled by others. Water infrastructure is regulated by Israeli forces, unpredictable, and necessitating storage for a consistent supply.  

‍

Hundreds of checkpoints permeate the West Bank, and sudden roadblocks imposed by the Israeli military paralyze movement at will. This military occupation distorts distances, compelling people to wait at road gates, borders, and checkpoints for permissions to be granted. Soldiers interrogate Palestinians about their origins while they themselves stand on confiscated, occupied land. Complex routes circumnavigate Jewish settlements and Jerusalem’s suburbs, elongating journeys unnecessarily and confusing the region's geography. Palestinians cannot guarantee arrival times, as these are subject to the soldiers' mood at checkpoints, and disturbances in northern cities such as Jenin can affect movement in the south. Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third most-holy site, is a mere 7km from Aida Refugee Camp, yet accessing it without an unattainable permit brands one a criminal. Along routes between various West Bank cities, Israeli settlers operate diggers and bulldozers, disfiguring the landscape Palestinians once carefully tended to.

‍

Restrictive planning laws deny Palestinians the right to construct on their own land, gradually forcing them out of their communities. This became evident in Beit Eskaria, a village between Bethlehem and Hebron, where settlements strategically perch on hilltops, ominously overseeing Beit Eskaria below. In Israel, Arabic is no longer the official language [3] and navigating the legal system without Hebrew exacerbates the complexities of the exclusionary planning laws. In Beit Eskaria, Israel demolished thirty-five new homes and a mosque with no warning, making it difficult for the community to sustain itself for future generations. All that remains are the remnants of the former building projects, serving as a gentle reminder that unlawful construction is a futile endeavour.

‍

Cities like Jenin and Nablus defy military rule, and this results in every wall being adorned with countless images of male martyrs. In Jenin, roads have been purposefully destroyed by the Israeli Military, disrupting infrastructure, extending the time taken to undertake everyday activities whilst strategically impeding ambulances from reaching injured victims. A new cemetery, established on a recently flattened vast wasteland, has soil that is speckled with coloured rubbish and glass. Family members and friends sit beside fresh mounds, grieving for the young lives lost. Parents spoke of receiving the exam results of their murdered teenagers on the day of their funeral.

‍

‍

Returning to Israel (referred to by Palestinians as ’48), from Bethlehem, necessitates passing through ‘Checkpoint 300’. Depending on the time of day, the line may be dense with Palestinians holding permits to work in Israel. Once again, the Israeli military subjects them to waiting in spaces resembling farmyard milking stalls, tightly packed, scrutinizing their identity cards at a sluggish pace, and degrading them at every possible opportunity. Before the turnstiles, signs in Arabic are mounted on the walls, emphasising that the checkpoint was built for them, and it was their responsibility to maintain its cleanliness. Emerging on the other side, an advertisement announces that the metropolitan city of Tel Aviv is just a short one-hour distance away. Passing through, I mounted the bus to Jerusalem only to be hit with a wave of emotion. I felt as though what I stepped out of is a life under brutal occupation and it so far removed from the free reality we live in. For the people of Aida, it is the only reality that perhaps they will only ever know. I had the choice to leave.

‍

At the airports departure gates, the questioning fluctuated between the serious and the absurd, asking had you visited Bethlehem, Jenin, Nablus, and Hebron in the West Bank, knowing that a slip of the tongue would deny a chance of ever returning. The Israelis are the masters of the house and for now they determine everything.

The COP28 climate talks in Dubai concluded one week ago at the time of writing. Astonishingly, it is the first time in COP's thirty-year existence that a 'transition away from fossil fuels' [1] has formed part of the final discussion. Experts argue, however, that despite the significance and potential ramifications of this outcome, we are still nowhere near to achieving our goal of a 43% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 [2].

‍

In part, this problem arises from how we see value in our world. The traditional value systems which we have always adhered to create a dichotomy of what is and is not valuable. Case in point: we still value fossil fuels enough to accept the destruction that we know they cause.

‍

We judge everything in terms of value: monetary value, historical value, cultural value, political value, and so on. And of course, value systems exist for a reason – they are the decision-making processes through which we determine where to focus energy and interest. However, the flip side of this coin is the invalidation of that which we have decided is of lesser – or no – value. The inequality inherent in these systems is evident when we consider which cultures are prioritised, whose traditions are supported, and what narratives are encouraged.

‍

Considering value systems as they relate to architecture, that which is discarded also comes at high cost. Engaging with the built environment requires engagement with physical resources and materials. In the context of the climate emergency, how might we reassess architecture's value systems, perhaps in a way that might better equip us to address the crisis at hand?

‍

‍

We might first look to the existing value systems that prevail within architecture. Traditionally, we assessed built fabric for its historical significance, cultural importance, aesthetic qualities, craftsmanship, and so on. We rarely question the value of a 100-year old town hall made from local stone in the middle of a country town; and why would we? It's obvious.

‍

In recent years, the lenses through which we measure value have diversified, from Assemble's Granby Four Streets project in Liverpool, arguing for community strength and pride as a value to be supported and strengthened through even the most everyday of housing estates, to Forensic Architecture’s studies of the built environment for its value as evidence in legal and political processes.

‍

Or, to the value of architecture as a vessel for the accumulation of everyday collective memory, be that positive or negative. We, as part of CoLab81-7 [3], recently undertook such a study with students from the School of Architecture at UCD within the former Magdalene Laundry buildings on Sean McDermott Street, Dublin. Within the format of a month-long drawing workshop, the students were tasked with examining the constructed fabric of the remaining buildings, including any – and, importantly, all – traces of inhabitation that they observed during their visit.  

‍

To begin, students carefully surveyed a route through the convent building from public to private; from the heavy timber front door at street level, to the (almost) empty nuns’ rooms on the top floor. Along the way, the students recorded everything they witnessed: every tile, door handle, window, electrical box, light fitting and curved handrail, but also every scrap of newspaper and piece of detritus, even the long-dead pigeons littering the staircase. The study raised as many questions as answers: why, for example, the formica vanity sink with five inbuilt toothbrush holders, installed in the bedrooms of nuns expressly forbidden from ever starting a family?

‍

The CoLab81-7 study fed into the efforts of a larger advocacy group known as Open Heart City; the name a reference to open heart surgery and its system of precise yet radical intervention. The aim of this intense and comprehensive survey was to unearth both the seen and unseen qualities and questions of the laundry‘s spaces, studying permanent and temporal traces made by both time and occupancy to examine how the building's architecture supported or facilitated its carceral past. The ambition was to identify some precise yet radical move that might bring new life to a lifeless place.

‍

‍

But what about the ugly 80's prefab office block on a lucrative city-centre site? Such buildings are routinely demolished due to market pressures and public disinterest; the effort, energy and material resources which went into their construction still falling on the not valuable side of our value coin.

‍

The architecture collective Material Cultures argues that 'whenever we build, we either contribute to or counteract processes of change' [4]. If we are going to address the looming climate disaster, the greatest change humankind has ever known, then we must act in radical and unconventional ways. We must start by seeing everything as valid – the 100-year old town hall and the 80s office block, the 90s housing estates and the abandoned institutional buildings with difficult pasts. As architects, we are in a unique position to both influence and facilitate this change; to act like physicians, working to identify the most efficient, least harmful way to treat the patient without ever debating whether the patient deserves saving in the first place.

‍

‍

As soon as possible, the world must free itself from fossil fuels, and we must recalibrate our understanding of what is valuable and what is not. We could begin, for example, by eliminating the idea that anything is without value; instead starting with a baseline of 100% value in our existing buildings, materials and resources and working backwards from there. Like a doctor presented first with symptoms and then with scalpels, we would endeavour to spend time understanding the 'patient' in their entirety, synthesising their past history and present condition, before using the tools available with precision to ensure a healthy future and a long life.  

Located in the centre of Belfast, North Street is one of the older arteries of the city. Over the last three decades the street has been at risk, blighted by developers’ land banking and through forced vacancies. In large part, this process was initiated by government strategies in support of retail and the promise of "comprehensive redevelopment" powers and grants. The first developer to tackle the street bought up and emptied much of it, while their agents drew up one set of overblown and unrealisable plans after another; at one point pursuing the incorporation of the public street into a private shopping mall. Some may be surprised then that I see North Street as a space that is "working hard" despite its current perception as a place that is "hardly working".

The 2004 arson attack on the listed Art Deco North Street Arcade marked a key moment in the street’s history, destroying a unique and vibrant route to Donegall Street and the city’s "cultural quarter". Many of the art groups based there were burned out and lost everything. At the time of the arson, the site was coincidentally the centrepiece of a major planning application for a department store and accompanying 750-bay car park. This development failed in the 2008 crash, however, it has been followed by repeated iterations scuppered by bad loans before being passed on again to another developer.

‍

Despite this, the street and its buildings are still here, closed shutters are textured with artwork high and low, a few businesses hang on. Tenants such as the Fenderesky Art Gallery at No. 31 are heroes of the city. The nearby bookshop, Keats and Chapman, maintains its position as an enduring independent. And to the streets end, Brennan’s chippie still exists, cooking in real lard and clasping its cult fame as the place where Rihanna danced on tables for the video of We Found Love. While masquerading in the clothes of decline, the street is full of life, a life characterised by the action of individuals. Through its continued existence, it holds the potential for something new.

‍

Opposite the arcade, the curved Garfield Street intersects and adds further charm despite the listed Garfield Building being encased in dense scaffolding. Underneath this lies the remnants of the Tivoli Barbers Shop, a third-generation business now in a temporary premises on North Street. Over 400 people came through the original Tivoli Barbers doors for snippets of live opera during the second Belfast Culture Night in 2010, an illustration of how in the right circumstances these streets can work hard and support that which is already there.

‍

‍

History plays a similar role in maintaining the significance of these places and their potential to work hard again. At the top of North Street, the striking Art Deco Bank of Ireland remains, and is now the subject of a major public investment programme, while at the other end, the Assembly Building at Four Corners holds strong, remembered as the place where Belfast's mercantile class were persuaded not to engage in the slave trade. Both are places of memory pivotal to the current and future history of the city.

Some adept infill and repair is all the street needs with a key move being the reconnection of the arcade through an otherwise long city block. On the south side of North Street, a large vacant plot cries out for the creation of an urban green space, a crucial move in a contemporary city pleading for the lungs it is missing. In the last decade, this northern sector of the city has seen a resurgence of its nightlife through the MAC arts centre and the new university building bringing in thousands of students to the city core. North Street has the potential to be part of this, holding both latent joys of old and an ambition to do more than survive.

Belfast has had a number of large shopping malls imposed into its street grid; informed by misguided strategies for renewal that have removed streets, squares, and vital connections. Castle Court was such a scheme from 1985-90 and Victoria Square took a similar approach between 2002-08. Both wiped out key civic squares; spaces the city now badly lacks. The North Street area was to be the third of these retail interventions.

Few, if any, of the city’s structural problems have been addressed during the last three decades of development ‘churn’. The key to understanding Belfast are the edges created following decades of ring road building, large urban housing clearances, and barrier making. No credible strategy or work has advocated for active living in the city, reconnection and much needed green spaces, street trees, nor the reinvention of the wide ring road that currently acts as a grey moat around the city centre. These failures to make urban repair hold the city's natural renewal back. The city engages in slow clumsy interventions but neglects to bring the whole back to health.

‍

North Street then is a reminder that our cities are made of street grids and connections, buildings form and line these streets in a symbiotic relationship of residence and activity. Like any patient, Belfast needs a good diagnosis and careful nursing. Despite all of this neglect, North Street endures. It is resilient, working hard, waiting. As I walk down North Street, I am filled with hope and the words of Gloria Gaynor ringing in my ears: ‘I will survive’.

‍

‘It is indeed by uneasy steps that the pub has wandered through the paths of history, buffeted by storms of public controversy, assailed by the slings and arrows of temperance reformers, sometimes harassed, and sometimes supported by instruments of legislation. That it has survived in so ubiquitous a way is remarkable’ [1].

‍

The success of the architecture of Victorian Dublin is typically understood through the grandeur of the Curvilinear Range at the Botanic Gardens, the Reading Room at the National Library or perhaps the Museum Building at Trinity College, each an example of intricate architecture, engineering, and craftsmanship. Deane, Woodward, and Turner are rarely forgotten in the discourse around the built fabric of Victorian Dublin, nor are Harry Clarke, the O’Shea Brothers or Carlo Cambi. However, this article focuses not on such grand artefacts and their architects. Instead, it is inspired by Dublin’s sixteen remaining Victorian pubs [2].

^‍

This visual essay takes The Swan Bar as a case study and aims to highlight the wealth of materiality to be found in these pubs, enjoyed by generations passing through. This map highlights the sixteen remaining Victorian pubs across the county of Dublin.

‍

‍The Sixteen Victorian Pubs of Dublin

1. The Hut
2. Gaffneys
3. Slattery's
4. Ryan's
5. The Norseman
6. The Palace Bar
7. Bowe's
8. The Stag's Head
9. The International Bar
10. Kehoe's
11. Toner's
12. Doheny and Nesbitt
13. The Long Hall
14. The Swan
15. Cassidy's
16. Finnegan's

‍

‍The Swan Bar (Lynch’s of Aungier Street)

The Swan Bar on Aungier Street in the heart of the city centre takes its patrons on a journey of materiality: mahogany, mirror, mosaic, clocks, brass, stained and tinted glass. Owned and run by the Lynch family for generations, the original materials which have remained in place from its 1890s refurbishment bear visible representations of the time that has passed. The tile and timber floor, patched in places, slightly sunken in others, is both a testament to its original craftsmanship and a palimpsest displaying evidence of former configurations. Quality materials not only last the test of time but often improve; a mahogany handrail is worn smooth by the million hands that have run across it. These architectural details were crafted with care and yet made to endure the thumping, scratching, cleaning, and polishing we have done for over one hundred years.

‍

Under the front window where there now sits a cosy snug, a tea shop once faced the street. A common feature of the Victorian pub was to lend its shopfront to the selling of groceries - further suggested by the call bells in brass on mahogany and pitch pine. Division and threshold are strong features of the Victorian pub, and The Swan is no different. Within the central aisle, a forgotten porch is inscribed on the tiling revealing a large depiction of a swan which one would otherwise encounter upon entry. This patina allows for immersive engagement with the pub's history, going beyond appreciation for the craftsmanship itself.

‍

It's an easy thing to romanticise Victorian craftsmanship. In reality, the maintenance of these buildings poses its issues, with contemporary publicans often having to navigate tricky legislation surrounding protected structures. The reasons for repairs vary, from obsolescence and natural decay, to wear and tear and intoxicated disregard. The manner and material of replacement speaks to the priorities, interest, and means of the owner. In the case of The Swan, the damaged yet original tile work tells of the stabilisation works undertaken beneath the ground floor, and a scratched mirror tells of blatant vandalism. While there is no lack of interest on the part of the owner, replacing triple bevelled mirrors and yellow stained glass panes, and bringing original brass pumps back into use is additional to the everyday demands of the service industry. Irish Licensing World claimed ‘A publican must be a democrat, an autocrat, an acrobat and a doormat’, in order to manage the wear of these pubs and fulfil contemporary conservation requirements; that list could continue [3].

‍

There is a balance to be struck between reconfiguration to fit current purposes and the erasure of former use. A surface on which to light a match can be rendered obsolete by the lighter, a cashier's kiosk by modern-day payment methods, a whiskey cask by bottled spirits. While these physical Victorian details may be anachronistic, they add to the experience, as do the clock hanging centrally above the bar and, importantly, the Scottish granite countertop to keep a resting pint cool. Whether functionally obsolete or not, their presence ought to be valued by the publican and appreciated by the patron. The decision to retain such details is not driven by nostalgia but by appreciation of craft, in seeing the hand of the craftsperson in the everyday. 

‍

As artefacts in themselves, in their ornamentation and craftsmanship, these pubs should be valued. The decay and destruction of the city in the lifetime of these pubs is starkly contrasted by their permanence both materially and in operation. Their provision of an ‘escape from bleak tenement life’ and ‘a surrogate domesticity’ suggest that they were as rich and lavish an oasis then as they feel today. These materials, explored in the photographs below, offer a window through which we can gain another perspective on Victorian Dublin, scarred, rounded and smoothed by time. It is through our patronage that these pubs will continue.

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

In Bride Street in Dublin’s Liberties, one of the most curious incidents of Irish planning history has recently repeated itself. The striking 1970s brutalist facade of the former headquarters of architectural practice Stephenson Gibney + Associates has been retained, while the remnants of  a much-storied eighteenth and nineteenth century structure which formed a part of the same building, have been quietly demolished. In its place will be a significant new hotel, which uses the retained near-fifty-year-old facade as a contextual umbilical to the past – an arts themed relic. While the redevelopment of this site for a demonstrably more public use is certainly welcome, the brick shell will now have a merely tenuous connection to the new.

‍

‍

When Stephenson Gibney + Associates acquired the old Molyneux Chapel on Bride Street in 1971, their clients and collaborators must have thought they had lost the plot. Impacted by generational poverty, planning neglect, and demolition as a result of Dublin Corporation’s road-building efforts, it must have been a considerable cultural shock for the practice and its staff, moving from leafy Dublin 6 where the studio had been spread out over three separate Victorian properties, on the site of what became the practice’s Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club in 1973. But like knights charging into a windmill bedecked landscape, Sam and Arthur clearly saw this approach as a way of spearheading a new colonisation of the city centre, which would inspire others into the same action, reclaiming one of the most historic parts of Dublin for makers and creators. And of course, it was reasonably cheap [1].  

‍

But what kind of practice was it, with the ambition and confidence to propose colonising this historic part of the city, with the buccaneering gumption, and not least the funds to do so?  Sam was born at 80 Manor Street in Stoneybatter in 1933, while Arthur from Fairview, was a year older. They were almost exact contemporaries of the Anglo-Italian architect Richard Rogers and his one-time partner, Norman Foster. It’s remarkable to think that Sam and Arthur’s practice was substantially more accomplished, and certainly much larger at an earlier date, than the offices of these later titans of British hi-tech. By the early 1970s, when Norman Foster and Richard Rogers had dissolved their partnership of Team 4, the high-flying Stephenson Gibney Associates had completed the ESB buildings on Fitzwilliam Street, won in international competition, and were in the midst of design work on the Central Bank, the enormous Agriculture House on Kildare Street, the beautiful School of Theoretical Physics on Burlington Road, and projects in London and Brussels, as well as working on their custom-designed offices with space to accommodate a team of 130 staff.  

‍

At the same time as the practice were completing Molyneux House, it was also concluding one of its more controversial developments on Hume Street near St Stephen’s Green. Having originally gained consent for a series of modernist office blocks, the practice was forced by public outcry over the loss of historic Georgian fabric, via government intervention, to amend the design to incorporate a Georgian pastiche facade. Stephenson lamented this approach as an architectural response in a historic cityscape, declaring it in Hibernia Magazine “a misguided Solomon’s judgement”, opening the door for anything to happen, as long as the external image of apparent streetscape continuity was maintained. His words would prove remarkably prophetic.

‍

‍

Designed as a striking statement of intent, in a vigorous transatlantic style which referenced exemplars like Louis Kahn, John Carl Warnecke and Hugh Stubbins, the facade of heavily modelled brickwork extends about three metres in front of the existing frontage, which is retained, entombed in a brick skin. It is a remarkable brutalist essay in hard wire-cut textured masonry, carefully relating to the spaces formed between it and the gothic curiosity of the existing chapel. The facade itself was shockingly modern – aggressively so, even. Like an elaborate billboard, it heralded a world decidedly exotic, science-fiction like, most excitingly of all, American. A place where people in tan suits with wide lapels, even wider ties, and moustaches à la mode, were manufacturing a new Ireland through a haze of Rothmans' smoke, echoed in the bronze tint of the floor-to-ceiling frameless glazing. This stylish stretched veneer of modernity over the more prosaic historic backdrop, incorporated a stained-glass window spanning the first and second floors, preserved in situ as a relic behind the brick screen. The strength of this elevation as corporate identity clearly made signage superfluous. Only a small limestone tablet, insert into the Bride Street frontage, provided the name – Molyneux House – in vaguely Gothic lettering.

‍

Much more nuanced than often credited, the facade treatment extended downward into a carpet of pavement finish, and smaller protective pyramidal forms, a kind of undulated brick carpet which remade the street edge robustly, terminating with a single specimen tree planted in the protective niche formed to the adjacent Victorian houses. The entrance sequence, lost in 2001 in favour of a car park, must have been a dramatic, even flamboyant space. Entering via a narrow passage between towering flanks of brickwork, with the obligatory chamfered corners and parapets so redolent of the period, the visitor entered a release space protected from the harsh environment outside. It was filled with a feature planting scheme and a waterfall, enlivened by the play of light entering from the west. Even the adjoining perimeter party walls were finished a textured brown render, colour matched to the ubiquitous brick finishes which continued unbroken from courtyard into the reception space adjacent. A remarkable introduction and one of the most extraordinarily theatrical spaces ever designed by an architect for their own use.

‍

It couldn’t last, of course. By 1974, a collapse in the property market had already impacted on the work of the practice, eroding the kind of projects that had kept it so busy over the previous fifteen years. This pre-empted Arthur’s departure from the partnership in 1976, keen to practice in a smaller organisation, leaving – according to Sam – on the same good terms that they started together. The construction of Canon Court, across Bride Street, obscured the view of the cathedral from the upper ‘periscope’ viewing room, decontextualising the reason for the facade. In the 1980s, Sam moved much of his practice to work on London-based projects from both Dublin and a new base in London, having arranged a merger with commercial architectural practice Stone Toms. Another downturn in the early 90s in London, resulting in the sale of the building, provided the impetus for a new owner to erode the key components of the original, in search of more standard spaces. The process of denuding the qualities of the original work, had already begun.

‍

‍

Molyneux House represented a particular time in Irish architecture, reflecting the vigorous confidence of a brave new republic full of the optimism of the times, before the first vestiges of the energy and environmental crises of the 1970s closed the door on this period. As a bespoke environment for an architectural practice, it was absolutely unique in the country, with a facade albeit skin-deep, boldly proclaiming brutalist modernity. 

‍

In a world of city planning increasingly obsessed with the value of image as opposed to content, how do we decide what to protect? This is a particularly difficult question, given modern architecture’s supposed ambivalence to context, in contrast to the gentle formalism of classicism, which ensures that individual buildings are less important than the effect of the unified streetscape – despite being what Sir John Summerson described in the Georgian Society Bulletin as “simply one damned house after another” [2]. In addition to the obvious imperative for retaining carbon-rich structures for new uses, the bluntness of our Protected Structure system will need to be better refined, to allow status to be conferred on particular building elements of significance, rather than on a blanket basis. In the case of Molyneux House, perhaps the most humane thing would have been to allow it to go, rather than endure a slower, undignified demise.

In contrast with the theatre of practice it once contained, it is now sadly a pantomime mask. The personages behind the facade, along with their pioneering spirit, are long gone.

‍

‍