In this episode Emmett Scanlon talks to Conor Sreenan. Conor is the Director of Strategy & Design at Grangegorman Development Agency. Conor's work involves being involved with a dizzying array of design and building projects across this part of Dublin. The Grangegorman Development area is a significant part of Dublin - it stretches from the Phoenix park in the West, to Dorset Street in the west, into Cabra and Phibsborough on the North and down to the river Liffey quays in the south. Much of the building work though is centred on the old Grangegorman Campus hospital and a whole series of new buildings for a range of uses is under construction there. Conor moved to the Agency from Heneghan Peng, one of Ireland’s most well know architecture practices, they are the architects who worked on the recent refurbishment of the National Gallery and the last project Conor worked on at that practice was the Museum of Palestine. Avid listenings to the podcast would know Conor wrote a piece about that building t under the Building Me Building You strand of this podcast, and that text was called Building Palestine in which he beautifully sets the scene for the construction site of this project, in Palestine. Conor talks about the move from so-called private to public practice and indeed this anchors much of what we discuss, this artificial binary between the two strands of architecture endeavour and the idea of working for the public good. We start though with the text, and I asked Conor why he wrote it and what it meant. The podcast was recorded on zoom. The bin collection is real. __ Conor Sreenan graduated from University College Dublin in 2001, with an honours degree in Architecture. In 2006 he received a Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Practice and Management, since which time he has been a registered architect. Following graduation he joined O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects as a Project Architect to oversee the design and construction of the Press Auditorium at Dáil Éireann, Irish Government Buildings, Dublin. This project received awards from the Architectural Association of Ireland (2003) & the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (2003). In 2004 he accepted a position with Heneghan Peng Architects, remaining there for 13 years. In that time he led teams across public and private sector projects, including the delivery (2016) of the Palestinian Museum, Ramallah, West Bank of Palestine. The project was a recipient of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland President’s Award (2017). The Museum was listed for the Royal Institute of British Architects International Prize (2018), and in 2019 the Museum received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. In Spring 2018 he was appointed as a Director of the Grangegorman Development Agency, with responsibility for Strategy and Design. As part one of the diverse Agency team, and with a variety of design teams and building contractors, he supports the implementation of the Grangegorman Masterplan (c.30ha) for multiple stakeholders. These stakeholders include the Health Service Executive, Technological University Dublin, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, and utimately the existing and emerging communities within the Grangegorman neighbourhood. __ Music is by Sinead Finegan, played by the Delmaine String Quartet (Philip Dodd, leader). The podcast was recorded on Zoom.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

Related