Show notes
In this episode, recorded on zoom from Dublin, Kerry, Berlin and Limerick, Emmett Scanlon speaks to Noreille Breen, Tom O Brien, Jennifer O Donnell and Andrew O Murchu. The conversation begins with the notion of architects being asked or expected to "take a position", with each architect in turn outlining how they begin a project but also their reaction to that notion of position-taking means in architecture. The quartet discuss the form and nature of their individual practices in architecture, their desire for public work, the possibility of architects contributing to wider strategic thinking and policy, and at what point architects might just have to stop producing.
About Noreile Breen | Noreile Breen studied architecture at the Dublin School of Architecture, DIT. She worked with Atelier Bow-Wow in Japan and Steve Larkin Architects before establishing her own practice which is based between Dublin and Kerry, Ireland. Her practice is focused on creating buildings which have a rich spatial character and are rooted in the built heritage of the Irish rural landscape.
About Tom O Brien | T O B Architect is an explorative, critical architectural practice based in Dublin and Co. Tipperary, Ireland. It was founded by Thomas O Brien in 2013 and since then has earned a reputation as an expansive practice that incorporates an ongoing examination of the complex inter-related nature of material things, humans, animals, and plants into each project. The practice has been recognised domestically and internationally, receiving an Architectural Association Award 2019 for Killan Farmhouse, and being shortlisted for the international Architectural Review Emerging Architect prize in 2018. Thomas has been supported by an Arts Council Bursary in 2020. Thomas is a Design Fellow at University College Dublin where he teaches in the first year studio.
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About Jennifer O Donnell | Jennifer O’Donnell is an Irish architect, teaching assistant at the TU Braunschweig and founding partner at plattenbaustudio. Jennifer studied Architecture at University College Dublin, following which she worked for GKMP Architects and Sauerbruch Hutton Architects before founding her architecture practice Plattenbaustudio in Berlin in 2018, together with her partner Jonathan Janssens. Plattenbaustudio began with an idea about combining the practice of designing and building architecture with a sustained focus into the potential of architectural drawing as a tool for investigation and communication. Since then the studio has grown to specialise in the development of architectural drawings for research, for public and private clients, for exhibition and dissemination- run in tandem with their building projects. Plattenbaustudio's work has been exhibited at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the London Festival of Design and the Irish Embassy in Berlin. Jennifer herself was awarded the AGA Gold Medal in Architecture upon her graduation from UCD Dublin in 2012, was the recipient of an Irish Arts Council Architecture Bursary Award in 2019.
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About Andrew O Murchu | Andrew Ó’Murchú is a co-founder of BothAnd Group, with Kate Rushe, Alice Clarke, and Jarek Adamczuk. BothAnd Group is a collaborative research and spatial design practice that aims to understand the behaviour of living systems and deploys architecture as a methodology to look at the world. Andrew currently lectures in architecture at both TU Dublin and Ravensbourne University London. With Jarek Adamczuk, he was the recent recipient of the Arts Council’s ‘Next Generation Artist Award’.
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Music is by Sinead Finegan, played by the Delmaine String Quartet (Philip Dodd, leader).
The podcast was recorded on Zoom in February 2021.