What Do Buildings Do All Day?

In this episode Emmett Scanlon talks to Hari Phillips in London. Hari tells his side of the story about one housing project he and his practice completed in 2018 on the Kipling Estate in London. It is a fascinating story of community initiative, ambition, local authority support and clear commitment and dedication by the architects and all involved to make solid, sustainable housing that felt like it was alway there but would ensure the resident community would thrive long into the future.Hari co-founded Bell Phillips Architects with Tim Bell in 2004 after winning an international design competition to carry out a major housing estate refurbishment project in East London. The practice has developed a strong reputation for working with public sector clients to deliver outstanding housing and community buildings, with particular experienced in delivering schemes through collaborative community and stakeholder engagement. One such project is Marklake Court, a community-led affordable housing scheme built on the site of an underused garage block in Southwark, heralded by The Guardian as "a beacon for the delivery of low cost housing across the capital”.Music is by Sinead Finnegan, players by the Delmaine Sting Quartet. This conversation was recorded online.

In this episode, Emmett Scanlon talks to Jeanette Lowe. Jeanette is a photographer based in Dublin. The conversation is about housing and the people that live in it, specifically Pearse House,  a housing scheme designed by Herbert Simms and built between 1935-40 in Dublin. Jeanette begins by talking about her work as part of RTE Illuminations, in which she photographed what she calls, the "invisible front line", workers who have gone out to work right through lockdown and Covid-19 and who also live in Pearse Flats. Jeanette  was born and lives in Dublin, Ireland. Her work has been exhibited in Ireland and internationally and is held in Irish and international collections. Her artistic practice explores the relationship between people, place and culture with an emphasis on communities in inner-city Dublin. She is currently Artist in Residence at the National Maternity Hospital, Holles St., Dublin and continues to work on her personal projects. Music is by Irish composer Sinead Finnegan and is used with permission. Copyright reserved. The piece, Précis, is written for string quartet and is performed by the Delmaine String Quartet. The piece was recorded live in the Chapel in Trinity, December 2018 at a concert hosted by Mellow Tonics choir. Due to Covid-19 restrictions this conversation was recorded online.

In this episode host Emmett Scanlon, talks to architecture critic Shane O' Toole. Back in the 1980s a group of young and eager architects began working together in a loose collective, anxious to make things happen in Dublin city. By 1991, this group formalised as Group 91 and contained among others, Shelley McNamra, Yvonne Farrell (Grafton Architects), John Tuomey and Sheila O Donnell, Mc Cullough Mulvin architects and McGarry NiEanaigh. As we approach the 30th anniversary of Group 91, the conversation begins with Shane recalling how he and he colleagues set it up and how they went about initiating and then winning the ground breaking and landmark design competition for Temple Bar in Dublin, a moment in our urban history, and, as one critic put it, that put Irish architecture finally on the public mind. Shane talks about how he was involved in the design and construction of the Ark, the cultural centre for children and the adjoining arch in Temple Bar as part of Group 91. The conversation moves to Shane's career as a critic for the Sunday Times, becoming a writer, hunting down the stories of Irish architects and his work as an advocate for Irish architecture in Europe and beyond. Music is by Rachael Lavelle. If you enjoy the podcast please rate it on iTunes. Shane O’Toole is an award-winning architectural critic and no longer practicing as an architect. A graduate in architecture from UCD and current Adjunct Associate Professor at the UCD School of Architecture, Planning & Environmental Policy. An honorary member of the AAI, he has served the profession as President of the AAI, Vice President of the RIAI, inaugural director of the Irish Architecture Foundation, Commissioner for the Venice Biennale and jury member of the Mies van der Rohe Award for contemporary European architecture. He co-founded DoCoMoMo International and DoCoMoMo Ireland, the heritage bodies, and is Chairman of the Irish Architectural Archive’s Collections Development Committee. He was a founder member of Group 91 Architects. He reintroduced the Downes Medal as the AAI’s premier award and established its annual international critic’s lecture programme. He has co-edited monographs on Kevin Roche and Aldo Rossi, and curated exhibitions on Michael Scott, Liam McCormick and Noel Moffett, among others. He contributed to the pilot inventory of 20th-century architecture in Dublin. He wrote for The Sunday Times for ten years. A member of CICA, the International Committee of Architecture Critics, he was named International Building Press Architecture Writer of the Year in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Gandon also published a collection of his critical essays, 101 Hosannas for Architecture, in 2018.

This is a bonus edition of the podcast What Do Buildings Do All Day? In this second bonus episode you will hear a text written by host Emmett Scanlon following a visit to the Elbephilarmonie in Hamburg, in June 2018. "What's It All About Elphie?" is read by actor Ste Murray.  Building Me, Building You is the title of this occasional bonus edition of the main long-form podcast. New writings on encounters with or stories of living in or with buildings will be read by the authors themselves or by others on their behalf. If you wish to submit a text for consideration for future editions of the podcast, please get in touch with us at whatdobuildingsdoallday@gmail.com.  Thanks for listening. Podcast music is by Rachael Lavelle.  Podcast contains an extract of, Richard Wagner: The Ring Without Words (arr. Lorin Maazel). Played by the World Doctors Orchestra, Stefan Willich, conductor  Live recording 29th June 2018 Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Germany. Video Editing: Matthias Füg and Mhoch4 (www.mhoch4.com) Audio Recording: Parry Audio Studio (www.parry-audio.de) Audio Mastering: Martin Schlaud (www.mcs-mastering.de). Reproduced with permission, all copyright remains with the World Doctors Orchestra / the authors.

In this episode, Emmett Scanlon talks to Eamonn Hall and Cormac Murray about their new publication COSMOFORM. This is a 'zine on the Met Eireann Building in Glasnevin, Dublin 9 by architect Liam McCormick. During the conversation, we hear some of the history of this building and how the architect was influenced by the work of  Swiss architect, Justus Dahinden. This leads to a conversation on how one might make books about buildings and the death (or not) of print publications. We also hear about their first publication, The Forgotten Frontier, a study of the infamous Phibsborough Shopping Centre, in Dublin 7. Eamonn Hall is a Dublin based graphic designer and art director. He is the founder of Phibsboro Press, an independent publishing imprint focused on architecture, photography and design. He is also the lead designer at EHGD (ehgd.xyz), a small design studio based in Cabra. Eamonn's work is focused on branding, logo design, print production and web design. Cormac Murray is an Irish architect and writer based in Toronto. In addition to his two essays for the Phibsboro Press, he has edited and published numerous essays and reviews for Irish Architectural publications and has co-authored a book: The Dublin Architecture Guide 1947-2014 with Paul Kelly and Brendan Spierin. Both 'zines are available for purchase at Phibsboro Press. Support Irish Design! Podcast music by Rachel Lavelle. This episode was recorded using ZOOM.

This is a bonus edition of the podcast What Do Buildings Do All Day? In this first bonus episode you will hear a text by Conor Sreenan, read by actor Ste Murray. Building Me, Building You is the title of this occasional bonus edition of the main long-form podcast. New writings on encounters with or stories of living in or with buildings will be read by the authors themselves or by others on their behalf. If you wish to submit a text for consideration for future editions of the podcast, please listen to the end and get in touch with us at whatdobuildingsdoallday@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Music is by Rachael Lavelle. Conor Sreenan is a Director of the Grangegorman Development Agency, with responsibility for Strategy & Design. From 2004-2017 he worked with heneghan peng architects. The Palestinian Musuem was designed by heneghan peng architects for Taawon (Welfare Association), and built by Tubaila Target United and Consolidated Contractors Co. Image Title: Feras Tubaila, Nablus Workshop, Palestine, taken by Conor Sreenan.

Adrian Duncan is an artist and award-winning writer based in Ireland and Berlin. In this podcast, a recorded conversation between Dublin and Berlin, Adrian talks to Emmett Scanlon about bungalows, building sites, books and Berlin. Two excerpts from his debut novel are read by actor Ste Murray. Adrian's debut novel Love Notes from a German Building Site was published by The Lilliput Press and Head of Zeus in 2019. It won the 2019 John McGahern Book Prize. In 2020 he was shortlisted for the Dalkey Literary Awards Emerging Writer. His second novel A Sabbatical in Leipzig was published by The Lilliput Press in 2020. In 2018 he exhibited, in collaboration with Feargal Ward, a large-scale film/sculptural installation work titled The Soil Became Scandinavian, as part of EVA 2018, curated by Inti Guerrero. In 2019 they co-directed a music video for Joy Division's Day of the Lords as part of the Unknown Pleasures Reimagined project. In 2020 his and Ward's film Tension Structures received its North American premier at Hot Docs, Toronto. From 1995 Adrian studied and worked as a structural engineer for over a decade in the U.K. and Ireland. He received his chartership from the I.E.I. (Irish Engineering Institute) in 2007, before returning to study fine art at IADT, Dún Laoghaire in 2008. He received a 1st class M.A. (Art in the Contemporary World, NCAD, Dublin) in 2011. He has guest tutored and guest lectured at UCD School of Architecture, Dublin; UCC School of Architecture, Cork; NCAD, Dublin; and Crawford College of Art, Cork. He is coeditor of Paper Visual Art Journal (IRL/DE). Podcast music by Rachel Lavelle. Reading by Ste Murray. Book extracts reproduced and used by kind permission of the author.

In this episode, host Emmett Scanlon speaks to Valerie Mulvin and Ruth O Herlihy of McCullough Mulvin Architects based in Dublin, Ireland. The pair, together with Niall Mc Cullough and Corán O’Connor, lead the team for the Thapar University Project, in the Punjab, India. The final project, completed in late 2019, is a series of buildings, and a total of almost 1 million square feet of rooms, arranged is a series of red forms, a total distance of 1.5km apart, conceived of as a new social, spatial and material anchor for the teaching and learning community there. Ruth and Valerie talk about how the commission arrived into the office, how they worked, what the core ideas of the project were and what the lasting impact of working on a project like this has on them professionally and personally. Finally they move from Thapar in India to Towns in Ireland, and discuss the recent program for Government, paying particular attention to the future of towns. McCullough Mulvin Architects won a commission in 2015 for the design of extensive new university buildings for Thapar University in Patiala. The university is situated on a 250 acre campus 350km north of Delhi. The university had already commenced a plan of contemporisation for their academic progammes and in travelling the world to make these academic connections, realized that buildings are critical to the life of universities and that the “university as destination” concept is a significant factor in how people make their decisions for an educational trajectory. The commission was described as being for “iconic buildings”. The brief for the project comprised a programme of 1,000,000sqft – an ambitious body of work to be constructed and delivered within a very short timeframe. It included an academic hub, comprising a library, a computer science faculty and a series of lecture theatres ranging in size from 150 person to 500 person. This complex was to be supported by the delivery of student accommodation to house 2500 students as well as other ancillary faculty buildings. McCullough Mulvin worked with Design Plus Architects in Delhi as well as a full design team in India and ARUP consulting engineers in Dublin to design and deliver the buildings which resulted in a significant enhancement of the existing campus. Throughout the course of the project, the architects travelled over to India many times each year – at certain times on a once a month basis, to oversee the design and execution of the project. The living accommodation was completed in August 2017, the Learning Laboratory (the academic hub) in October 2019. Music by Rachel Lavelle. Photography Christian Richters.

In this concluding episode of a three part podcast introduction on collaboration in architecture, design and space making, host Emmett Scanlon talks to Rosie Lynch, the Creative Director of Callan Workhouse Union. They speak at length about one project, Nimble Spaces - New Cultures of Housing. This is an ongoing housing project being made in Callan for and in collaboration with the Camphill Community. Rosie describes the research process of inventing new methods to discuss and debate and eventually design homes, working with a range of artists and architects. This data is gathered and then translated into a housing project for 26 residents which is due for construction in 2021. The project highlights that new ways and means are necessarily needed when we seek to offer agency and a voice to those often excluded from processes of spatial provision and design. Drawings and models and the usual language of architecture often fail in new participatory planning processes. Situated in the former Workhouse in Callan, the building is now home to an array of local and civic functions and uses, reappropriating this building in new ways into the lives of those who live and work in Callan. Music is by Rachael Lavelle.