Ard Bia will prepare a menu that will be served alongside a facilitated discussion inspired by 'homeward.' More details soon!

Presented by Architecure at the Edge in association with Common Knowledge.

Dinner at Ard Bia Restaurant - €40

To reserve your place email info@ourcommonknowledge.org

Common Knowledge is a non-profit social enterprise based outside Ennistymon on Ireland’s beautiful West Coast. visit https://www.ourcommonknowledge.org for more info.

@ArchAtTheEdge

Curated by Common Knowledge, HOMEWARD is a discussion about the real ingredients that make up a home. In a departure from the bricks and mortar envelope, we’ll explore what we really need to feel at home in a space, and how best to create those things. We’ll explore the role of food, art, community and design, and how these interlinked ideas can help us create more joyful homes. We’ll also explore the current housing crisis and discuss what we can do both as individuals and as a community, to maintain a sense of home, throughout.

This event is brought to you by Common Knowledge, the non-profit social enterprise focused on sharing the skills, knowledge and community one needs to create more affordable, sustainable and joyful homes. See the work Common Knowledge is doing here - and please contribute to their crowdfunder to create a new centre for sustainable living in the Burren.

Location: ArdBia The House at Folans Lane, followed by a ticketed group meal at Ard Bia the Restaurant at Nimmos

Presented by Architecture at the Edge (AATE) in association with Common Knowledge.

@ArchAtTheEdge

Acts of repair are an essential part of our social world and built environment. They not only allow for the smooth functioning and enhancement of our cities, but also indicate what is valued and worthy of care and maintenance.

Hosted by UrbanLab, this symposium explores how repair forms our relationship to the past, present and future. Taking place at the Mick Lally Theatre on Druid Lane, Julia Corwin, Tim Edensor and Andrew Karvonen discuss the importance of electronic repair work, the preservation of heritage sites and the improvement of cities through incremental actions. These different perspectives together combine scholarship and activism, provoking discussion on how acts of repair shape the world around us.   

Moderator; Mark Justin Rainey

FREE, Pre-booking available

Related events:

The Temporality of Repair symposium will be followed by two events. At 1.00 pm there will be participatory walk through Nuns’ Island that will include a site visit to The Mill. At 2.30 pm, a workshop will be hosted at An Mheitheal Rothar in their new premises at the Old Squash Court, Earl’s Island.

St Patricks Redemptorist Monastery is an impressive multi-phase religious complex, completed in 1903 which retains much of its original form and character. The monastery, together with the former seminary and chapel, creates a significant architectural group that continues to contribute to the community. The chapel has been undergoing sensitive conservation work in phases to repair former interventions and ensure it maintains its character and utility into the future.

Guides: ​Sinéad Hughes, Head of Conservation, Carrig Conservation International Ltd 

Drop in / on a first come basis

Presentation of the conservation repair and consolidation works carried out at Menlough, Tirellan and Merlin castles by Fergal Mc Namara, 7L Architects, followed by walking tour to Tirellan Castle (Terryland) led by Dr. Jim Higgins, Heritage and Conservation Officer, Galway City Council.

The first stage of the Conservation repair of Menlough, Tirellan and Merlin castles was carried out in 2021 and continues in 2022. While the conservation works have partially stabilised the ruins, it is anticipated that a a programme of landscaping and access works will allow them to be safely opened up in the future for the enjoyment of Galwegians and visitors to the city.  Tirellan is a fortified house of the seventeenth century which enjoys a riverine setting with views towards the University of Galway. Merlin, a tower house of the sixteenth century is an essential element of Merlin Woods and now forms the centrepiece of a large residential scheme. Both castles are located in established amenity areas that share their names; Terryland Forest Park and Merlin Park Woods. Their potential to animate and enrich the use of these parks will be explored with proposals for the public realm of the city, where these landmark structures would play an enhanced role.

Please note; Rough Terrain at Tirellan castle will be encountered, please wear suitable boots and clothing.

Tour of ongoing works at the complex site of The Walks in Loughrea. 18 bridges span the water course which follows the line of the medieval defenses, leading to burgage plots lining the main street of the town. In 1796 a cruciform promenade was laid out alongside which has been a place of recreation and contemplation for the residents of Loughrea for over two hundred years. Diverse groups and owners in the town have come together to fund the conservation works which protect the brown trout habitat in the watercourse, its historic masonry fabric, and sylvan setting.

Guides: Ursula Marmion

Drop in / but pre-booking available

Omey, a tidal island accessible on foot, is a beautiful place of rock and sand and a spiritual place with secret Monastic Sites, St. Féichín founded a monastery here and his Holy Well is still venerated by local fishermen. Omey is now home to a handful of people now, but its many archaeological sites are evidence of a once thriving community, its history mirroring the many waves of change throughout the millennia.  This easy walking, along small road, coastline and open beaches, takes up to three hours and will be an exploration of the hidden archaeology and the eroding coastal archaeology exposed in the Midden Sites by ongoing winter storms.  A very important Cupped Hammer Stone dating to the Mesolithic was discovered on Omey and is just one of a long list of other important finds, including Kite Brooch; Comb; Hiberno-Norse Ringed Pin, Cross-Inscribed Cross; Coin and Human & Animal skeletons remains, discovered along these coastal dunes. 

Tickets FREE

10am (Start by 10.30am-1.30pm) *High Tide @ 4pm

 Guide: Michael Gibbons, Archaeologist

Michael Gibbons is hugely experienced field archaeologists.  He is a long standing member of the Institute of Irish Archaeology and has a wide and broad range of managerial, field and publishing experience and has spent almost 40 years mapping the archaeology of Ireland, particularly the West Coast as was well as gaining invaluable experience from working abroad in the Negev Desert, Sinai, Greece and for the London Museum.

Recognised as one of Europe’s greenest cities Freiburg has an important story to tell about regeneration and challenging convention with creative initiatives in neighbourhood and housing, planning, transport and energy whilst maintaining its trajectory to become an extremely liveable city which effectively combines modernity with tradition.

Awarded the title European City of the Year 2010 by the Academy of Urbanism, Freiburg celebrated the recognition by hosting a study tour for Academicians, culminating in the production of a Charter which advocated best practice in sustainable urbanism.  The Charter comprised twelve high-level principles, distilled from experience, for reflection and adaptation to suit different geographical circumstances and local administrative structures. The Academy championed the Charter as a catalyst for progressive dialogue and in the twelve years since its inception it has helped to raise aspirations and improve practice among our growing network of cities, towns and people. 

In August 2022, as the enduring impacts of Covid on work and commuting patterns crystallise and as the challenge of climate change moves from esoteric theory to hard edged existential threat in a context exacerbated by an energy crisis which threatens global stability, the moment seems opportune to contemplate a New Charter for a New Challenge.

Galway is a city which is looking to remodel itself for the emerging new age and is starting on the long-term conversations required to facilitate a significant transformation using work carried out by the Irish Cities group as jumping off point.

In support of the process and in pursuit of the mission to foster and promote best practise in urbanism generally the Academy, in association with the RIAI, is organising a conference in Galway in Spring 2023.

In advance of the conference and as part of the Architecture at the Edge Festival, a full day Workshop will be held on Friday 07th October 2022, at the Mick Lally Theatre, Druid Ln, Galway.

The workshop will engage a wide spectrum of interested parties and will explore the issues, challenges and exciting opportunities which lie in wait for an Atlantic Edge City looking to recreate itself and provide leadership for other urban centres in the decade ahead. 

Booking for the spring Conference will be available in the new year online at;

www.Academy of Urbanism.org.uk or www.RIAI.ie  

Vacancy and dereliction blight the centres of our towns and villages. Why? Because nobody is thinking about them with imagination as the brilliant spaces they could be.  

Pandemic – developed expertise with Zoom means remote working is not just an idea but a new paradigm for a parallel existence.  Flexible working allows us to re-imagine in turn how we live – changing traditional mindsets which have been baked into us since the 1960s. 

We all want to live more lightly on our fragile planet.  It’s time to change our view about endless growth and consider everything from the ground up, asking the question, do we need to build at all? Could we adapt? Re-use? Re-imagine? 

Irish towns are a built idea distilling the essence of how to live together around a communal space. Revitalised, they could present us with thousands of instant environments,  PLACES made by a wall of buildings,  a theatre of the everyday.  Smaller size and scale put us directly in touch with nature, and give us places for kids to play and learn, the 15-minute city translates to a town environment where there is life, fun, community, and culture.  

How can we move from simply thinking this is a great idea, to achieve it?

Vacancy and dereliction could be investigated for the potential they accidentally offer.   If used imaginatively they could become a serious part of solving our housing problem while offering people a sustainable and interesting way of living together. 

New plans for our towns need to be about small-scale brilliant ideas in all kinds of places. Using what’s there, being ingenious, imagining it into something fresh for now,  developing new models of habitation. In doing this we are reinforcing the unique cultural landscape in towns we have inherited,  into which we should intervene with care.

Three of Ireland’s emerging practices will present their own unique approach to investing the existing fabric of our towns and villages with historic and cultural value. Essentially a form of architectural salvage; a sustainable and viable means of rebuilding remakes our towns and re-purposes them to be functional brilliant places.

Moderator: Valerie Mulvin (McCullough Mulvin Architects)
Damien Curry, https://canicearchitects.com
Helena McElmeel & Blair Stanaway, https://mcelmeel.ie
Pasparakis Friel https://www.pasparakisfriel.com

FREE, Pre-booking required

Galway City Council Architects, Housing and Planning Departments, along with Tax experts will explain two current incentives that existing in Galway for tackling vacancy within the City urban core. The Living City Incentive and the Repair and Leasing Scheme are two specific financial schemes that are currently available. The format of the event is to have a number of quick presentations to explain the schemes along with the finical and tax benefits. There will also be presentations with Architectural examples of dealing with the issues of Urban Vacancy and the associated planning requirements.

Moderator:
Emmet Humphreys Senior Executive Architect Galway City Council
Contributors:
Peter Staunton Executive Planner Galway City Council
Maremoto Architects Karen O’Reilly Senior Tax Advisor with PWC.

Pre-booking required.

Abbeyknockmoy possesses one of the best surviving examples of medieval wall painting in Ireland, protected under the vault of the presbytery.   Paintings feature the popular medieval tale of the Three Living and Three Dead Kings, intended to remind viewers of the inevitability of death, and an image of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, the saint invoked for protection from plague. The east end of the abbey is the work of the so-called ‘School of the West’, a group of masons renowned for their fine stone carvings and idiosyncratic sculptural detailing. Good examples of their work can be seen on the east windows and the carved head of a king – possibly Cathal Croibhdhearg, located in the nave. 

Guides:
Colm Murray, Architecture Officer, The Heritage Council
Dr Karena Morton, Head of Conservation, National Museum of Ireland

Free / Meet at Abbeyknockmoy graveyard carpark

Accessibility The abbey is located down a short walk from the graveyard carpark to the north of Abbeyknockmoy town. There is a stile (a passage over a fence via steps and a narrow gap) that might prove difficult to those with mobility issues.

Dr Karena Morton has been Head of Conservation at the National Museum of Ireland, based at the Museum of Country Life, Mayo, since March 2017. Karena’s PhD. thesis was on Irish Medieval Wall Painting. She worked for fifteen years as a freelance conservator of archaeological finds and wall paintings, particularly ones of late medieval date.