How we relate to our built environment in a social, political and cultural context will be exploited in the sixth annual Architecture at the Edge (AATE ) Festival which returns for its sixth edition from October 1-9.
AATE is a not-for-profit organisation based in the west of Ireland that explores architecture and design in our social, political and cultural contexts.
Over 40 events are happening across Galway city and county featuring a series of contributors including architects, artists, activists and academics. The official launch at Kylemore Abbey on October 1 opens the exhibition ‘Interpreting Landscape – Tim Robinson and the west of Ireland’, which will run right through Spring 2023.
Other highlights include a tour of the House on Sky Road with A2 Architects, in partnership with the Architecture Association of Ireland (AAI ).
You can drop by Nuns Island Theatre on Saturday October 1 to experience the amazing 2021 Turner Prize winning ‘The Druthaib’s Ball’ installation created by the Array Collective, and to reflect on the concept of ‘belonging’.
This will be followed by a ‘word workshop’ in Áras na nGael, Dominick Street, where attendees will be invited to ‘create a provocative placard’. In creating phrases about what ‘belonging’ in Galway means to us, the workshop aims to empower young people aged 14-24 to have their voices heard and to help to shape their built environment.
The theme for AATE Festival 2022 is ‘Repair’. 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. On October 9, a symposium hosted by UrbanLab based in University of Galway, explores how repair forms our relationship to the past, present and future.
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 of Urbanism, 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.
A workshop led by plattenbaustudio, invites the public to actively join in a large-scale group drawing exercise in which we take on the centre of Galway city as our subject matter. Together we will use architectural sketching, mapping and field notes to study and observe the city through a wide range of lens, from the physical to the ephemeral. Field notes will be used to record the situation on the ground, while also using a massive group drawing back at our festival base in the Mick Lally Theatre.
‘Shaping Galway’ is a free interactive workshop led by Islander Architects exploring the tools of spatial organisation & land use zoning in Galway City through abstract compositions. Unleash your creativity through studies in composition to piece together your vision of the city.
Three of Ireland’s emerging practises will present their own unique approach to investing existing fabric of our towns and villages with historic and cultural value. Moderated by Valerie Mulvin, McCullough Mulvin Architects, it will present a forum for practices such as Helena McElmeel Architects to present what are essentially a form of architectural salvage; a sustainable and viable means of rebuilding remakes our towns and re-purpose them to be functional brilliant places.
AATE Director Frank Monahan says of the event, ‘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.’
GROUNDWORK, a solo exhibition by young architect Dominic Daly will run in Ballinasloe. It responds to the theme of ‘repair’ by addressing the crisis faced by the rural Irish town today. Through the media of drawing, objects, photographs and writing, a dispersed exhibition is set within the townscape of Ballinasloe, against the backdrop of the ancient October Horse Fair.
An exhibition ‘Broken Stones’ by Artists - Emily Jones & David Hurley (Réal ) will run at the Mick Lally Theatre, with a separate installation at the Martin Tea House Folly, at Dangan grounds, University of Galway. Through exploring architecture and its narrative potential as a means to reconcile our identity with land, the exhibition meditates on how built forms and materials take on meaning in the contemporary world.
Take a tour with the ‘Three Castle Project’, beginning with a presentation of the conservation repair and consolidation works carried out at Menlough, Tirellan and Merlin castles by Fergal Mc Namara, 7L Architects in the Mick Lally Theatre, followed by walking tour to Tirellan Castle (Terryland ) led by Dr. Jim Higgins, Heritage and Conservation Officer, Galway City Council.
Other tours include Ashford Castle, Sos Seotoireachta, Ros An Mhil / Rossaveel Small Craft Harbour and Féin-thógáil an Spidéil.
The 2022 programme also includes workshops, film screenings at Pálás Cinema including Kloste?s, a Black & White nonverbal film created by the People of Kaunas Lithuania together with Artist & Film-maker Aideen Barry and On being there, presented by Architecture at the Edge in association with the Irish Architecture Foundation, this screening brings Tom dePaor’s work home to a building he designed, the Pálás Cinema.
It will be followed by a Q&A with director Peter Maybury, Nathalie Weadick, and Tom dePaor, chaired by Hugh Campbell. Ticket information for this and all other AATE Festival 2022 events visit www.ArchitectureAtTheEdge.com Keep up to date follow @ArchAtTheEdge for the latest!
Architecture at the Edge is proud to be supported by the Arts Council.
