Review

Day 1 - 11 October 
Review by Ciarán  Brady MRIAI

This year’s RIAI Conference, themed ‘Collaboration’, hoped to examine collaborative methods of working within the practice of architecture, and through this, explore the role of Irish architects in tackling contemporary social, political, and ecological challenges. The conference opened with an address by RIAI President, Charlotte Sheridan, which addressed not just the challenges facing the profession and broader society, but also the transformative possibilities inherent within architectural practice, and the power of cross-disciplinary collaborative practices. Commenting on the upcoming new Planning and Development Bill, Sheridan stated that this new planning bill was a unique opportunity to change the culture of how we plan in Ireland, providing stability and certainty in development through a more proactive, plan-led approach. It was stressed that the RIAI would take a role in ensuring that this planning approach was integrated with a need for quality architectural design – a most welcome intervention from an architect’s perspective. Sheridan noted that this would require significant additional architectural resources within the public sector in Ireland, along with significant intervention on urban and rural dereliction. Sheridan’s address was then followed by a short video message by Paschal Donohue TD, Minister for Public Expenditure, reflecting on his oversight on the National Development Plan, and the role architect’s creativity can play in the delivery of social and economic infrastructure within the state.

Next up, Tonje Værdal Frydenlund, of Norweigan firm Snøhetta, spoke on the practice’s social responsibility and climate action ethos, through a number of case study projects, from a variety of project typologies. The most fascinating of these, to me, was their soon-to-be completed mixed-use office/apartment Vertikal Nydalen building in Norway, which strives to be energy self-sufficient, using only natural ventilation. Tonje explained that by removing mechanical ventilation systems, tenant turnover proved a much less expensive endeavour than the typical ceiling void works required. This, in turn, motivated the landlord, as a commercial entity, to pursue more sustainable building methodologies. The creation of a truly mixed-use building was also a fascinating insight, given the limitations on such construction through typical core separation requirements in Ireland. Tonje’s presentation was followed by a discussion on Snøhetta’s work in politically ‘difficult’ regions and oil-generating countries, addressing members’ concerns through a stridence to provide truly sustainable projects, along with culturally sensitive schemes – intending to, in turn, provide for societal progressions through their work. Subsequent to this, Séamus Guidera and Pat Barry joined Tonje to discuss the implications of sustainability on the commercial sector in Ireland, including the implications of green-financing and adaptive re-use.

The third session started with an intriguing presentation by Pooja Agrawal, CEO of Public Practice, on the wider possibilities for public sector architectural work, and the intersection of architecture and broader public planning, and community infrastructure. Agrawal drew connections between the nature of public practice in Ireland and the UK, where declining investment in local authorities, and declining employment of technically skilled architects within the public sector, has correlated with a declining perception of the built output of public authorities. Pooja has established an exciting organisation placing practising architects within public sector roles, in a secondment/placement programme. This was followed by presentations by Andrée Dargan and Emmet Humphreys on their work as public sector architects within two local authorities, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and Galway City Council respectively. Both Dargan and Humphreys described the work of local authority architects, their complex and varied project work and procurement, along with their personal and professional collaborative methodologies. This was followed by a wideranging discussion on public practice, the collaborative nature of local authority work, advocating for a significant upskilling and increase in resourcing for architects within the public practice. After lunch, session four was in essence a keynote by Níall McLaughlin, walking the audience through three recent projects by his practice. McLaughlin began by discussing his recently completed ‘The International Rugby Experience’ in Limerick city. Through this scheme, McLaughlin discussed the collaborative practice and process the project experienced through the design and planning stages, and indeed the benefits these tests, of a sort, brought to the scheme. Following this, McLaughlin spoke about two projects, a gallery of scale in the Netherlands, and a small, complex, and thoroughly reasoned pavilion space on the Isle of Wight. Through this latter project, in particular, McLaughlin advocated for a collaborative architectural process, engaging extensively with the inherent skills of contractors, engineers, manufacturers, etc., throughout the design and construction of the project. Níall then spoke to Róisín Murphy, MC for the day, providing insight on his processes, methodologies, and his way of seeing the future of architectural practice, advocating for a more in-depth appreciation of architectural technologies and material culture within architectural education, and the need to reinforce the same within early career practice. Session five was a broad-ranging, and involved an extremely welcome conversation about diversity and inclusivity in architecture, particularly as it relates to women.

Proceedings began with a presentation by Ivana Bacik TD, who spoke on the unjustifiable barriers to women entering and maintaining their professional status within architecture, law, and politics. Bacik highlighted the changes made within the legal profession during her career and the action needed to ensure that this progress is maintained within all professions; in addition to tackling the easily identifiable upper-class ‘boys club’ culture prevalent within professional environments. This was followed by Dr Carole Pollard, who provided a striking account of the role of women within Irish architecture, stressing individual and collective accounts of the harsh professional environment architecture provided for women, and indeed, still does. Within this, Pollard highlighted the immense contributions of women to Irish architecture, oft unspoken. Dr Dervla MacManus then followed, presenting some of the results of her recent survey research into gender equity in Irish architecture. MacManus spoke to some fascinating insights on the perception, and self-perception, of women within the profession. All three speakers, along with RIAI President, Charlotte Sheridan, then discussed the need for change not just within the architectural profession, but the broader construction industry. As a male member of the RIAI, the session served as a reminder of our social, moral, and indeed professional duty to stamp out bias within the workplace, and to create a fair and equal profession for all architects.

The final session included the presentations of a series of awards, including the RIAI Future Award, and the RIAI Student Awards. Here again, contemporary challenges, particularly urban decay were reviewed through both the students’ work, and RIAI Future Award winner Lucy Jones’ call to action to end ‘conventional cycles of demolition and construction’. RIAI Student Excellence Award winners Daneisha Pile and David McEvoy both highlighted the neglect of historic amenity spaces through their project work, reflecting thoughts expressed throughout the day’s sessions. Overall, attendees of the first day of the conference were left with some insightful reflections on architectural practice, and visions of what architectural practice could be – in truth how it might sustain a better, more cohesive built environment. Indeed, attendees may even have left reflecting on their own ways of approaching their practice for the better. The discussions, forum, and cooperative feeling surrounding the conference had a slight air of optimism about both the direction of the profession, the possibilities of collaborative practice, and the potential within the industry to tackle societal challenges.

Day 2 - 12 October 
Review by Paul Maher MRIAI

Amid the escalating climate and housing crises, day two of the RIAI Conference focused on retrofit at scale as a means of mitigating the huge challenges that lie ahead for the profession and the wider construction industry. Looking through the prism of collaboration, speakers throughout the day included engineers, surveyors, client bodies and policy makers – all of whom have key roles to play in the delivery of a sustainable built environment. ‘The most sustainable building is the one that already exists’ was the mantra running through the day’s sessions.

Speaking passionately on behalf of the Climate Change Advisory Council, Marie Donnelly commended the RIAI for its 2030 Climate Challenge goals, emphasising the unique skills architects have to envisage a future in which the complete elimination of fossil fuels is a reality. Donnelly spoke optimistically of the opportunities district heating, timber frame construction, and renewable resources pose in the Irish construction industry. However, despite Ireland’s commitment to a 51% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, all sectors are currently on course to miss their emission targets set in the five-yearly carbon budget. Although the building sector is the ‘star performer’ in terms of emission reduction, it is clear efforts must significantly and urgently increase if we are to achieve our emission targets.

Joining by video link, Ciarán Cuffe MEP outlined the long, medium, and short-term climate goals the EU is implementing, especially moving from a reliance on Russian imported oil, gas, and nuclear energy by investment in renewable resources and energy efficiency. This is where the European wide retrofit programme comes into play – ’Insulate homes, isolate Putin’ reads the wartime propaganda-style poster in Cuffe’s office.

Session 2 saw case studies of deep retrofit projects at differing scales. A manor estate housing development in west London, the Treasury Building in Dublin, and a small shop conversion in Dún Laoghaire were presented from the perspective of architect, structural engineer and quantity surveyor respectively.

Simon Bayliss of HTA Design took us through the messy, difficult, but ultimately rewarding business of retrofitting four early twentieth century social housing blocks. The basis of the retrofit was established through carbon analysis, while weighing up the impact on building heritage and navigating contemporary building standards, in particular fire regulations. In the case of the Treasury Building, the client’s willingness to pursue low embodied carbon construction meant CORA were able to reuse large quantities of the existing building fabric, salvage bricks and rebar, and specify lower carbon recycled steel for the new-build elements. The embodied carbon could have been further reduced had Dublin Fire Brigade’s interpretation of the building regulations not resulted in a rejection of cross-laminated timber construction. Sagely, John Casey of CORA mused that structural engineers could make significant embodied carbon saving by simply avoiding unnecessary over-engineering.

Described by Reyner Banham in 1961 as ‘a singular edifice’, the regeneration of Sheffield’s Park Hill is now taking place in multiple phases, the second of which has been masterfully undertaken by Mikhail Riches. In the day’s third session, Annalie Riches outlined their embodied carbon-led approach to retrofitting the Grade II listed brutalist icon, an innovative and ambitious typology comprising ‘streets in the sky’, wide enough for an adapted milk float and serving three floors of apartments. Drawing on the personal touches added by residents over the years, coloured render has been applied to balcony walls which work tonally with the existing brickwork facades and has the benefit of improving thermal and acoustic performance. The result is a 61% improvement in upfront embodied carbon when compared with new build, and a fully occupied development which brings new life to a part of the city hitherto in decline.

Continuing the theme of post-war housing, Ali Grehan and Sabrina Decker presented Dublin City Council’s large-scale retrofit projects currently in the pipeline, including the particularly deprived north inner city blocks of Constitution Hill and Dominic Street. Admitting that historically the council’s decision-making process for demolition was not influenced by considerations for embodied carbon, DCC are now aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 rather than the national target of 2050.

The decarbonisation of entire regions, not just towns or cities, is the focus of the South East Energy Agency. CEO Paddy Phelan believes we can look to our northern European neighbours for precedents in utilising windfarm- or biofuel-powered district heating plants. However, high costs, especially at the domestic scale, are currently preventing wide-scale implementation of retrofit regionally.

The day’s penultimate session revolved around reuse and retrofit in the commercial sector. Speaking of the role adaptive retrofit has in achieving carbon neutrality in the near future, James Todd and Ben Humphries of UK practice Architype noted ‘80% of buildings that will be here in 2050 already exist’. Their exemplar retrofit project, Entopia, is not considered an ordinary project in its ambition and scope, but it is one that should be.

What became apparent over the course of the day is how technically onerous achieving a zero carbon future will be and just how important it is to quickly implement this skillset across the profession. Rachel Hoolahan from Orms took it upon herself to upskill, proactively engaging with suppliers and fellow professionals to make strides in terms of circularity in the construction industry. Similarly, Building Change is embarking on a cultural shift in architectural education in order to equip Irish architecture students with the skills to be future leaders in climate action. This includes embedding carbon literacy and adaptive retrofit as a fundamental of the design studio curriculum, as opposed to a parallel or ancillary module.

Despite the barriers that currently discourage retrofit and other low-carbon construction options, throughout the day there was a palpable positivity around the future of the built environment and its ability to deal with the severity of the climate challenge. In her closing address, RIAI President Charlotte Sheridan remarked that our development as architects is never static, we are always on a learning curve. Her heartfelt thank you to her husband and fellow architect is a reminder of the passion with which architects approach the profession.