Meet the Speakers

Fionnuala May served previously as RIAI Vice-President and is a member of RIAI Council. Fionnuala has contributed across many areas of the RIAI including education, conservation and governance. She has worked to strengthen the position of the Architect within the public service and private sector and to promote the role of Architecture in public policy.

Fionnuala trained as an architect in the Dublin Institute of Technology (now TU Dublin) and graduated in 1988. She worked in private practice on mainstream and conservation projects before undertaking the Master of Urban and Building Conservation degree in University College Dublin (awarded in 1994).

Fionnuala joined the public service as an Architect for Fingal County Council in 1994 and served as a Housing Architect 1994-2000, Conservation Officer from 2000-2006 and Public Buildings Architect 2006- 2011. Since then, she has held the post of County Architect.

Fionnuala holds accreditation as a Grade 1 Conservation Architect from the RIAI. She is a member of ICOMOS Ireland, the Heritage Contractors Registration Board, the IGS, and the Historic Building Committee of the RIAI. She serves on the board of the Heritage Council (2016-2025) and is a member of the Board of the Irish Architectural Archive.

Níall McLaughlin is an architect whose work spans education, culture, healthcare, religious buildings and housing. He was named Young British Architect of the Year in 1998.

In 2016 he was awarded the RIBA Charles Jencks Award for his contribution to architectural theory and practice. He was elected to Aosdána for his outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland and became a Royal Academy Academician in 2019. In 2020 he received an honorary MBE for services to architecture. His practice has been shortlisted four times for the RIBA Stirling Prize, winning in 2022 for the New Library at Magdalene College Library.

In spring 2026, he received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal.

Conor Sreenan is responsible for leading the Architectural Services team within the Office of Public Works (OPW); setting standards, ensuring high-quality enduring outcomes, and guiding the team’s continuous development. Conor also has an advisory role across Government departments and to their agencies/ aegis bodies. He is a policy advisor to Government with respect to architecture and the built environment. On behalf of the Office of Public Works’ team, he represents Ireland at the European Directors on Architectural Policy. A graduate of University College Dublin and the University College Dublin Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, he has overseen the delivery of award-winning places and spaces both in Ireland and internationally, alongside project partners in the public and private sector, over the past 25 years.

Conor is a member of the Irish Government Construction Contracts Committee and is a Board member of the Irish Architectural Archive.

Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman is a research-based urban and architectural design practice based at the University of California, San Diego, investigating borders and migration, informal urbanisation, emergency housing, bioregional climate resilience, civic infrastructure and public culture. Their work has been exhibited across the world, including the Museum of Modern Art; c; Das Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; M+ Hong Kong and the Venice Architectural Biennale. Their work has received the Ford Foundation Visionaries Award, the U.S. Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award, the Vilcek Prize in Architecture, and most recently the 2026 U.S. National Design Award, among others. They have two recent monographs: Spatializing Justice: Building Blocks (MIT 2022) and Socialising Architecture: Top-Down / Bottom-Up (MIT 2023).

Teddy Cruz (MDes Harvard) is a Professor of Public Culture and Spatial Practice in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego.

Fonna Forman (PhD University of Chicago) is a Professor of Political Theory at the University of California, San Diego and Founding Director of the UCSD Centre on Global Justice.

HARQUITECTES is an architecture studio established in 2000 and based in Barcelona. It is managed by four partner architects: David Lorente Ibáñez, Josep Ricart Ulldemolins, Xavier Ros Majó and Roger Tudó Galí, who count on an ample team of collaborators, such as architects, interior designers and students.

All of them were licensed between 1998 and 2000 in ETSAV (UPC), where Josep and Roger teach. Xavier also teaches at the ETSA Barcelona.

Their work has received many awards – for built works and in architectural ideas competitions – and it has been published in many national and international media. They have also been selected for various exhibitions and invited as teachers and lecturers in Europe and America.

heneghan peng architects is a design partnership practising architecture, landscape and urban design. The practise was founded by Shih-Fu Peng and Róisín Heneghan in New York (1999) and, after a significant competition win in Ireland, relocated to Dublin (2001). In 2011, heneghan peng architects opened a Berlin Studio. They continue to work internationally from Dublin.

Shih-Fu Peng, FRIAI and AIA, is an architect and co-founder of heneghan peng architects. He studied at Cornell University and Harvard University, where his studies under Colin Rowe and Rafael Moneo developed his interest in the relationship between place and architectural design.

Róisín Heneghan, FRIAI and AKB, is an architect and co-founder of the practice. She studied at University College Dublin and Harvard University and previously worked as a senior partner at Michael Graves, completing cultural, commercial, and university projects internationally.

Together, Shih-Fu and Róisín oversee the design work of the practice, focusing on the relationship between buildings and their locations, urban integration, and spatial organisation. Both are involved in architectural education, lectures, critiques, and competition juries internationally.

Valerie Mulvin is a co-founder of McCullough Mulvin Architects, a Dublin-based practice focusing on the design of sustainable cultural, educational and civic buildings, with an interest in innovative contemporary architecture, place, and history. Award-winning buildings in Ireland and internationally include; Trinity Long Room Hub, Dublin Dental School & Hospital, Waterford Fire Station, Butler Gallery, Medieval Mile Museum, Printing House Square Student Housing, and the Learning Laboratory in Thapar University, India.  She is currently working on a series of critical buildings in Dublin at 11 Parnell Square, the old Fever Hospital on Infirmary Road and the Old Library in Trinity College.

Valerie’s work is extended by publications, teaching and research, and has been exhibited internationally. Her book Approximate Formality – Morphology of Irish Towns discusses the origin, originality and potential of towns and town plans in Ireland, and this research currently forms part of the touring exhibition The Reason of Towns, a collaboration with the Irish Architecture Foundation.

Valerie is a member of Aosdána.

Professor Wulf Daseking, Dipl. Ing. Architect BDA / AoU, is an urban planner and former Chief Planning Officer for the City of Freiburg, a position he held from 1984 to 2012. He studied Architecture and Urban Planning at the Technical University of Hannover and received a DAAD scholarship at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich. His professional career includes roles as Head of Urban Planning in Mülheim/Ruhr and Freiburg, where he focused on urban development, inner city planning, public spaces, citizen participation, and the implementation of more than 150 zoning plans. He was responsible for major projects including Rieselfeld, Vauban, and the development of Freiburg’s central areas. Wulf Daseking is a member of the Association of German Architects (BDA), the Architectural Association of Baden-Württemberg, and the Academy of Urban Development and Regional Planning in Berlin.

He is an honorary member of the Academy of Urbanism in London and has served as a jury member for more than 100 planning and design competitions. He has held teaching positions at universities in Germany and the UK, lectured internationally, and published widely on urban development. His work promotes compact cities with mixed social structures, mixed-use development, public transport-oriented growth, citizen participation, and the importance of public spaces in creating sustainable and socially balanced cities.

Kirsten Lees is a collaborative design leader who elucidates exceptional solutions to projects through a process of consultation and exploration. With over 25 years' experience, she joined the practice in 1997 and has since led some of Grimshaw's most significant cultural, sports, and master planning projects, such as the Arter Contemporary Art Museum, the Wimbledon 2020 Master Plan and No 1 Court, the Curragh Racecourse, and the Gilston Park Estate Master Plan.

Kirsten is also an experienced practice leader: she held the role of Managing Partner of Grimshaw’s London studio from 2018 to 2022 and is now Managing Partner of the Paris studio. Kirsten led the London practice through a period of significant growth and a global pandemic, and worked to expand the previous project office in Paris into a full studio.

She won Best Woman Architect at the 2022 WICE awards, receiving a special commendation as Most Distinguished Winner, and was shortlisted for BD Architectural Leader of the Year in 2020.

Diarmaid Ferriter is Professor and Chair of Modern Irish History at UCD and author of numerous books, including The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 (2004), Judging Dev (2008), Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland (2009), Ambiguous Republic: Ireland in the 1970s (2012), The Border: The Legacy of a Century of Anglo-Irish Politics (2019), On The Edge: Ireland’s Offshore Islands: a Modern History (2018) and Between Two Hells: The Irish Civil War (2021). His most recent book is The Revelation of Ireland 1995-2020 (2024). He is a regular television and radio broadcaster, a weekly columnist with the Irish Times, and co-presenter, with Catríona Crowe, of the Irish history podcast What Were We Like?  In 2019 he was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy, Ireland’s highest academic honour, for being “the most consistently innovative interpreter of the modern Irish historical experience”.

Ruth Schagemann is Managing Director of the Brussels Liaison Office of the Federal Chamber of  German Architects (BAK). She served as President of the Architects’ Council of Europe (2022-2025).  An architect trained at the University of Stuttgart, she works at the interface of professional regulation, 
EU policy and architecture.

She also coordinates the European Network of Architects’ Competent  Authorities (ENACA), promotes Baukultur, high-quality planning and the role of architects in shaping sustainable cities and rural areas.

Seán Harrington is a director of Seán Harrington Architects in Dublin.

Seán has a great interest in people-focused urban design, streetscape design and place-making.

Infrastructure and transportation projects have often been central to urban design and connectivity projects for the practice. These have included several bridges for active travel and public transport around Ireland, including in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Athlone.

Current work includes two new opening bridges in Dublin’s docklands, several new cycling bridges and the new Waterford Railway and Transport Hub, due for completion this year.

Recently, the practice was delighted to win the Low Carbon Bridge international design competition for the Lower Thames Crossing in the UK, in close collaboration with ARUP.

Dr Carole Pollard is a Fellow and Past President of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland. She was Chair of the RIAI Conservation Accreditation Taskforce, which developed new RIAI Conservation Standards and a new accreditation system for architects in conservation practice.

Carole taught at the School of Architecture at TU Dublin until 2023 and in 2024 was appointed Convenor for the re-established RIAI Professional Practice Examination programme. In 2022, Carole completed a PhD at UCD on the life and work of Irish architect Andrew Devane and his office-block architecture in 1960s/70s Dublin. Carole’s MA thesis on architect Liam McCormick resulted in the publication: Liam McCormick, Seven Donegal Churches (Gandon Editions, 2011).

Carole joined the Dublin City Council ‘20th-Century Architecture in Dublin City’ research team in 2014, contributing to Volumes 1 and 2 of More Than Concrete Blocks (FCP, 2016 and 2019). She was co-editor, with Ellen Rowley of More Than Concrete Blocks Volume 3 (UCD Press, 2023). Carole was the co-ordinating editor for the Irish entries in The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopaedia of Women in Architecture 1960-2010 (Bloomsbury, 2025) and was co-editor of Dublin A City in Crisis (RIAI, 2024). Other recent publications include ‘Letters from America: Andrew Devane 1945–1956’, in Building Material 23 (AAI, 2020); ‘Bord na Móna settlements in the 1950s’, in Out of the Ordinary – Irish Housing Design 1950–1980 (Routledge, 2020); and ‘A lifelong affair – Liam McCormick and Imogen Stuart’, in Modern Religious Architecture in Germany, Ireland and Beyond (Bloomsbury, 2019).

She is currently working on a book about Irish twentieth-century women architects to be published by the RIAI in 2027.

Séamus is an architect, and director with RKD.

He has worked on a variety of complex commercial projects from inception through to completion, working with teams, clients, and stakeholders at all levels. Séamus is an RIAI Council member representing architects in the private sector, and chairperson of the Architecture and Public Affairs committee. He has previously tutored in UCD, and currently teaches in the RIAI PPE part three course.

Jennifer Boyer is an architect, educator and policy adviser whose work connects architectural education, professional practice and public policy.

At Technological University Dublin, she leads cross-sectoral partnerships with government, higher education, professional bodies, industry, and communities, with a focus on climate action, sustainability, and education.

A Registered Architect and former international practice director, Jennifer has led multidisciplinary teams delivering major urban development and social infrastructure projects across Ireland, the UK, Central Europe and Russia. Her particular expertise lies in strategic partnerships, collaborative innovation and translating public policy priorities into practical programmes and institutional change.

Jennifer conceived and sponsored Building Change, the Higher Education Authority-supported national human-capital initiative uniting Ireland’s six Schools of Architecture to embed climate action, housing and social responsibility within architectural education. 

In 2026, the initiative received an International Union of Architects Innovation in Education Award. Its work has informed the revised RIAI Education Policy and Framework and contributed to European discussions on strengthening climate competence within architects’ professional qualifications.

She contributes to government and sectoral working groups on climate, sustainability and the built environment. 

Cian was appointed County Architect at South Dublin County Council (SDCC) in 2023 after previously holding senior positions in SDCC, Dublin City Council and Ballymun Regeneration Limited. He holds qualifications in Architectural Technology and Architecture from the Dublin Institute of Technology (now TUD) and is a member of the RIAI.

He leads the design, management and oversight of building projects across the council, ensuring regulatory compliance and integrating high-quality design and placemaking in the fabric of the county, with a role that encompasses responsibility for full project lifecycles from concept and stakeholder engagement through detailed design, cost management, procurement and delivery.  Key areas of recent project delivery include a wide range of social and affordable housing schemes, as well as community facilities, enterprise, tourism and public realm projects.

Cian’s strategic approach translates policy priorities into outcomes aligned to the council’s corporate purpose of creating greater opportunity for all and its vision of being a place that meets the needs and ambitions of everyone in South Dublin.