Meet the Speakers

Floris will discuss ‘Learning from Towns’ in a special session, chaired by the Irish Free Market Team. As Chief Government Architect of the Netherlands he is responsible for the architectural quality of central government buildings. The Chief Government Architect can also take the initiative to advise the government on any given architectural, urban or landscape issue that he considers to be important. The Chief Government Architect is also chairman of the Board of Government Advisors, which advises the government on spatial quality. Since he graduated under Rem Koolhaas at the Delft TU, Floris Alkemade has been associated with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) for 18 years, including the past 7 years as a partner. He has been working on large projects and studies all over the world, at the scale level of architecture as well as that of urban development. Well known projects include Euralille, a large area development round the new TGV station in Lille, and in the Netherlands in the new Almere City Centre. Floris Alkemade combines his job as Chief Government Architect with his work for his architectural FAA and BAU+ – operating from the Netherlands and France – and his lectureship at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. He was also curator of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam in 2018. Floris Alkemade was chosen Architect of the year by the Dutch professional community in 2018.

Jennifer Boyer, MRIAI, is a Registered Architect and Assistant Head of School at the Dublin School of Architecture, Technological University Dublin, Bolton Street.  Jennifer will discuss on Saturday 5 October the role that Architectural Education can play in Climate Change Action.

As Assistant Head of School she leads the architecture lecturing team in developing their suite of student centred professional and research programmes in Architecture. The Bachelor of Architecture (B Arch) programme is a first choice for Irish and International undergraduate students. The success of the B Arch programme has lead the way for the Master of Architecture (M Arch) programme which was launched in January 2017. 

Jennifer graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Architecture in 2001 and sat her Professional Registration exams at UCD in 2007. Upon moving to Dublin in 2002, she began teaching in the 5th year thesis Architectural Design Studio at DIT Bolton Street as a part time lecturer while working in private practice.  In 2007, she became an Associate Director with Murray O’Laoire Architects.

She led the practice’s Central European office in Bratislava until 2010 when she took up a full-time teaching position as an Assistant Lecturer in DIT Bolton Street. After completing her postgraduate diploma in third level learning and teaching in 2012, Jennifer began her MBA at the Michael Smurfit School of Business as an Aspire Scholar. In 2015 Jennifer organised and curated a series of workshops for educators on BIM in Architectural Education which culminated in 2016 with the Symposium Future Education/Future Practice. Jennifer’s research interests are practice based and reside within the emerging business models of sustainable practice in architecture.

Dr Sabina Brennan is a psychologist, neuroscientist, award-winning science communicator and author of the No 1 best-seller 100 Days to a Younger Brain. Dr Brennan’s scientific research at Trinity College Dublin has focused on brain health and dementia risk and protective factors to establish how decline in cognitive function might be prevented or delayed.

Dr Brennan is also an award-winning science communicator and her public engagement projects include quirky animations, which aim to increase the societal impact of scientific research by translating complex content into easy-to-understand resources for the general public and key stakeholders. Her mission to promote brain health has won her awards for science communication and recognition of the societal impact of her work. Most recently she was listed as one of IMAGE magazine’s Women of the Year 2018.

Sabina is a passionate advocate and volunteers on multiple committees and panels including SAGE (advocacy for vulnerable older adults), The Advocacy Committee for Alzheimer Society of Ireland and is a member of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Panel for Alzheimer’s Disease International – a global voice for dementia. She has advised the Irish Government on promoting brain health and is currently advising the All Party Parliamentary Group on Longevity in the United Kingdom.

Economist Marc Coleman will discuss ‘What’s Next for Ireland’s Economy?’ as part of a ’Future Session’ at the RIAI Conference on Saturday 5 October. Marc Coleman predicted the economic crisis as Irish Times Economics Editor between 2005 and 2007 and subsequently Ireland’s robust recovery in commentary for the Sunday Independent and Newstalk. He also forecast these developments in two bestselling books, the first of which correctly predicted (in 2007) Ireland’s subsequent population growth and called for investment and regional and urban planning reform to stave off a housing crisis.

Formerly with the European Central Bank and Department of Finance, Marc has also recently represented Ireland’s International Financial Services sector as Director of Ibec’s ‘Financial Services Ireland’ association and was instrumental in leading that sector’s response to Brexit and in establishing the government’s first strategy for the sector, IFS 2020. Marc’s books have been praised by, amongst others, TK Whitaker, Peter Sutherland and Dr. Paul Tansey. He was the first economist to write a bestselling book, linking together – and advocating a cohesive strategy to simultaneously addressing – Ireland’s housing crisis and spatial imbalance on one hand and carbon footprint challenge on the other. He has been published in the Financial Times, Irish Times, Sunday Independent, London Times, Scotsman and Le Monde and has appeared on RTE, TV3, ZDF and other television channels.

Ciarán is an architect and planner. Since 1991 he has served as a Dublin City Councillor, TD for Dún Laoghaire, and Minister of State with responsibility for sustainable transport and climate change. In government he reformed the Irish planning system to limit rezoning, link transport and planning decisions and focus on evidence-led decision-making.

He set up an MSc Programme in Urban Regeneration at TU Dublin. In 2019 he graduated with an MSc in Cities from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the Dublin Constituency. He is passionate about walkable, bikeable and liveable cities.

Andrée Dargan is the County Architect at Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council where she is a member of the Council’s Management Team and heads up the Architects’ Department which provides a broad range of building related services in the areas of Housing, Civic Buildings, Public Realm, Urban Design, Energy, Conservation and Dangerous Buildings. Andrée is the nominated Energy Performance Officer for DLR as defined under Public Sector – Energy Efficiency Strategy and is a fellow of the RIAI. She has for many years been an advocate for low energy building design and will discuss the energy efficiency strategy of DLR as well as projects that have won the RIAI Sustainability Award.

Jane is an architect and founding Director of Arigho Larmour Wheeler Architects, a cross-border Irish practice established in 2014, together with Mark Arigho and Patrick Wheeler. With studios in Belfast and Dublin, Arigho Larmour Wheeler Architects are engaged in designing at a range of scales for domestic and commercial clients across Ireland and committed to finding creative yet pragmatic design solutions that add beauty and value through sustainable thinking. Jane is a member of both the RIAI and RIBA. In addition to being a member of RSUA Council, where she chairs the Value of an Architect sub-group, Jane has been elected as the RIBA Regional Representative for Northern Ireland on the RIBA Council.

A graduate of both Queen’s University Belfast and University College Dublin, Jane is a Lecturer in Architecture at QUB where she currently co-runs a Masters Studio with a particular focus on adaptation and conservation of place. Jane undertook postgraduate research studies in Architectural History at Ulster University and contributed to the Royal Irish Academy publication on The Art and Architecture of Ireland. www.alwarchitects.com

The theme of the 2019 RIAI Conference is Climate Change | Placemaking | Housing and we are delighted to announce that Jo McCafferty, a Director with Levitt Bernstein Architects and co-author of The Housing Design Handbook, will address the conference and discuss innovative housing solutions on Friday 4 October.

Jo McCafferty has been a Director of Levitt Bernstein since 2006. With vast experience of designing and delivering innovative housing, she is adept at steering projects through complex planning processes and advising clients on design and quality standards. Her key role has been to champion imaginative design solutions in housing at masterplanning and detailed design scales; an approach that has been rewarded with numerous competition-winning schemes that she has seen through from inception to completion. Jo spoke earlier this year also at the RIAI and DHPLG National Housing Conference.

Denise Murray, MRIAI, is a Senior Associate at Metropolitan Workshop Dublin. She has over 15 years’ experience of working on complex, urban projects in Ireland, the UK and France.  Housing has been at the heart of many of these projects and Denise will speak as part of the ‘Housing’ session on Friday 4 October. Working with private and public sector clients, she has a particular interest in urban regeneration and engaging with multiple stakeholders to create successful places. She has delivered a number of award-winning schemes in the UK that have set a high bench mark in terms of how the design has been developed in close consultation with stakeholders and the public. Denise is also a Design Fellow at University College Dublin where she shares her interests in urban issues with the students.

Award-winning architect Lorcan O’Herlihy – with offices in LA and Detroit – will deliver a keynote at the RIAI Annual Conference on 4 October. Lorcan will speak on the theme of ‘Social Occupation’, saying “as architects, we have a responsibility to cities and the people who occupy them”. His presentation will highlight the idea that architecture is a social act – a tool for engaging in politics, economics, aesthetics, and smart growth. As global cities become denser and the need for housing greater, it is more critical than ever to design spaces that promote equity, human interaction, and cultural evolution. Since founding his firm in 1994, Lorcan O’Herlihy, FAIA has utilised architecture as a catalyst of change to shape and enrich the complex, urban landscape of our contemporary cities. The work of his firm, Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA), is guided by a conscious understanding that architecture operates within a layered context of political, developmental, environmental, and social structures. With studios in Los Angeles and Detroit, LOHA has built over 90 projects across three continents.

Monica von Schmalensee is a senior partner and architect at White Arkitekter. In her role as CEO of the company from 2010-2017 she established the practice internationally and doubled its size. She continues to develop the practice in her current role as senior strategic advisor. Monica was awarded Community Builder of Year 2016 by the organisation ‘Swedish professionals for the built environment’ and in 2017 she was named the second most powerful person in Swedish architecture and design by publication Tidskriften Rum. Since 2017 she is one of the Mayor’s Design Advocates, a collection of individuals who are called upon to support the Mayor of London and his staff in the delivery of the Good Growth by Design agenda, through advocacy, critique and research.

During 2018 Monica was appointed by the Swedish Government as Chair of the “Sustainable Cities Council” and she was recently appointed new Chair of the Board at the Form / Design Center. Monica is often engaged as a keynote speaker at a wide range of renowned international conferences.

John Tuomey, FRIAI, co-founder of award-winning architects O’Donnell + Tuomey will speak on Saturday 5 October on ‘Creating a Culture of Quality Architecture’. John graduated from UCD and worked in London with James Stirling. He returned to Dublin to work at the Office of Public Works. He co-founded O’Donnell + Tuomey with Sheila O’Donnell in 1988. He was a member of Group 91, the architects’ collaborative responsible for the regeneration of Temple Bar as Dublin’s cultural quarter. He was the inaugural Professor of Architectural Design at UCD, where he taught for 40 years. He has taught and lectured at schools of architecture in Europe and the USA. O’Donnell + Tuomey received the RIAI Gold Medal for Ranelagh School. He was joint recipient with Sheila O’Donnell of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Brunner Prize, both awarded in recognition of a lifetime’s work. http://odonnell-tuomey.ie/

Fresh from their national tour, the Free Market team will join the RIAI Annual Conference on Friday 4 and Saturday 5 October with specially curated sessions on ‘Learning from Towns’. Free Market, the Irish National Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, won widespread acclaim for its exploration of the unique identity of Irish rural towns when it showed at the Biennale. In 2019, the vital role that market towns play in the life of rural communities will be celebrated and explored with local communities in four Irish towns: Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan; Macroom, Co. Cork; Mountmellick, Co. Laois; and Killmallock, Co. Limerick. 

The Free Market team are: Jeffrey Bolhuis, architect, co-founder of AP+E and studio tutor at the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment, TU Delft; Jo Anne Butler, multi-disciplinary designer, and creative director and designer at Superfolk; Miriam Delaney, architect and lecturer at the Dublin School of Architecture, TU Dublin; Tara Kennedy, architect, co-founder of Culturstruction, and lecturer at Cork Centre for Architectural Education; Laurence Lord, architect, co-founder of AP+E, lecturer at Queens University Belfast; and Orla Murphy, architect, founder of Custom and Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy in University College Dublin. http://freemarket.ie/

Phil Prentice is Chief Officer of Scotland’s Towns Partnership and Programme Director of Scotland’s Improvement Districts. He considers it core to his role to ensure a collaborative community is built to support and promote the development of Scotland's towns. Prior to his appointment to STP in November 2014, Phil headed up Economic Development, Regeneration and Employability services within East Renfrewshire Council. He has also worked as a senior executive for Scottish Enterprise and in the private sector. A graduate of the Universities of Ulster, West of Scotland and Glasgow, Phil is now focussed on helping city districts, towns and smaller settlements across the country.

Giulia Vallone MRIAI, Senior Architect, Capital Projects Implementation Unit, Cork County Council. 

Giulia Vallone graduated as an Architect from the University of Palermo and has been working with the Irish Local Authorities since 2002.

She holds a passionate belief in the role of the Civic Architect to provide, through quality design, the required vision and leadership for shaping better communities. 

For over a decade, in her former role as town architect for Cork County Council, Giulia has applied her native Italian public space sensibilities and by working closely with local communities, elected members, officials has established a new focus on excellence in public works for small to medium sized towns to deliver urban design masterplans that create people friendly places and nurture civic stewardship

She is an advocate for people centred collaborative design processes and place-making measures to promote people re-inhabiting the streets of the Irish towns that are under depopulation and economical pressure too often generated by ill considered out-of-town retail development and traffic focus road design. 

In the last few years Giulia has been collaborating with the Office of Public Works and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (the funding agents of infrastructure projects like drainage, national roads and flood relief schemes), where she implements an architectural design approach aiming to deliver “multi-functional infrastructure” for public amenity and community outcomes.

Her work with Cork County Council and local communities has won many national and international design awards, in particular the reimagining of Clonakilty, winner of the RIAI Public Choice Awards 2014, RIAI Best Place of the year 2017, Academy of Urbanism “great town” award 2017, The Irish Design Institute Award 2017 and the Gubbio prize 2018. 

Giulia is an active member of the Royal Institute of Architects Ireland, RIAI Urban Design Committee, The Academy of Urbanism and Cost Action researcher- “people friendly cities, in a data-rich world”- where she has researched on the Italian historical walled town of Lucca.

The title of the presentation will be “Shaping the new National Policy on Architecture”.  

Short bio: “Nessa Roche is a Senior Architectural Advisor with the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, with a doctorate in architectural conservation from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh (1999). She has published on Irish architectural history and conservation, with a speciality in windows and glass. She wrote the Department’s Windows Advice Series booklet (2007), project managed the Places of Worship booklet (2010) and was one of the editors of the statutory Architectural Heritage Protection Guidelines (2004). She managed the Department’s review of the operation of Part IV of the Planning and Development Act (published 2016). She also was centrally involved in preparing the National Landscape Strategy (2015). Nessa is currently responsible for developing the new architectural policy and is also working on a strategy for cultural heritage skills development in Ireland and the EU.”

Andrew Griffin, BArch, MRIAI will contribute to the ‘Ireland 2017’ future session of the RIAI Conference on Saturday 5 October. Andrew was born in Ireland, studied at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen and graduated from the Dublin School of Architecture with first class honours. He is a member of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland. Before co-founding Urban Agency he was a partner for five years at JDS architects. Andrew has also worked at PLOT, OMA and FKL Architects.  Andrew has taught and lectured all over the world and is currently a 5th year Tutor at the School of Architecture University of Limerick (SAUL).