Unbuilt highlights the overlooked or forgotten beauties of place, encouraging communities to see a hopeful sustainable future for their local built heritage.
Unbuilt aims to develop a curated online database of architecture theses categorised by location in order to harness the artistic power of unseen projects facilitating an inclusive dialogue on locality, connecting people to place.
National
Ireland
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It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
As individual(s) in partnership with organisation(s)
First name: Róisín Last name: Cahill Gender: Female Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: The Irish Architecture Foundation is an independent organisation dedicated to the promotion of architecture as culture. Age: 24 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Ireland Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 1 Pyro Villas Town: Dublin 8 Postal code: D08X8X5 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 89 948 3775 E-mail:roisin.e.cahill@gmail.com
First name: Jessica Last name: Keller Gender: Female Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: The Irish Architecture Foundation is an independent organisation dedicated to the promotion of architecture as culture. Age: 26 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Ireland If relevant, please select your other nationality: Ireland Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Apartment 8, Wicklow court, Town: South Great Georges street, Dublin 2 Postal code: D02FF10 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 86 377 7907 E-mail:jessica.m.klr@gmail.com
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Yes
New European Bauhaus or European Commission websites
Unbuilt highlights the overlooked or forgotten beauties of place, empowering communities to see a hopeful future for their local built heritage.
Carefully curated site-specific knowledge rests bound in architecture theses in universities across Ireland, unknown to the communities they concern. Architecture theses have a creative optimism undiluted by the constraints of construction and market viability, that although may never be built, if shared, have the power to strengthen local pride and connection to place.
Unbuilt harnesses the ever growing body of student work on an opt-in basis, providing public access to visual and written summaries of the theses online. Unbuilt aims to develop a website, a dynamic online database of architecture theses, categorised by location that is accessible to the general public. Sharing the unbuilt reimaginings of place provokes a re-evaluation of place and promotes an inclusive dialogue on our built environment. Unbuilt supports the forming of new networks and strengthening of relationships between graduate architectural work and local communities – connecting ideas, people and place.
The creation of the Unbuilt website is ongoing but requires additional funding. Unbuilt is a recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland's Engaging with Architecture Award 2022. Unbuilt is supported by the mentorship of the Irish Architecture Foundation.
Community
Engagement
Optimism
Future
Empowerment
Unbuilt empowers local communities to see the beauty of their built cultural heritage. The project connects stakeholders with unconstrained architectural reimaginings of their locality that view the built environment as both a cultural placemaking asset & a bank of embodied carbon.
Embodied carbon is pivotal to achieving The European Green Deal’s target of net zero emissions by 2050. In order to reduce the built environment's negative contribution to global warming we must reduce embodied carbon emissions through the principles of circularity. Unbuilt strives to strengthen communities & local attachment to place. Strong communities with a sense of belonging to their built heritage enable circular economies by supporting the adaptive reuse of outdated buildings rather than demolition, therefore utilising embodied carbon. The ability to see beauty in underutilised spaces provides urban areas with opportunities to sustainably adapt to accommodate diverse growing populations.
The key objectives of Unbuilt are:
1. To engage communities with the unseen value & potential of their built environment to spark ambitious & inclusive dialogue on the localities sustainable future
2. To support the development of socially sustainable communities by strengthening community pride & sense of belonging
3. To encourage the adaptive reuse of building stock in order to reduce embodied carbon emissions through the principles of circularity
4. To enable architectural graduates to meaningfully participate in shaping a beautiful sustainable future through the sharing of ideas
5. To be a replicable & inclusive tool for engaging communities with their built heritage
Our project is exemplary because it recognises & empowers undervalued architectural thesis to highlight the beauty & hope in disregarded aspects of our diverse built heritage. This is achieved by sharing unrealised designs in order to develop sustainable communities with a strong sense of belonging.
Unbuilt provides a transformative experience of familiar places through our online database. The maps API would visually communicate re-imagined futures of sites around Ireland. The objective of each aesthetic & knowledge rich architectural projection is to offer local stakeholders with new perspectives through a transformative experience, reinforcing a sense of place & belonging through creative projected futures.
In the early stages of Unbuilt, we engaged with our target audience to ensure we understood what would engage users & enhance their experience. By interacting with both activist community groups & graduate architects, we were able to narrow down our focus for our online database functions to make it accessible for everyone.
We shared our vision by creating mock-ups of the website ourselves, focusing on use of colour, typography, & imagery to create a visually appealing design. One of the most important things we learnt within these workshops was the importance of usability. Through discussing the website structure with our target audience we knew that Unbuilt should be easy to use & navigate, with clear instructions & intuitive interfaces to make users feel confident in interacting with their locality online.
Once we were able to share these images we received great engagement from these workshops. It allowed the participants to feel empowered by their work, & connected with their community which is important to the aims of Unbuilt.
We know that Unbuilt has a lot more iterations to come, this funding would be imperative to ensure we continuously monitor the design & gather feedback to improve the experience over time. We believe our project has the potential to be innovative & thought-provoking, which can inspire everyone to think differently about their locality & consider new & exciting ideas.
Inclusion is a core value of Unbuilt as the project aims to initiate an inclusive dialogue between diverse communities & stakeholders on the beautiful sustainable future of our built heritage, as follows:
- Unbuilt transcends the well established boundaries of discipline to share graduates’ ambitious reimaginings of locality, promoting a playful re-evaluation of a place through an online website
- The online database of architectural thesis summaries shares conceptual student work with the communities they concern through concise descriptions & powerful graphics
- The website provides access to information traditionally restricted to architectural disciplines & universities, inviting those not regularly involved in placemaking into the conversation
- The website is to be designed with accessibility as the leading consideration. To ensure the website is accessible & useful to local communities & graduate architects alike, the applicants will continue to deliver high quality focus groups
- To date development focus groups have been carried out with community groups & graduate architects
- The website will be a framework for graduate architects to directly contribute to architectural discourse & support the growth of built environment stakeholder networks, as thesis authors' contacts may be requested through the website
- The project mentor, The Curator of Learning at the Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF) enables graduate architects to be at the core of the project as once established, the website will be passed on to the IAF Graduate Panel, a collective voice of graduate architects who will moderate the website in coming years
- The outreach of the IAF enables unbuilt to connect with community groups across Ireland
Unbuilt is exemplary in inclusivity as it opens the knowledge silos of discipline & formal education to provide equal opportunities for all citizens to engage in the considering their localities' future.
Unbuilt connects two citizen groups, the general public & built environment professionals or, students.
General Public:
Unbuilt’s aims to overcome the barriers of discipline to support an inclusive & accessible dialog on the sustainable future of our built environment. Providing local communities with access to unbuilt architectural designs & powerful graphic reimaginings of their built heritage online invites the general public to conveniently engage with architectural discourse.
Built Environment Professionals & Students:
Unbuilt is beneficial for recent built environment graduates & students as it provides a platform to meaningfully contribute to architectural discourse. Unbuilt promotes the sharing of ideas & interests, supporting the formation of networks across the country & across disciplines.
As the Unbuilt website is not yet developed, Unbuilt is hosting a public workshop in the highly visible Science Gallery in Dublin city centre on February 11th. The Unbuilt workshop aims to facilitate a direct conversation between the general public & built environment professionals based on the sharing of architectural theses from around Ireland. While we seek further funding to create the digital aspect of Unbuilt.ie, the event moves forward to progress Unbuilt’s objectives.
The wokshop has been widely advertised via social media, universities & the Irish Architecture Foundation public engagement network to invite a range of attendees to explore the overlooked & forgotten beauty of our communities. The Unbuilt workshop aims to momentarily transcend the barriers of discipline & promote public engagement with the future of the built environment. The workshop enables the general public & built environment professionals to gather, share & discuss our sustainable future.
It was critical for a public facing project like Unbuilt to have Stakeholder engagement early on in the project to ensure that we were meeting the target audiences needs & expectations.
From our meetings with community activist groups, council members, & graduate architects, we gained a more complete understanding of our own project & its potential impact of creating awareness of vacant site opportunities in our locality. Getting their insight was invaluable, as we gained their perspective of issues that were identified in those meetings, we could address them for our next workshop.
- Imagine Dundrum Workshop (July 2022):
Imagine Dundrum is a community place-making initiative that agreed to participate in a workshop we held to gauge future public interaction with the website.
Their insights concluded that the dissemination of architecture thesis projects could be used as talking points for change in the community to county council groups in Ireland, even if the project is unrealised. Knowing that this functionality is important, we decided the short thesis entries would be able to be printed as a PDF from the website & shared.
- The IAF Undergraduate Panel Workshop (August 2022):
The Graduate Panel was established during lockdown as a way for recent architecture graduates in Ireland to connect & learn from each other & the IAF during a time of isolation & of career development from college to work.
This focus group was more interested in how their thesis work would be displayed & communicated to the general public. We discussed topics regarding the upload feature, moderation & navigation of the website. They also shared interest in filtering architecture thesis projects by tags.
By listening to the individual stakeholders we were able to create a website brief that we believe is all the better for it. As project coordinators, we strive to make Unbuilt a project that is aligned with the needs & expectations of all stakeholders.
The development of Unbuilt has been directed by conversation with & feedback from a range of stakeholders. Through engagement with each stakeholder group the needs & interests of each group have been identified & the development plan of Unbuilt refined to reflect the combined needs, while remaining true to the Unbuilt’s objectives:
Unbuilt Objectives:
- Promote an inclusive dialogue on our built environments sustainable future
- Strengthen community pride & sense of belonging
Community Activist Groups Insight:
Through focus groups with community activist groups we found the above objective of Unbuilt to correspond closely with the objective of community activist group, Imagine Dundrum. Feedback informed the format & content of Unbuilt as the community group highlighted an interest in accessing powerful graphics that clearly communicate the past, present or future beauty of their area. The community group had a strong interest in the potential of unbuilt architecture theses for raising awareness of overlooked values in their community to encourage others in the community to become involved & in participatory local development.
Unbuilt Objectives:
- To empower graduate architects to meaningfully contribute to the shaping of our sustainable future
Universities & Graduates Insight:
Discussion & focus groups with schools of architecture & recent graduates informed the Unbuilt website brief. It became clear through discussion that the format in which thesis summaries were displayed was important to the graduates as the website offers an opportunity to share their ideas publicly. There was also strong interest in providing contact details for each thesis author on the website so that a network of people interested in similar work may grow. The feedback from universities & graduates aligned with both Unbuilt’s objective to support the voice of graduates, & community group’s desire for clear information.
Current initiatives involving architectural theses in Ireland either store the theses in academic institutions or award exemplary student work, advertising the graduate within the discipline. Unbuilt is innovative as it transcends the well established boundaries of discipline to share the theses’ reimaginings of locality with the communities they concern. The project utilises an ever growing body of student work on an opt-in basis to promote an inclusive dialogue on our sustainable future.
Where other websites may catalogue the built environment, Unbuilt is a dynamic database of site specific architectural projections connecting the creative new perspectives of architectural graduates with the general public. The virtual capabilities of the project provides information access to all, a manifestation of inclusion, a core value & objective of the project, as Unbuilt aims to promote an open dialog on the potential of existing spaces in forming our sustainable future.
In 2022, Unbuilt was the recipient of the Engaging with Architecture award, in the assessment for this, the judges on behalf of the Arts Council of Ireland commented;
“Our architecture schools are hot houses for ideas that rarely get past the academic conversation, this proposal is potentially a gamechanger…
The proposal is very important for a wider architecture understanding in Ireland; media & television have limited the public perception of the role of the architect. This proposal critiques that position.”
Due to the ambitious nature of the project, developing the project objectives, key deliverables & communication strategies with mentorship the IAF is instrumental for its success as they strive to create some of Ireland’s most innovative events, projects, exhibitions & resources inspired by our built environment. Unbuilt enables a young generation to explore & contribute to placemaking & community building through the dissemination of ideas.
Unbuilt is a project to harness the untapped potential of student architectural work as a vehicle for the general public to engage with their surroundings, & imagine what a sustainable future may be. As Unbuilt is an online platform, the project can be both scaled & replicated to expand from the Isle of Ireland, & be implemented throughout Europe. The blueprint of Unbuilt could become a tool in which architectural graduates from all countries contribute their work to architectural discourse.
Replication of Unbuilt outside of Ireland should consider:
- Outreach & Engagement:
It is necessary to have communication links with each school of architecture.
As Unbuilt is co-founded by two graduate architects & supported by the Irish Architecture Foundations Graduate Panel, it has well established connections to each Irish Architecture School which will enable us to advertise an open call for graduates to upload their projects each year.
Public engagement is also essential for the success of the platform. Due to the mentorship of the Irish Architecture Foundation, Unbuilt has access to a communication network connecting community groups & local authorities across the country.
- Ongoing Operations & Moderation:
As the online database of theses is to expand each year it is necessary to have a moderation plan in place.
Unbuilt will be moderated each year by the Irish Architecture Foundation’s Graduate Panel & overseen by the two applicants. As the panel will be refreshed each year the website requires a user-friendly backend, ensuring future moderators can easily moderate thesis entries.
If Unbuilt was to be replicated or expanded across additional EU member states a network of country specific Unbuilts could be formed, uniting graduates & strengthening communications & idea dissemination across the EU.
Unbuilt aims to address the gap of sharing new architecture graduate work with the public in Ireland, on a local level. In doing so, it creates a ripple effect on some challenges that are faced on a global scale;
- Accessibility of information:
From the outside looking into a vacant site in Ireland, a member of the public might not realise how much research has been carried out on the potential of what lives next door. Providing access to traditionally restricted information from architectural disciplines & universities to the public, can get them involved & engaged with placemaking to re-imagine their locality. Seeing their locality in a different light can empower community spirit.
- Energy efficiency & sustainability:
There were over 90,000 dwellings vacant in Ireland last year according to The Residential Buildings Report for the fourth quarter of 2021 by GeoDirectory, & prepared by EY. Many graduate architects re-envision derelict properties for their thesis project as a vehicle to explore a hypothesis. Sharing these unrealised projects through Unbuilt enables a re-evaluation of place, encouraging circular economies by supporting the adaptive reuse of outdated buildings & vacant properties rather than demolition, therefore utilising embodied carbon.
- Integration of new technology:
Utilising current technologies & networks to share information that is currently being researched & practised in schools. Climate resilience is an important part of the architecture school curriculum in recent years. Using sustainable materials & re-use where possible is critical in the way that we build for the future. Highlighting this through “poster imaginings” of potential sites may influence & reinforce integration of new technology for building better cities.
In future, we believe there is a potential to share & replicate Unbuilt in different countries around the globe, to create a network of local graduate initiatives addressing these global challenges.
