Playfully Reimagining Place
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
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Project Description
Playfully Reimagining Place aims to harness the creative optimism of graduate’s architecture theses to provoke a re-imagining or re-evaluation of a place. Our ambition is to empower communities by facilitating an inclusive dialogue through interactive exhibitions.
This project is an initiative of the Irish Architecture Foundation’s Graduate Panel, a collective of graduate architects, who collaborate through peer learning, to contribute toward shaping an inclusive and sustainable future.
Geographical Scope
Project Region
Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
EU Programme or fund
Which funds
Description of the project
Summary
Carefully curated site specific knowledge rests bound in architecture theses in academic institutions across Ireland, unknown to the communities they concern. The objective of our project, Playfully Reimagining Place is to harness the creative optimism of architecture theses to provoke a re-imagining or re-evaluation of a place. The utopian nature of the theses, visual projections of a future uncompromised by the constraints of actualisation, have the power to strengthen a community's sense of belonging. Playfully Reimagining Place connects communities with unseen architectural reimaginings through two media; a series of physical exhibitions and an online database.
Playfully Reimagining Place is an initiative of the inaugural Irish Architecture Foundation's (IAF) Graduate Panel, a group of graduate architects, aged under 30, forming a collective voice through a process of peer learning in order to contribute to shaping a beautiful sustainable future.
One aspect of our project is a series of annual public exhibitions of location specific architecture theses. To engage the local community with the beauty of their built heritage, the theses form interactive experiences that communicate a reimagining of the locality. The exhibitions embrace the dynamic aesthetic capacity of architectural images and models to create a transformative experience for visitors, shining a light on the forgotten values and unseen beauty of their locality. The exhibition theses will be selected by the IAF Graduate Panel for their capacity to strengthen a community's sense of belonging and to ignite inclusive conversations on the localities' sustainable future. The second function of the exhibitions is to direct people to an online platform, a database of unrealised architectural proposals. This online database will be categorised by location, providing an alternative access method to the exhibitions, supporting an inclusive dialogue on the sustainable future of our built environment.
Key objectives for sustainability
Playfully Reimagining Place empowers local communities to see the beauty of their built cultural heritage. The project connects stakeholders with unconstrained architectural reimaginings of their locality, that value the built environment as both a cultural placemaking asset and a bank of embodied carbon. The role of embodied carbon in the 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. Our project strives to strengthen communities and attachment to place, strong communities in turn 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 Playfully Reimagining Place are:
- To engage communities with the unseen value and potential of their built environment through site specific exhibitions, provoking an ambitious and inclusive dialogue on the localities sustainable future
- To support the development of socially sustainable communities by strengthening community pride and sense of belonging
- To encourage the adaptive reuse of building stock in order to reduce embodied carbon emissions through the principles of circularity
- To enable architectural graduates to meaningfully participate in shaping a beautiful sustainable future through the sharing of ideas
- To be a replicable and inclusive tool for engaging communities with their built heritage
Our project is exemplary because it recognises the undervalued assets of unseen architectural theses and disregarded aspects of our built heritage through the accessible sharing of ideas in order to develop sustainable communities with a strong sense of belonging.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Playfully Reimagining Place provides a transformative experience of familiar places through two access points; site specific exhibitions and an online database of theses. Both points of access visually communicate re-imagined futures of sites around Ireland. The objective of each aesthetic and knowledge rich architectural projection is to offer local stakeholders with new perspectives through a transformative experience, reinforcing a sense of place and belonging through creative projected futures.
Community members who experience an exhibition in their locality will be met with a considerate and compelling experiential representation of the beauty, value and potential of the given site as each exhibition captures forgotten histories or projects unconsidered futures. Diversity and inclusion through democratic accessibility is a key parameter of the exhibitions and will be designed for by the curator; the thesis author in collaboration with the Graduate Panel. The exhibitions embrace the vibrant power of architectural image and model making to catch the attention of passers-by, injecting a moment of reflection on the past and future lives of their built heritage, instilling a sense of pride, hope and belonging.
The online database, a moderated website of architecture theses categorised by location and experienced through an interactive map, with markers identifying the locations of the database’s architecture theses, a clear visual of the beauty of place. The database provides inspiration for communities, local authorities, built environment students and practitioners alike. The website is a dynamic source of inspiration to support communities to re-evaluate and re-imagine their locality, promoting communities to engage and shape an ambitious sustainable future for their shared built cultural heritage.
Playfully Reimagining Place is exemplary as the two points of access provide complementary yet distinct qualities of experiencing the re-evaluation of a locality.
Key objectives for inclusion
Inclusion is a core value of Playfully Reimagining Place as the project aims to utilise the knowledge stored in unbuilt architecture theses to initiate an inclusive dialogue between diverse communities and stakeholders on the beautiful sustainable future of our built heritage, as follows:
Diversity and Citizen Engagement
The architectural theses communicated by Playfully Reimagining Place highlight the diverse and undervalued qualities and beauty of a locality. The project celebrates built, social and cultural diversity to connect locals with locality, ideas with action, and placemakers with communities, in order to build a sustainable future together. To ignite an inclusive dialogue on our built heritage, our project promotes public participation to engage all disciplines, genders, cultures and generations, inviting those not regularly involved in placemaking to re-imagine their locality.
Accessibility and Equal Opportunities
To facilitate an inclusive conversation Playfully Reimagining Place has two access points: physical exhibitions and an online database. The public site-specific exhibitions are curated to promote democratic inclusion and are designed for universal access to reduce physical access barriers by being strategically located in local authority buildings (eg. libraries, galleries), and will be advertised through a range of media to mitigate social barriers. The online database of architecture theses provides an alternative access to the dialogue, navigating additional barriers of the exhibition such as location or time restraints. Both points of access will be developed under the mentorship of IAF who have a wealth of experience in curating for accessibility as is demonstrated by their numerous exhibitions and community engagement festivals such as Open House Dublin.
Our concept is exemplary in inclusivity as the 2 points of access work in parallel to provide equal opportunities for all citizens to engage in considering their localities' future.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
Each of the preceding answers are strands of Playfully Reimagining Place which bring together sustainability, the quality of experience, and inclusivity. The outcome of the project leads to the conclusion that architectural graduate thesis projects are a lens through which communities may view disregarded aspects of their built environment, encouraging the adaptive reuse of spaces and facilitating dialogue between diverse community groups and local authorities. Bringing the wealth of knowledge in architectural thesis projects to the public can be an explorative link from a community to a sense of place.
As greenfield sites are being consumed by the human footprint, highlighting the potential reuse of materials and buildings is critical in creating a better world for all. The project sets out to create an open dialogue, whether it be virtual or in the real world, bringing together intergenerational minds to share their own unique experiences of the locality, of home. To engage the dreams of future architects who strive to create quality environments for all in their studies, while actively participating with the needs of a community are all closely linked and result in strengthening the heart of place. Stitching these strands together, and taking a holistic view of communities, architecture, planning and the reimagining of underused sites is a way to deliver a more sustainable future.
The project can be both scaled and replicated to expand from the island of Ireland, and be implemented throughout Europe. The blueprint of Playfully Reimagining Place could become a tool in which architectural graduates from all countries contribute their work to become a part of their communities' architectural discourse. At our core, human beings need a sense of belonging, connection, place and heritage. A sense of belonging can be key to enriching and developing one’s self, in order to find a greater purpose within the rich tapestries of communities.
