Gallery Talk

New Geneva: Tracing the Memories of a Forgotten Utopia

Fiachra McCarthy & Gjiltinë Isufi

‘New Geneva: Tracing the Memories of a Forgotten Utopia’ is a research project engaging with the ruins of Ireland’s lost city, New Geneva. Planned in 1782 as a utopian settlement for exiled Swiss watchmakers, the project was never fully realised. Today, the site bears silent witness to a layered history, from early settler houses to its later transformation into a prison and military barracks.

Combining fieldwork, drawing, videography, and oral histories, our project reconstructs overlooked fragments into one spatial narrative. At its centre is a large-scale hand-drawn axonometric which maps 240 years of New Geneva, resisting linear time to unfold in an entangled cartography of ambitions, traumas, and absences.

Presented at Architecture at the Edge festival, the installation assembles a counter-archive of New Geneva, inviting audiences to reflect on how memory, absence, and fragmentary histories can be reactivated through spatial practice.

Project credits

Gjiltinë Isufi is an architect and researcher in Brussels. Her FWO-funded PhD project ‘In Space We Read Trauma: Disclosing Microhistories in Kosovo, 1980-1999’ aims to develop a methodological framework for spatially investigating traumatic experiences. She is also teaching on trauma and space at KU Leuven.

Fiachra is an architect and artist practicing between Ireland and Belgium. Educated at TUD Dublin and KU Leuven Brussels, his interdisciplinary practice explores the intersection of art, architecture and research. He is also co-founder of the Brussels-based art and scenography collective F//AAT.

New Now Next - Joar Nango

Groundbreaking Sámi artist and architect Joar Nango presents his creative practice followed by a discussion with Traveller Architect Brian Ward and others.
“What could architecture look like if it reflected the nomadic way of life?” 

Groundbreaking Sámi artist and architect Joar Nango presents his creative practice followed by a discussion with Traveller Architect Brian Ward and others. Presented by the Irish Architecture Foundation in partnership with Misleór Festival of Nomadic Cultures and in collaboration with Architecture at the Edge.

Joar Nango is an artist and architect. He was trained at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology NTNU in Trondheim, Bergen School of Architecture (BAS) in Bergen and Weissensee Kunsthochschule in Berlin. He co-founded the architectural collective Felleskapsprosjektet å Fortette Byen (FFB), together with Eystein Talleraas and Håvard Arnhoff, in 2010, which was nominated by Norsk Form as Young Architects of the Year in 2012. Nango has exhibited extensively internationally, including at the Biennale Architectura, Venice, Documenta14 and Sakahan. He was the Festival Artist at Bergen Kunsthall in 2020. Nango lives and works in Tromsø.

Supported by Irish Architecture Foundation 

Talk at the Table followed by Kamayan (Filipino feast)

Tambayan: A Bayanihan Project

Eduard Valenzuela & Brian Ó Curnáin

Tambayan addresses Ireland’s decline in youth public spaces through reclaimed-material builds, film, and talks. Creating inclusive places for gathering, belonging, and connection.”

‘Tambayan’ builds on last year’s award-winning workshops, addressing the decline of public spaces for young people in Ireland by creating inclusive, communal environments through participatory design. The project engages young people in co-designing and constructing three key elements of a Tambayan - a place to sit, a table, and a roof, entirely from reclaimed or donated materials. This hands-on process fosters collaboration, creativity, and a sense of ownership while teaching participants to see value in materials often discarded.

Alongside the physical build, a short film explores the stories of the Filipino-Irish community, highlighting themes of migration, adaptation, and belonging. The completed structures will temporarily activate underused public spaces, inviting dialogue and imaginative engagement with the urban realm. During the Architecture at the Edge Festival in Galway, the Tambayan will be presented in the Printworks Gallery alongside a series of talks, shared meals, and screenings, advocating for more accessible, youth-focused public spaces in Ireland.

Project credits

Eduard Valenzuela is a Part I architect from Dublin, currently completing his Master’s degree at Central Saint Martins in London. Winner of the Thornton Education Trust Prize, his work explores themes of representation and identity in the public realm, with a particular focus on the transformative potential of youth culture.

Brian Ó Curnáin is an architecture student from Conamara, Galway. He has studied at UCD and TU Delft, worked at the Venice Biennale, and contributed to the As an Gceo exhibition. A recipient of the TET Prize and the John Meagher Bursary, his work explores culture, community, and public space.

Supported by Grafton Architects

Part of the AATE Design Lab learning programme 

Marconi Station & Alcock & Brown Landing Point 

Guided Field Trip led by Michael Gibbons, Walking Ireland

Sunday September 28 2025, 10.00 - 13.00   

Tickets €15 for adults / €10 Children/Students 

Booking via Eventbrite

Meet: Wild Atlantic Way, Signature Discovery Point, Derrigimlagh.

At the heart of Derrigimlagh Bog lies the historic Marconi Station the site of the world’s first transatlantic wireless transmission and the landing spot for the Alcock & Brown first transatlantic non-stop flight. In 1905, Guglielmo Marconi stood on this remote stretch of Connemara, envisioning electromagnetic waves traversing the Atlantic to Newfoundland, unhindered by distance or ocean. From this marshy red shore, he built the world’s largest and most powerful wireless station of its era, embedding his legacy in Ireland’s boglands. Walkers will have the opportunity to explore this unique and now unseen industrial landscape, hidden beneath the peat of Connemara.

Project credits 

For this Wild Atlantic Way, Signature Discovery Point, Denis Byrne Architects in association with TTT, thirtythreetrees, created a 5km looped walk, visitor experience at the Marconi Station, (1907-1922), and landing site of Alcock & Brown’s historic first non-stop transatlantic flight (1919). A series of ‘Hides’ have been installed, forming compact shelters containing interpretative content.

Architect: Denis Byrne Architects in Association with TTT (thirtythreetrees)
Awards: RIAI Irish Architecture Awards - Place of the Year, Winner 2017

A Day of Exploration: Sligo Town 

Architectural  Walking Tour

Sunday 28 September 2025, 11am - 12.30 

Meet at 11am on The Mall, at the gates of The Model’s Art Gallery

The walking tour will be led by former Senior Architect of Sligo County Council, Seán Martin. Seàn’s tour will focus on the architecture and significant streetscapes of Sligo on The Mall, Stephen St. and High St. 

Urban Sketching / Painting Event 

Sunday 28 September 2025, 2pm - 4pm

Meet at City Hall at 2pm

Sketchers, painters, dabbers and total beginners are invited to an afternoon of sketching in Sligo Town. High St., Stephen St and The Mall are suggested, but the choice is yours.  Sketching provides a wonderful way to look at and experience a place, it’s architecture, atmosphere and to consider the way the urban landscape has evolved.

All are invited to reconvene at 4pm at the Top Bar in The Glasshouse Hotel to review the Day’s experiences.

What to bring: Sketch books, pencils, pens, inks or paints, depending on your choice of medium. 

Also recommended: warm and waterproof clothing, hat, gloves, flasks of tea or coffee, perhaps a fold-up seat and a good umbrella.

NB indoor venues will be arranged, if weather should prevent external sketching. 

Workshop & Talk

Denise Murray, CoLab 

Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley 

Seamus Ruttledge 

Teresa O’ Sullivan

Ethna Rose O’Regan 

in conversation with 

Maeve O Rourke (Chair) 

Preceded by Exhibition Tour in the Festival Printworks Gallery.

Omey Tidal Island

Guided Field Trip led by Michael Gibbons, Walking Ireland

Walk: Sunday September 28 2025, 14.00 – 17.00   

Tickets cost; Adult €15, Senior/Student €10

Booking via Eventbrite

Meet: Wild Atlantic Way, Signature Discovery Point, Derrigimlagh.

Omey Island, accessible on foot during low tide, reveals a landscape of rugged rocks, sweeping sands, and rich spiritual history. The island is home to secret monastic sites established by St. Féichín, whose Holy Well remains a place of reverence for local fishermen. Today, fewer than 20 residents inhabit Omey, yet the island’s archaeological sites suggest a once thriving community, shaped by centuries of change. The guided walk—spanning small roads, coastal stretches, and open beaches—lasts up to three hours and includes visits to the unseen sites and coastal archaeology exposed by winter storms.

Guide

Michael is a seasoned archaeologist with over 40 years of experience and membership in the Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland. He has held roles on the Heritage Council’s Archaeology Committee and the Folklore of Ireland Council, worked internationally in Jerusalem and London, and contributed to major Irish archaeological surveys. As Co-Director of the National Sites and Monuments Record for a decade, he directed projects at sites like Croagh Patrick and Skellig Michael, and has written extensively on heritage management, promoting ICOMOS and UNESCO standards.

Galway’s ‘Slow Way’

Guided Field Trip led by Brendan Smith

Meet: Corrib Princess Quay, Waterside, Woodquay

Galway city is in many ways a nature walker’s paradise, possessing areas of tranquillity within natural heritage areas and countryside far from the noise and air pollution of one of Europe’s most traffic congested cities. Every city in Ireland would love to have the natural resources and rural landscapes that we still possess, namely the lakes, the rivers, the wildflower meadows, the bogs, the forests and farmlands. No other city has a major river running through it that still retains countryside on either side of its quiet blue waters.  

This event is about increasing public awareness particularly of the ‘Boreens’ (botharín = small road) of Menlo, Coolough, Castlegar, Ballindooley, Carrowbrowne and elsewhere which are precious gifts to the present and future generations from the rural dwellers of past centuries. These country lanes, many surrounded by drystone walls and hedgerows, that once were used to move cattle from field to field and to bring locals to distant church, school and shop, need to become the greenways of our modern city providing a network of green arteries uncluttered by built development offering places of peace and calmness to the urban traveller.

Guide

Brendan has been involved in multiple community, educational, social and environmental projects over many decades including as a founder member of Terryland Forest Park, Ireland’s largest community-driven urban forest project, in promoting local heritage preservation and greenways, in developing Outdoor Classrooms and in advocating for Galway to become a National Park City. He passionately believes that only by reconnecting with and learning from the rest of Nature can humanity solve the global crises of our era. 

Ceantar na nOileán 

Archaeological  Field Trip led by Michael Gibbons, Walking Ireland

Walk/Tour

Tuesday 30 September 2025, 9.00 – 17.00  

Tickets: Adult €35, Senior/Student €25

Lunch not Included

Booking via Eventbrite

Bus Departs from Galway Cathedral Gaol Rd bus stop. 

Lunch Stop: The field trip will include a lunch/coffee stop at Ionad Oidhreachta Leitir Mealláin, including a site visit and talk from a staff member.

Itinerary and Highlights

Ceantar na nOileán is an archipelago of fifteen islands connected by nine causeways, many now uninhabited, stretching from Béal an Daingin to Leitir Mealláin. The field trip offers an exploration of the area’s unique intertidal zone archaeology. The main islands are linked by a series of causeways built throughout the nineteenth century, each reflecting efforts to integrate this remote region into the broader Victorian society and economy.

Architectural Highlights

The nine causeways represent remarkable achievements in architecture and marine engineering, having replaced earlier networks of vernacular sub-sea crossings. Droichead an Daingin stands as one of the most impressive, connecting the mainland to Eanach Mhéaid. Adjacent to this is an older stone causeway, visible only at low tide, which marks one of the busiest quays on the islands. These hidden feats of architecture have been essential to the way of life and development in Ceantar na nOileán.

Culture and Spirituality

In addition to the built causeways, the area features a fascinating magico-religious landscape, centred around the unseen Sub-Sea Saints’ Roads, holy wells, and stone boats.

Introducing Architecture: 
Robert Bourke Architects

Robert Bourke — Director 
BA BAI DipArch MRIAI

Having initially trained as a structural engineer at Trinity College Dublin, Robert went on to study architecture at Technical University Dublin and University of East London, gaining his Certificate in Professional Practice and Management at University College London in 2007. Robert established his architectural design practice, RBA, in 2010, after having gained experience in London, Amsterdam and Berlin. His Dublin-based office works on a diverse range of projects including homes, community buildings and places for education and work. The practice has built a reputation for award-winning designs, winning RIAI Best Emerging Practice in 2014 and numerous national awards. Their designs are developed through an open, collaborative and exploratory design process, resulting in unique spaces of character, integrity and material richness. Robert is also a Design Fellow at the School of Architecture, University College Dublin, where he has been teaching since 2013.

The event takes place as part of the AATE Design Lab learning programme for young people aged 16-25 year olds. To register interest in the programme
Email: learning@architectureattheedge.com 

GRANDEZA STUDIO + LOCUMENT

STRATA INCOGNITA 

2023 |Documentary| Portugal and Spain|16m

STRATA INCOGNITA is a short film commissioned for the Spanish Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2023: “The Laboratory of the Future” and developed as a collaboration between Grandeza Studio and Locument that looks at the soil as an infrastructure for the production of food, but also, as a somatic archive of crimes, memories, and mythologies.
Just a few centimetres under your feet, millions of creatures kill each other, eat each other, fight, reproduce and establish alliances with one another – implementing the myriad processes that recompose death into life while purifying the water you drink, making the air you breathe breathable, and growing 95% of the food you eat. You are digested soil. Any time you eat, the substances that compose soils reconstitute into the matter that shapes you. Nevertheless, many of the creatures and ecosystemic processes that make soils function resist being captured by knowledge production methods firmly bound by the regimes of the visible. Indeed, it is estimated that in a tablespoon of soil there are more living organisms than human beings on Earth, but only about 10% of small soil animals have been identified by humans. Soil is our closest alien world.

Followed by an online conversation with Francisco Lobo and Romea Muryń of LOCUMENT

The event takes place as part of the AATE 2025 Film + Architecture workshop supported by Screen Ireland. 

Introducing Architecture:
Samuel Gonçalves

Samuel Gonçalves
Director SUMMARY Architecture

Founded by Samuel Gonçalves, SUMMARY is a Portugal-based architecture studio focused on accelerating and simplifying construction through modular systems and prefabrication. With a pragmatic yet experimental approach, the studio has developed a range of building solutions aimed at optimizing time, resources, and the construction process itself. From installations at the Venice Biennale and virtual exhibitions to large-scale projects such as educational and public housing buildings, SUMMARY explores how off-site production can be a powerful tool for rethinking the way we build.

In this lecture, Samuel Gonçalves will present SUMMARY’s work, reflecting on how industrialized construction methods can benefit cities, improve conditions for workers, and address the often-invisible environmental weight of buildings.

The event takes place as part of the AATE Design Lab learning programme for young people aged 16-25 year olds.

Unseen Potential: Adaptive Reuse & Regeneration for Thriving places

Galway Chamber, is committed to regeneration that creates the right environment for thriving communities across both city and county. Building on the recent  launch of its Adaptive reuse in Galway Report, the Chamber is convening a panel of experts to explore the unseen potential within existing buildings and streetscapes, and what practical steps can turn these spaces and places into new homes and vibrant neighbourhoods. 

Moderated by Karen Ronan (CEO, Galway Chamber), the panel will bring together perspectives from planning, construction, conservation, and architecture.

Speakers include; 

Justin Molloy - Director, Construction Industry Federation (CIF) Western Region. 

Michael Scott - Executive Architectural Conservation Officer, Galway City Council.

Seán Dockry – MD at Seán Dockry and Associates (Architects)

Gus McCarthy - Director, MKO Planning and Environmental Consultants

Together they will explore how adaptive reuse, conservation, and planning innovation can address vacancy, provide new housing options, and strengthen neighbourhoods across the city and county. A founding partner of The Galway Charter, the event will open up further discussion on what practical steps we can take to support the faster, viable delivery of housing and urban/rural regeneration.  We are delighted to present this  special Architecture at the Edge Festival event in collaboration with Galway Chamber and partners.

Event organized by Galway City Chamber with support from The RIAI (The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland) 

Architectural Photography: 
A roundtable discussion hosted by Mark Shiel and Alice Clancy 

Preceded by Exhibition Tour 

Aisling McCoy, Ste Murray in conversation with Mark Shiel and Alice Clancy (Chair) 

Please join us for a fascinating conversation about architectural photography - a key medium in disseminating knowledge and ideas about our built environment. Its creative process requires the presence of a photographer in time and place, witnessing the real world, then focusing attention on selected still images of buildings. These heighten our understanding of architecture while making the unseen seen. At the same time, many architectural photographers work commercially, documenting buildings according to a brief for a client (architect, developer, or property owner). This tension between art and function has been heightened in the digital age, in which architectural photography is just one type of ‘visualisation’. In response, this roundtable discussion asks: What makes architectural photography valuable as a medium? How is it evolving to meet changes in technology and the built environment? How can we encourage its growth and appreciation?

Photography and the Built Environment 
with Mark Shiel and Alice Clancy 

Tickets: €25 - prebook via Eventbrite

A one-day workshop, guided by two conveners, in which participants make, reflect on, and discuss architectural photographs of selected buildings in Galway city centre.

Architectural photography is a key medium in disseminating knowledge and ideas about our built environment. Focusing attention on selected still images of buildings in place and time, it heightens our understanding of their visible aspects while bringing invisible details and processes to light, making the unseen seen. Architectural photography is also a professional and commercial technique used to visualise buildings according to a brief for a client (architect, developer, or property owner). Bearing in mind this tension between art and function, this workshop provides specialists and non-specialists alike an opportunity to explore and reflect on architectural photography, using Galway city centre as a studio. Guided by the conveners and working in small groups, participants will take photographs of selected buildings and locations that they will then edit, present, and discuss, expanding their technical ability and their understanding of the principals involved.

Galway Rape Crisis Centre (GRCC)

urbanARQ Limited +

OCC Construction

Architect Led Tour: Eugene Mulcaire, Gavin Veeran, and William O’Connor – urbanARQ

Meeting point at Claddagh Church (5min in advance of the Tour)

At No. 7 Claddagh Quay, the new Galway Rape Crisis Centre building embodies both purpose and place. Designed to provide a safe, respectful, and supportive environment, the architecture reflects the Centre’s ethos of dignity and care. The building balances sensitivity to its historic setting with the creation of modern, functional spaces that allow the Centre to continue and expand its vital work.

For more than four decades, the Galway Rape Crisis Centre has been a lifeline for survivors of sexual violence across Galway City and County, Roscommon, and North Clare. This new facility not only strengthens that commitment but also stands as a physical symbol of resilience, community, and hope.

Event supported by OCC Construction.

Galway Rape Crisis Centre (GRCC)

urbanARQ Limited +

OCC Construction

Architect Led Tour: Eugene Mulcaire, Gavin Veeran, and William O’Connor – urbanARQ

Meeting point at Claddagh Church (5min in advance of the Tour)

At No. 7 Claddagh Quay, the new Galway Rape Crisis Centre building embodies both purpose and place. Designed to provide a safe, respectful, and supportive environment, the architecture reflects the Centre’s ethos of dignity and care. The building balances sensitivity to its historic setting with the creation of modern, functional spaces that allow the Centre to continue and expand its vital work.

For more than four decades, the Galway Rape Crisis Centre has been a lifeline for survivors of sexual violence across Galway City and County, Roscommon, and North Clare. This new facility not only strengthens that commitment but also stands as a physical symbol of resilience, community, and hope.

Event supported by OCC Construction.

Unpredictable Atmosphere
Lucia Rebolino in collaboration with Riccardo Petrini 

A lecture performance exploring climate models, unfolding academic research, and images within a dimensionless digital space as a streaming narrative. Unpredictable Atmosphere reimagines the internet as an optical device to unfold climate models in digital space. It addresses the limitations of AI foundation models in climate forecasting, which often ignore outliers—extreme weather events such as hurricanes and heatwaves—that push the atmosphere to its breaking point. These events represent phenomena that cannot be fully modelled and remain hidden in AI’s blind spots. Unpredictable Atmosphere views the atmosphere as an archive of transformation, much like an architectural object, preserving technological residues. It crumbles conventions and explores how outliers in counter-modelling practices can reshape our understanding of climate, weather, and space.

Part of the LINA architecture programme. 

Making Visible the Invisible:
Lucia Rebolino, Leon Butler, and Nicolas Guichard, Béatrice Lartigue (Lab212)

Join Conn Holohan, Director of the Centre for Creative Technologies and a lecturer in film and media studies at the University of Galway for conversation with a panel of speakers to explore subjects pertaining to architecture, communication and society, viewed through the enriching lens of the convergence of art, science and technology.

Speakers include:

Leon Butler is an artist working at the intersection of art and technology. His work has been recognised by the Type Directors Club, 100 Archive, Digital Media Awards, and he is lecturer at ATU Galway City.  

Lucia Rebolino is an architect and research-based computational designer at Forensic Architecture in London. Her work interlaces science, art, and counter-cartography. 

Nicolas Guichard and Béatrice Lartigue are members of the interdisciplinary art collective, Lab212  founded in 2008 in Paris. The Lab212 collective uses new media tools to create installations that explore our perception of space and sound. 

This event is part of the LINA European Architecture Platform programme. 

CREW (Creative Enterprise West) 
Cronin Architects 

Architect: Cronin Architects 

CREW Digital Innovation Hub, ATU Galway

Completed 2024 

CREW (Creative Enterprise West) is a leading innovation hub dedicated to growing the digital creative industries in the West and North-West of Ireland. It provides essential infrastructure, training, mentorship, and networking opportunities to entrepreneurs, startups, and scale-ups in sectors such as film, animation, game development, design, and digital arts. Our hub is a space designed to unite creative and tech-driven communities, promoting collaboration, innovation and growth Since its launch, CREW has successfully developed incubation and enterprise development programmes, engaged in a variety of regional industry development projects, forged strong industry partnerships and influenced policy to support creative businesses.

By engaging in collaboration between academia, government, and industry, CREW is supporting innovation, job creation, and regional economic growth. The 2025–2029 strategy builds on these achievements, ensuring continued support for the digital creative sector and positioning the West and North-West of Ireland for significant growth in the digital creative industries.

Irish Construction Excellence Awards Finalist.

Building Architect of the Year Awards Finalist. 

SBID Interior Design Awards Finalist.

Galway Charter Update
Galway City Council Urban Development Directorship

Since the two major international conference on sustainable urbanism held in Galway (Reimagining the Irish City and Town April 2023 &  Lifelong Neighbourhoods: Planning, designing and delivering the 21st century neighbourhood May 2024), the publication and signing of the Greater Galway Charter and the publication of the Irish Cities Group ‘Irish Cities in Crisis’ we return to the Druid Theatre to reflect on the work done to date and to plot a direction for the future. 80 years ago Galway was a compact, sustainable, ‘15 minute City’, we pose the question Can Galway be a compact City again?

Major investment and governance changes have been made by City Hall to create a new Urban Development Directorship. This Directorship, in collaboration with many stakeholders, have progressed projects that are in line with the principles of the Greater Galway Charter. We want to afford them an opportunity to discuss in short 5 minute presentation the key points of their positions.

If you are interested in the shaping the future of the City this is a key event to come to.

Supported by Scott Tallon Walker Architects  

AATE & IFI present Irish Focus: 

Temptation of Influence 

2025 | Ireland, Italy, USA, UK | 44’

Temptation of Influence is a filmic essay and a collage exploring how architectural ideas are passed down, reinterpreted and inevitably misread across generations. It begins in the Dublin study of architect Shane de Blacam, where Palladio’s Four Books line the walls beside sketches by Shane’s teacher and friend Louis Kahn. From this intimate setting, the film journeys across Ireland, the Veneto and the East Coast of the United States, tracing the fragile mechanics of architectural inheritance through buildings, landscapes and conversations. Contributors include Kenneth Frampton, Níall McLaughlin, Sheila O’Donnell, Mary Laheen, Peter Carroll and others, reframing how influence moves through memory, encounter and place.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Marko Milovanovic in conversation with Peter Carroll, Director at A2 Architects and Head of Architecture at SAUL.

Director/Writer: Marko Milovanovic
Producers: Frank Monahan, Paolo Barkett

Showing as part of the IFI Irish Focus monthly strand showcasing new Irish film. 

Supported by British Council (Ireland).

Kylemore Abbey Benedictine Monastery, Education & Retreat Centre 
Axo Architects

Set in the ruggedly beautiful west Galway landscape - and in proximity to the celebrated nineteenth century gothic revival Kylemore Abbey this new building draws on long established monastic traditions, perhaps the most notably that of the cloister plan form. The architectural design of this monastery succeeds in reconciling interfaces between the public, semi-public and private realms but also between the timeless and contemporary.  The building exploits the challenge of a steeply sloping site, while respecting and enhancing its remarkable context. The design evolves from a central garth and cloister, unfolding into a series of brick volumes of varying height and scale. The result is a serene and timeless structure that quietly compliments its landscape through sensitive consideration of context, scale, materiality, and visual harmony.  

Awards: RIAI Irish Architecture Awards 2025:

Public Choice Award Winner

Best Living Project.

Highly Commended in Sustainable Design.

Highly Commended in Universal Design.

Once Upon A Sound
Hosted by Dónal Dineen 

Talk Discussion 

Dancing till late:

Ticket holders are invited to join us later as we continue

into the night with dancing till late! 

Doors from 10pm 

Dónal Dineen is an Irish DJ, radio presenter and film maker. A pioneering force for a generation of music fans, Donal is renowned for his deep passion for music as well as a curator of unique multi-disciplinary events.  Current projects include the music podcast Make Me An Island podcast and a documentary film Dance to Remember which will premiere at the Kerry Film Festival in October.

Dónal will be hosting a special live edition of his Once Upon A Sound video series at AATE where he’ll be exploring music as a source of inspiration for creative minds working in other media.

Taking our cue from the Desert Island Discs programme first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1942, guests will be invited to choose a selection of audio recordings that they would take with them if they were to be cast away on a desert island as a jump-off point for a discussion about the role sound plays in their practice.

A Space In-Between
Kilcolgan Village

A community celebration on Kilcolgan’s Old Road with art, music, and dialogue, showcasing its potential as a vibrant shared public space.

A Space In-Between will transform part of Kilcolgan’s Old Road into a vibrant, car-free community space. Central to the project are local children, who will take part in fieldwork with artists and architects and a creative workshops in school. Their findings will form a temporary installation, giving voice to how they see Kilcolgan today, and how its public spaces might support play, safety and connection in the future. The installation will be open to all, offering a sensory, reflective space that invites visitors to pause and experience the qualities that define Kilcolgan. The space will allow for gathering, imagination and dialogue – providing an opportunity to share ideas for the village’s future and to view concept designs. During the day, the event will celebrate community - a space shaped by community, and responsive to it. 

Project credits:

Kilcolgan Community Development Committee in collaboration with Helena McElmeel Architects - Róisín McConnon, Ellie O’Connell, Joanna McGlynn, Scoil Mhuire, Clarinbridge, Kilcolgan Educate Together National School.

Supported by Galway County Council.

Workshop / Roundtable Talk

Tithe ón Seansaol / Lost Houses

Laura O’Connor, Will Judge & Morgan Davies

Explore Lost Architecture  

Through presentations, round-table talks, and a hands-on workshop, exhibitors will unveil their design research and creative investigations into sites of lost buildings, forgotten homes, and overlooked architectural fragments scattered across Galway City’s rich cultural and social landscape.

Share Your Story

We invite you to bring a memory— a photograph, a story, an object, or a personal recollection. These prompts will spark a round-table discussion on themes of cultural identity, conservation, social history, and the unseen layers of our built environment.

Connect, Reflect, Reimagine 

Join us in a welcoming, inclusive setting for an afternoon of conversation, debate, and discovery. Together, we will recall and reimagine Galway City’s architectural heritage—lost or unseen, but not forgotten. Don’t miss this chance to be part of a unique celebration of local architectural history. Let’s uncover the stories that still live in the walls, streets, and memories of Galway City. Ready to join the conversation?

Project credits

Laura O’Connor, Will Judge and Morgan Davies are a dynamic collective of architectural designers based in Wales, they interpret heritage, landscape, and local traditions through drawing, writing, photography, and media. Their multidisciplinary research spans the Celtic nations, embracing diverse languages and cultures to reimagine architecture as a living dialogue shaped by social histories.

Supported by Galway City Council Architectural Conservation Office & Galway City Council Arts Office.

Jessica Reynolds
Director vPPR Architects

Jessica co-founded vPPR in 2009. She is particularly interested in the relationship between art and architecture. She focuses on cultural projects and artist collaborations to rethink the everyday, greatly enjoying working across all scales and project types, from installations to historic refurbishments to mixed-use new developments. She is unit master at The Architectural Association, studying the role of museums in the environmental emergency. She has organised debates on this topic with the V&A, the Natural History Museum, the Horniman Museum and others. She is co-founder of the Architecture Exchange, a platform to foster debate between architecture and philosophy, investigating the work of Graham Harman and Chantal Mouffe. Jessica studied architecture at Cambridge University and Princeton University, including an M.Phil in History and Philosophy of Architecture at Cambridge. 

vPPR Architects, believe access to culture is fundamental for communities to thrive. We design spaces that inspire creativity by prioritising shared space, flexibility of use and artist collaborations. Our projects are designed to be robust and long lasting, seeking to retrofit wherever possible and embracing circular economy principles in our designs.  From our studios in London, Liverpool and Hamburg, we design for a diverse range of cultural, residential, commercial, education and public realm clients. vPPR is a women-led architecture practice, set up by Tatiana von Preussen, Catherine Pease and Jessica Reynolds in 2009.

Event supported by Pat McCabe Architects.