‘Rún’ is the Irish word for secret but pronounced ‘ruin’ in English. This double valence captures key aspects of this work which is firstly to map the carceral ‘welfare’ institutional sites across the island of Ireland, acknowledge the ruin they wrought in people’s lives, and explore how these buildings might be activated to develop more just ways of living in the future.

The research is being conducted by CoLab, a group of architects who have worked in conjunction with Justice for Magdalenes Research since 2019, with an initial focus on the site of the former Magdalene Laundry at Sean McDermott St in Dublin 1 as part of the Open Heart City Project. This work explored the question “how do we act in this place?” This exhibition will display some of the initial research undertaken as part of Rùn, including a work-in-progress online database showing the digital mapping and cataloguing of the sites to date.

CoLab Bio

CoLab is a group of four emerging Irish architects; Denise Murray (Metropolitan Workshop), Catherine Blaney (Dún-na-dTuar), Jennifer O’Donnell & Jonathan Janssens (plattenbaustudio), who were brought together by the Open Heart City collective in 2019 to study and develop alternative methods for practicing architecture and advancing architectural discourse in Ireland.

Project credits

Exhibition supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, UCD School of Philosophy, and Architecture at the Edge. Project partner Irish Architecture Foundation.

Mobilised by state and corporate powers, toxic clouds colonise the air we breathe across different scales and durations. Repressive regimes use tear gas to clear democratic protests from urban roundabouts. Carcinogenic plumes of petrochemical emissions smother racialised communities. Airborne chemicals such as chlorine, white phosphorous, and herbicides, are weaponised to displace and terrorise. Forest arson in the tropics creates continental-scale meteorological conditions, forcing millions to breathe toxic air. 

It is a basic principle of forensics that, between solid objects, “every contact leaves a trace”. By contrast, clouds are the epitome of transformation, their dynamics governed by nonlinear, multi-causal logics. This condition was apparent throughout the history of painting, when clouds, moving faster than the painter’s brush could capture them, needed to be imagined rather than described. 

Clouds are always double. Seen from the outside they are measurable objects, seen from within they are experiential conditions of optical blur and atmospheric obscurity. Today’s clouds are both environmental and political. Their toxic fog is easily surrounded by lethal doubt. When denialism obscures acts of violence and compounds the harm, we, the inhabitants of toxic clouds, must find new means of resistance.

Project credits

Forensic Architecture (FA) is a research agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, investigating human rights violations including violence committed by states, police forces, militaries, and corporations. FA works in partnership with institutions across civil society, from grassroots activists through legal teams, to international NGOs and media organisations, to carry out investigations with and on behalf of communities and individuals affected by conflict, police brutality, border regimes and environmental violence. 

Project team: 

Eyal Weizman, Samaneh Moafi, Imani Jacqueline Brown, Sarah Nankivell, Mark Nieto, Maksym Rokmaniko, Christina Varvia, Francesco Sebregondi, Shourideh C. Molavi, Stefan Laxness, Grace Quah, Jason Men, Nichola Czyz, Nabil Ahmed, Paulo Tavares, Olukoye Akinkugbe, Lola Conte, Robert Trafford, Martyna Marciniak, Manuel Correa, Dimitra Andritsou, Omar Ferwati, Ariel Caine, Nour Abuzaid, Sanjana Varghese, Ayana Enomoto-Hurst, Ana Lopez Sanchez-Vegazo, Caterina Selva, Jacob Bertilsson, Nicholas Zembashi, Nicholas Masterton, Tom James, Giovanna Reder, Tamara Z. Jamil, Lachlan Kermode, Alican Aktürk, Ronni Winkler, Robert Krawczyk, Will Scarfone, Nick Axel, Camila E. Sotomayor, Vere Van Gool, Jacob Burns, Hania Halabi, Gustav A. Toftgaard, Dorette Panagiotopoulou, Rosario Güiraldes, Susan Schuppli, Ana Naomi de Sousa, Kishan San, Davide Piscitelli, Mhamad Safa, Sabine Saba, Sergio Beltrán-García, Nathan Su, Elizabeth Breiner.

Cloud Studies Archive  

P4 (White Phosphorus):

The Use of White Phosphorus in Urban Environments

(27.12.2008–18.01.2009) 

C3H8NO5P (Glyphosate):

Herbicidal Warfare in Gaza (2014–ongoing) 

CO (Carbon Monoxide): 

Ecocide in Indonesia (1996–2015) 

Intentional Fires in West Papua (2011–2016) 

PM2.5 (Particulate Matter):

Environmental Racism in ‘Death Alley’, Louisiana (1718–ongoing)

CH4 (Methane):

Oil and Gas Pollution in Vaca Muerta (2013–ongoing)

C10H5CIN2 (Tear Gas): 

Tear Gas in Plaza de la Dignidad (20.12.2019) 

Triple-Chaser (25.11.2018) 

H2O (Water): 

The Grenfell Tower Fire (14.06.2017) 

The Beirut Port Explosion (04.08.2020) 

CI (Chlorine): 

Chemical Attack in Khan Sheikhoun (04.04.2017) 

Chemical Attack in Douma (07.04.2017) 

Digital Violence: How the NSO Group Enables State Terror (2015-ongoing)

CaO (Cement):

The Bombing of Rafah (08.07.2014–26.08.2014) 

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.

Architect Part 1 

A film by artist Laura Gannon and architect Jessica Reynolds 

with sound by Susan Stenger

‘Architect Part 1’ is a new short film directed by artist Laura Gannon, featuring architect Jessica Reynolds and with sound composition by Susan Stenger. Set in rural County Mayo, the film reveals the interior and exterior of a house standing alone on the side of a mountain called Devils mother. Abandoned to the elements of time and nature, newer houses were built along the road while this house has stood empty for over forty years.

A family history is subtly revealed as the film layers architecture in a rural environment with the movement of people and the passing of time. The house is surrounded by fields of sheep, the main agriculture in this region on the border of Mayo and Connemara. Jessica’s grandmother was one of thousands who emigrated to England in the 1950s, as Ireland’s population declined. The house remains empty, a monument to this mass emigration and the emptying out of people from the landscape. 

Revisiting her family’s former home, Jessica appears at punctuated moments, amplified by beats and drone sounds. A figure in the landscape, she reintroduces herself back into her family history having last visited at the age of nine. 

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.

Exhibition, Talk & Workshop

Festival Printworks Gallery, Market Street, Galway

Exhibition open 27 September - 12 October

Roundtable/ Talk at the Table

Festival Printworks Gallery, Market Street, Galway

Saturday 27 September, 17:00 – 17:45   

Kamayan (Filipino feast)

Festival Printworks Gallery, Market Street, Galway

Saturday 27 September, 18:00 – 19:30   

Tickets: Free but prebooking is advised via Eventbrite

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 

Tithe ón Seansaol / Lost Houses

Laura O’Connor, Will Judge & Morgan Davies

Exhibition, exhibition tour & workshop

Festival Printworks Gallery, Market St, Galway
Exhibition open 27 September - 12 October

Workshop / Roundtable Talk

The Mick Lally Theatre, Druid Ln, Galway

Saturday 11 October, 14:30 – 16:30

Artists Gallery Talk

Festival Printworks Gallery, 17.00 - 18.00 

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.