The Architecture of Creative Learning

Irish Department of Foreign Affairs / 2022 / Irish Expo Dubai / Model/Exhibition

A series of models commissioned by Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs under the curation of Dr. Gary Boyd and Dr. Brian Ward as part of the Irish Pavilion at Expo Dubai 2020. Three models made by hand in watercolour paper offer new readings of three learning spaces by Irish architects;

Coláiste Naomh Éinne: Inis Mór, Galway - Paul Dillon Architects 

Thapar University Learning Laboratory: Punjab, India – McCullough Mulvin Architects (2020)

University Campus, UTEC: Lima, Peru – Grafton Architects (2015)

As one of four studios commissioned to make work for the exhibition, we were invited to reinterpret these seminal works in a form that would also communicate the projects clearly within that setting. Each model was imagined as a sculpture; three vertical fragments which gave a glimpse of the complex spatialities of these projects with each base displaying a site model along one side. Made from paper, the models nonetheless sought to read as carved spaces, playing between fragility and weight.