No. 3 The Tomorrow Club

Our third reading group is a primer for the public converstation "Reaction to Crises". The material for this session is proposed by Ellen Rowley of Trinity College. The material for reading explores a period of our architectural history which is not generally discussed, and is very relevant to our current state. This session will take place on Wednesday 5th August, 7.30p.m., boardroom, Richview. Ellen has given us extracts from a selection of sources, and has given us some direction for our reading, here.

There are 3 required reading extracts:
1. Extracts from The Handbook of National Planning and Reconstruction, Dublin 1944
2. Editorial and letters from America, Architecture in Ireland. RIAI Yearbook, 1946
3. Overview of Ireland is Building, Local Government pamphlet, 1951

And there are 2 optional extracts:
1. The Post-War Building Programme, Government White Paper, 1944
2. Extracts from Mervyn Wall, Leaves for the Burning, (London: Methuen, 1952)

The texts are short and very entertaining, and I'm sure it will be a very lively discussion.

As always please email me at nowwhatread@gmail.com if you would like to attend.

(Please allow time for these PDFs to load, and note that the first page may be blank.)

No. 2 Common Space - Review

Last Tuesday's session was really lively. Thank you to everyone who attended, and thank you to Alan Mee, Seoidin O'Sullivan, and Donal Hickey for proposing the texts. Our discussion ranged from the obsolete nature of traditional mapping, to the need for a new system of government!

In terms of the ownership of common space in particular, the Swedish example of "All Mans Rule" was suggested as a possible solution, where the default position is that of public ownerhsip rather than private. It is this concept which allows the Swedish people to hike and camp anywhere. Some further information is available here and here. Alastair McIntosh's book Soil and Soul: People Versus Coporate Power is an account of this concept applied in Scotland.

We also discussed an example of ground up regeneration, again in Sweden. The Natural Step, a sustainable framework for growth adpoted through consenus of the people. The Natural Step Story by Karl Henrik Robert is available here.

No. 1 Veiled Works and Blurred Contects - Review

We had a very interesting discussion last Tuesday with Hugh's reading. As always, the coversation took varied and wonderful tangents away from the topic itself and some interesting ideas were discussed, from the relevance of the process of creating architecture to reflecting on our current cultural context. In the course of discussion some related texts came up: "The Megacity" Decoding the chaos of Lagos by George Packer and "Architecture Depends" by Jermey Till, sample chapters of this book can be found here and "The Yokohama Project: Foreign Office Architects" by Foreign Office Architects.
It was a very successful evening, and I would to thank Hugh Campbell for proposing a very interesting and provocative text.

To join the reading group please email nowwhatread@gmail.com, everybody is welcome.

No. 3 The Tomorrow Club

Our third reading group is a primer for the public converstation "Reaction to Crises". The material for this session is proposed by Ellen Rowley of Trinity College. The material for reading explores a period of our architectural history which is not generally discussed, and is very relevant to our current state. This session will take place on Wednesday 5th August, 7.30p.m., boardroom, Richview. Texts will be posted here soon.

No. 2 Common Space

The second reading group session will be a primer for the public converstation "Common Space", taking place on Wednesday 29th July. The texts are "Reclaiming the Commmons" by David Bollier proposed by Seoidin O'Sullivan and "The Agency of Mapping:Speculation Critique and Invention" by James Corner proposed by Alan Mee. This reading group will take place on Tuesday 28th July at 7.30 p.m., the boardroom, Richview. Please email nowwhatread@gmail.com if you would like to attend.

Donal Hickey has kindly allowed us to post an email he wrote with some of his thoughts on the issue here.

There are still places available for this session, please email me at nowwhatread@gmail.com to attend.

first reading group session

There are still some places available for our first reading group session, so please email nowwhatread@gmail.com, if you would like to attend. (Go on, we dont bite, I promise.)

No. 1 Veiled Works and Blurred Contexts

Our first reading group will take place on Tuesday 21 July at 7.30p.m., Boardroom, Richview.
The material is proposed by Hugh Campbell and is available here. Places are limited to 10 people; please email nowwhatread@gmail.com if you would like to attend.

Scuplture by Brian Dettmer
via boingboing.net