Friday, October 13 2023, 18:30
The Annex Central Plaza, Dame Street, D02 A3X7
Tickets on Eventbrite
AAI Conversations
The AAI are delighted to host Ben Mullen, Tom O’Brien, Phoebe Brady and Anna Hofheinz, for presentations and discussion about their research and practice.
Ben Mullen is an architect living and working in Wicklow, Ireland. A graduate of SAUL School of Architecture, University of Limerick and NCAD the National College of Art & Design, Dublin, he is a Registered Architect with the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland and Design Fellow at the School of Architecture, Planning & Environmental Policy in UCD. The practice was established in 2020 and in 2022 was awarded the inaugural RIAI CCI Eileen Gray E1027 Research Fellowship. Ben is a visiting critic at schools of architecture in Ireland and the UK and contributes frequently to journals of architecture and design.
Phoebe Brady is an architect whose work spans design and research and teaching. She collaborates with Sarah Doheny at Cineál Research & Design. The studio explores the experiential qualities of the built environment through a practice of mapping and observation.
Their illustrated essays, ‘Mapping Urban Living Space’ and ‘DARTing Atmospheres’ were presented at AIARG conferences and published in Building Material. Recently, they made a sonic installation for Phizzfest 2023 and completed a residency at the Akademie Der Künste in Berlin in the electroacoustic studio. ‘Threading Place’, a site-specific visual-art project developed in collaboration with Finn Richards, photographer and videographer, is currently on exhibit in public outdoor spaces in Wicklow Town. The practice has been funded by the Arts Council Architecture Bursary and Agility Awards.
Phoebe practices in Dublin previously working with GKMP Architects and ABK Architects. She has also worked with the Irish Architecture Foundation as coordinator of Open House Dublin. She is a Design Fellow at the School of Architecture University College Dublin and a Climate Resilience Project Tutor at SAUL School of Architecture University of Limerick.
@cineal_place @threadingplace_wicklowPhoto credit – Finn Richards
TOB Architect is an explorative, critical architectural practice based in Dublin, Ireland. It was founded by Thomas O Brien in 2013 and since then has earned a reputation as an expansive practice that incorporates an ongoing examination of the nature of things and places into each project. The practice is a registered RIAI practice with Conservation Grade 3 accreditation.
The practice is particularly interested in rural contexts and the distinct culture that sets the rural way of seeing apart from the urban. The practice is critical of some accepted ideas of the vernacular and typology, and finds more fruitful soil for creative practice in the differing logical approaches and systems that inform rural culture, such as a more ad-hoc approach to building, and a more complex concept of the relationships between humans, objects, land and animals.
The practice has been recognised domestically and internationally, receiving an Architectural Association Award 2019 for Killan Farmhouse, and being shortlisted for the international Architectural Review Emerging Architect prize in 2018. A continuing level of excellence in the built work of the practice is recognised by worldwide publication in printed and online media. The practice received an Arts Council Bursary in 2017 and in 2020. Work by T O B Architect has been exhibited to the public at PADA studios, Lisbon – April 2021, The Irish architecture Foundation , Dublin , June/September 2021, and the Royal Hibernian Academy, Annual Show – September/October 2021.
Thomas is a Design Fellow at University College Dublin where he teaches in the first year and fifth year studios.
Anna Hofheinz is an architect, researcher and educator. Since 2022, she is conducting research into the hygrothermal properties of traditional Irish building materials. She has taught Design Studio and Building Technology at the UCD School of Architecture since 2014 and was design studio tutor and guest reviewer at various schools of architecture in Ireland since 2011. Anna is a registered member of the RIAI since 2012, and has practiced architecture in Ireland since 2008. She is working on projects in her own practice since 2017, after being a project architect with Tom de Paor from 2008 to 2017.