ARCH-IVE INTERVIEW
JUNE 2020
On Tuesday 23rd June at 19.00, Arch-ive will be speaking to Níall McLaughlin about the literature that has influenced his practice, as part of the Architecture Foundation’s ‘100 Day Studio’.
Arch-ive is an online platform that investigates the books that have been influential to leading practitioners. It aims to showcase architects’ relationship to books and the way they utilise, interrogate, and display architectural resources.
The ‘live’ interview will take a slightly different format, focusing on specific buildings completed by Níall McLaughlin and the literature that surrounded their investigation. The discussion will focus initially on the Alzheimer’s Respite Centre in Dublin and Níall McLaughlin Architect’s work at the 2016 Venice Biennale, ‘Losing Myself’. Secondly, the conversation will focus on three projects from Níall’s early career, ‘The Shack’, ‘Phototropic’, and ‘Wandsworth House’. Finally, we will discuss ‘Bishop Edward King Chapel’ in Oxford.
ATHLETES OCCUPY OLYMPIC HOUSING
AUGUST 2012
In the run up to the London Olympics, the Athletes’ Village housing block N15, is now occupied with athletes’ preparing for the games. Niall McLaughlin Architects have designed the external skin of the housing block on a ‘chassis’ designed by Glen Howells. The facade samples fragments of the Elgin Marbles, scanned from the British Museum and converted into 3D pre-cast panels depicting galloping horses from the Parthenon Frieze.
Niall McLaughlin commented on the practice’s approach to the unusual commission in Building Design. ‘I was very interested in the principle of the facade being delaminated from the building’s core form. Usually it’s something one tries to swim against to retain a sense of ‘authenticity’, but here we decided to embrace it….I like the idea of setting Ruskin’s conception of the craftsman against the absolute Taylorism of the construction process. Through digital reproduction, these deracinated stones are now doubly lost.’ (Building Design 27.01.2012)