DAYLIGHT TALKS
FEBRUARY 2022
On the 22nd February Níall will be giving a talk titled Circling a Star for the Daylight Talks by Velux.
The `Daylight Talks´ are targeting students or architecture and younger professionals and they are exploring the significance of natural light in architecture. The talks present exciting and prominent architects and educators working consciously and qualitatively with daylight in their projects and educational programs; what has inspired? how has spaces been planned with light to inhabit and cherish? the important learnings? and what is the advice to students and younger professionals?
BALLIOL FACADE TRIP
APRIL 2017
We are working on new student residential buildings for Balliol College, Oxford. As part of the detailed design development we have been working with a façade sub-contractor based in Belgium, and recently made a visit to their manufacturing factories. The itinerary for the day – a design workshop, a factory tour and a review of samples. Lots of coffee after an early Eurostar, and a good lunch.
There had been several similar design workshops before; where gathered around the meeting table, sketches were scattered as we questioned the architectural intent and the construction details equally. Brick samples sat in front of us, books piled up with precedents opened, past project drawings and models pulled out for reference. How to compose the language to create a calm and unified façade across the site. The engineers, the architects, the craftsmen who will build the façade.
These sorts of discussion are an aspect of everyday practice, and incredibly valuable part of the process – marrying the conversations of design aspiration with the actual making of. The bricks and mortar that see the architecture delivered from the paper to the physical form.