La Biennale di Venezia Opening

LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA OPENING

MAY 2016

The collaborative project between Yeoryia Manolopoulou and Niall McLaughlin ‘Losing Myself’ opened on the 27th May for the Irish pavilion at the 15^th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. An opening speech was given by the Irish Ambassador for Italy Bobby McDonagh.

The project is a reflection on the lessons learned through a decade of designing buildings for people with dementia. It has two complementary components: a website that collates a mosaic of conversations, drawings, stories and experiments around the subject of dementia; and an immersive installation that tries to envisage a building we designed for people with dementia through their own experiences. The installation questions the notion of the building as a singular conception, and by extension, those architectural representations that insist upon buildings as finite and whole objects.

Please see below for a list of articles on Losing Myself

DesignBoom
Dezeen
ArchDaily
Divisare
Il Sole 24 Ore
giornale dell’architectura

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)