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The Guardian on the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

June 2022

The Guardian on the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

Olly Wainwright has published his Guardian review of this year’s Royal Academy architecture rooms which have been co-curated by Níall McLaughlin and artist Rana Begum. With this year’s theme being ‘Climate’, Wainwright highlights that “Architects and engineers have, after all, some responsibility for the mess we’re in, given that 40% of carbon emissions come from buildings. They also have the means to do something about it”. Níall commented, “there can be a sense of fatalism about the climate, but our discipline can show that imaginative change is possible”. 

The article reviews a few select pieces such as Stonemasonry Company and Webb Yates engineers’ large stone beam titled ‘Equanimity’, the Khudi Bari (or Tiny House), a modular monsoon-resistant shelter designed by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum, and Thai architect Boonserm Premthada’s ‘Dung Power’ a structure made from elephant dung bricks. 

The article can be accessed here. 

Image © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry

Yale Advanced Studio

May 2015

Yale Advanced Studio

Niall completed teaching his Advanced Studio for the Spring Semester in the School of Architecture in Yale University. The students presented projects based upon the theme Unreal City. They looked at the impact of devolved powers on the development of London as a quasi-independent global city, almost without a hinterland. Niall taught with faculty member Andrew Benner.

The final review was attended by Billie Tsien, David Kohn, Jennifer Leung, Pier Vittorio Aurelli, Petia Morozov, Frida Escobedo, Alan Organschi, Mike Tonkin, Michael Schlabs, Tatiana Bilbao and Bob Stern.