IAF Summer School: CONNECTION _ RRRUBBLE Dublin
The IAF Summer School: CONNECTION is open to all, including professionals, academics, graduates and students. It is a unique opportunity for architects, artists, activists, creatives, cultural practitioners, community workers, urbanists, geographers, film-makers and anyone with an interest in architecture, sustainability, design and the built environment to come together to question, create, activate, and connect with exciting emerging practices from around Europe.
The Summer School consists of three parts: two weekends in person at the Irish Architecture Foundation headquarters in Dublin and one online session mid-week.
The IAF Summer School is free to attend, but booking is required. It is possible to book for one, two, or all three parts of the Summer School.
Collaboration with LINA fellows
The IAF Summer School 2023 opened with Space Saloon + The MAAK bringing their touring project RRRUBBLE to the IAF headquarters in Dublin. RRRUBBLE aims to address resource scarcity through circular strategies by equipping the public, with inspiration and tools for rethinking our relationship to material use. Space Saloon and The MAAK advocate for "an architecture of availability", where using found objects and forgotten or discarded items is prioritised over sourcing new or foreign materials.
Through LINA, Space Saloon and The MAAK are also collaborating with the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel, BARLETI University in Tirana, the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial, MODEL in Barcelona, and BETA in Timisoara. For each iteration of RRRUBBLE, Space Saloon and The MAAK develop a site-specific approach, evolving their working approach to material reuse.
RRRUBBLE Dublin took a performative and experimental approach, drawing from the disciplines of architecture, theatre and urban design. Participants developed 'material passports' that interpreted layers of meaning about and beyond found materials and objects. Together we explored how our skills, backgrounds and personal histories influenced our readings of materials. Through performative action and improvisation, we evolved these reflections into speculative thinking around their potential for reuse and hands-on making with found objects.
Introductory presentation and discussion, Friday 5 May, 18.30-20.00
The Summer School opened with a RRRUBBLE presentation, workshop overview, an introduction to Space Saloon and The MAAK and a show and tell of reclaimed objects brought in by participants. Materials: Participants brought 3 items of rubble: 1 point, 1 line, and 1 plane. These items were used / secondhand / waste (old, discarded, broken, redundant, scrap, useless, dirty, ugly, low quality or replaced).
RRRUBBLE Workshop, Saturday 6 May, 10:00-17:00
Day 2 commenced with a performative and exploratory morning walk around Dublin. We "shopped" the city, looking for discarded or forgotten materials to add to those already brought in on the Friday evening. Once back at the IAF HQ, we split into three groups to begin connecting and assembling materials into larger components before collectively working on one final pile, assembly, or surface. This process was filmed to forefront the interaction between bodies, objects and materials. Personal stories and performative interpretations were integrated into the narrative.
