Exhibit A — To Not Design Is To Cost The Earth

To Not Design Is To Cost The Earth

For twenty years, IAF has borne witness to the transformative impact that excellent design principles, processes and practices deliver for communities across this island. At a time of significant social, spatial and climatic crises so endemic they no longer need naming, this exhibition reminds us that design thinking and action offer no barriers to progress. In fact, and citing the evidence presented on these walls, design and architecture support innovative, radical and useful ways to advance our social and spatial lives on this island and elsewhere.

To Not Design Is To Cost The Earth presents a collection of drawings and photographs that captures only a fraction of the diverse work currently carried out by architects in Ireland. From furniture to infrastructure, from our birth to death, from home to school, on the pitch or in the park, the world in which we live together is first shaped and then sustained by design.

This exhibition is a collective act of resistance to narratives that would suggest our development priorities might not benefit from design, that our lives cannot be made more joyful through aesthetics, or that our homes would not be made more useful, accessible and sustainable by good and evidence-based regulation and standards. What is offered for your consideration is the idea that architecture should be put to work and integrated strategically and ambitiously into our national planned and designed built future. Architecture must be truly valued now in order to build the foundations of a joyful, prosperous and equitable shared future.

This exhibition of drawings and photographs champions the value of architecture and design through the work of many public and private sector architects working today in Ireland and elsewhere. The exhibition is a new collection of work, a reminder to us at home of the esteem in which Irish architecture and architects are held internationally. This unique exhibition suggests that to fail to put architecture and design to work to meet the challenges people face on this island may not necessarily save money, but may cost the earth. 

Credits:

Curated by the IAF, To Not Design Is To Cost The Earth features the work of O’Donnell + Tuomey, Niall McLaughlin, Grafton Architects, dlr Architects Department + A2 Architects, Islander Architects, t o b Architect, Carson & Crushell Architects, BDP, plattenbau studio, Rubble, Robert Bourke Architects, GKMP Architects, Ben Mullen Architects, Gró.Works, McCullough Mulvin Architects, Allies and Morrison, AP+E, Ithirlann, Paul Dillon Architects, DUA, Urban Agency, Antipas Jones Architects, Christophe Antipas, David Leech, Clancy Moore Architects, Marmar, LiD Architects, Hawkins\Brown, Shay Cleary, Donaghy Dimond, and more.

Exhibit A

To Not Design Is To Cost The Earth is one of three exhibitions presented by the IAF this autumn that act as evidence towards countering negative and untrue narratives about our built world. HouseEurope! presents evidence of the wanton, unnecessary demolition of buildings in Europe when cities and those that live in them badly need more space for housing. Mise Le Meas presents evidence of the loss of social, cultural and intellectual capital that is happening as our young people leave Dublin to build their lives abroad.

The exhibitions are available to view until 30 November at IAF House at Charlemont Square, Dublin.

Accessibility Information

IAF House is a temporary-use space and does not have direct access to toilet and washroom facilities inside the space. Participants and visitors have full use of toilets, including an accessible toilet, located in a separate adjoining building approximately 100 metres away. The space and doorways open wide, and the venue does not have any steps or stairs.

Please contact us at info@iaf.ie if you have any access requirements.

Sensory Space

IAF House offers a sensory room, a quiet, calming space designed for visitors who may feel overstimulated or overwhelmed.

Image: Photo by Ste Murray