AAI Award 2026 Win

The IAF and 12th Field are thrilled that Bog Bothy has been selected for an AAI Award 2026 by the Architectural Association of Ireland.

Developed, shaped and co-designed with communities across Ireland’s peatlands, Bog Bothy arrived during three years of sustained engagement: returning to sites, building relationships and working slowly with the bog and its many stakeholders.

On the bog, things are never still. The ground shifts, water rises, paths appear and disappear. The Bothy sits lightly in this landscape. Making space. For gathering. For listening. For thinking about what it means to care for a place in transition.

What has emerged from this project is more than a structure, but a process, one that unfolds over time, carried by those who return to it, use it and shape it. 

Funded by Creative Ireland and regional partners and shaped by communities, artists, builders and many others along the way, Bog Bothy and this AAI Award belong to all of those who have spent time with the Bothy and with us. We thank all of our funders who believed in the project from the start.

With Bog Bothy on the move again, in partnership with Tóchar, IAF and 12th Field will  continue to work with new communities into summer 2026. As these landscapes enter a new phase of care and restoration, Bog Bothy remains a space to ask what forms of work might follow, and how we continue to inhabit, tend to and live with Ireland’s peatlands. 

Photo: Bog Bothy at Clara, Co. Offaly. Photo by Brendan Keogh.