What we do

Town Ecologies

Now in its fourth year, Town Ecologies invites emerging architects / architectural graduates to develop their co-design, creative placemaking and community engagement skills and experience. Through an Open Call process, the selected emerging architects / architectural graduates experience first-hand co-design, stakeholder/community, and local authority engagement. As a result, the co-design processes realise tangible outcomes for the communities involved and provide a unique real-life immersive learning platform for the participating architects.

Town Ecologies is led by Workhouse Union in partnership with Kilkenny LEADER Partnership and funded by The Arts Council with further support from Kilkenny LEADER Partnership and Kilkenny County Council.

To date, five six communities have participated, with over 500 people taking part in community co-design and creative placemaking workshops.

2021 – 2023 participating architects/architectural graduates: Kate Griffin and Andrea Doyle; Islander Architects; Uncertain Futures; Studio Anois; Wrkshop Architects; Darren O’Connor, Kevin Quinlan and Kate Hunter Hanley.

in collaboration with Ballyragget Community Hall Committee, Dunnamaggin Development Group, Ballykeeffe Amphitheatre Committee, Ballyhale Development Group, Kilkenny Steiner School, Trasna Productions and BEOFS, Goresbridge Rural Development.

The Five Pillars of Town Ecologies:

Each project is initiated by villages, towns, and rural communities that are actively interested in and need to co-design community-led visions and plans.

Encourages social inclusion in planning, with a particular emphasis on harder-to-reach voices.

Supports communities outside of formal planning processes to prepare for future funding and planning opportunities.

Mentoring emerging architects and architectural graduates to upskill in community co-design, engagement and creative placemaking skills and experience.

Nurtures creative placemaking and community co-design practice in Ireland.

Ballyhale / Studio Anois

Studio Anois collaborated with Ballyhale Development Group, Ballyhale GAA, local schools and community members to produce a needs analysis for the towns of Ballyhale and Knocktopher. The Needs analysis examined public access, mobility, transport and community amenities and how to improve public space for those living, learning, working and playing in Ballyhale and Knocktopher.

Ballytobin / Wrkshop Architects
Wrkshop Architects worked alongside Workhouse Union on behalf of the Ballytobin Neighbourhood Consortium (Kilkenny Steiner School, Trasna Productions and BEOFS) to lead a neighbourhood co-design mapping process to prioritise how the three entities develop the site over the coming
years, with a focus on shared space, green space, access roads and parking, planning issues, future development opportunities.

Ballyragget / Kate Griffin and Andrea Doyle

A community-led town renewal process focused on the relationship to the river, issues of dereliction, and enhanced community facilities. Architects Kate Griffin and Andrea Doyle used an interactive model of the town to start a conversation and map ideas, comments, routes, etc. The community mapping process encouraged discussion about issues relevant to this community and how these could be addressed. The community-led plan sets out fresh ideas for critical areas in the town— the riverside, the town centre, and the area of the bridges, underpinned by the cooperative heritage of the town.

Dunnamaggin / Islander Architects

As part of a village renewal plan to create enhanced community space and amenities, Islander Architects focused on a co-design process for Madge’s Garden. Local Lines was an interactive game to help the community address the broader context of their built and social environment. The workshop breaks down into three rounds focusing on people, activities and places. A focused co-design of Madge’s Garden established a plan that allows for bio-diversity, markets, performance and intergenerational play space.

Ballykeeffe Amphitheatre / Uncertain Futures

Uncertain Futures collaborated with the Ballykeeffe Amphitheatre (a community-led outdoor concert venue) to create collective imaginings of the future and identify design opportunities for the site. Uncertain Futures experimented with different ways of mapping the ‘soft data’ of the project in ways that are accessible and can play an active role in the long term process of delivering projects. A big focus was on how Ballykeeffe can tell its story in new ways, a series of new mini-infrastructures, how the lime kiln can become a key feature and how, through repositioning the bar, the venue can open out to Slievenamon.

 

Images

A Vision for Dunnamaggin
Ballykeeffe Amphitheatre: Feasibility Study
Cultivate: A Village Vision for Rathnure
Bring Your Own Chair
Meet You at the Green?
Courtyard Screen
The Bridge Street Project
Commonage
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