Niall McLaughlin interviewed on Radio New Zealand

NIALL MCLAUGHLIN INTERVIEWED ON RADIO NEW ZEALAND

APRIL 2014

Whilst visiting New Zealand as guest lecturer for the 2014 Futuna Lecture Series, Niall McLaughlin was interviewed by Kim Hill for the Saturday Morning Show on Radio New Zealand. During the 40 minute conversation they discussed ideas behind a range of the practice’s projects including a private house on Ireland’s west coast, the athletes’ housing scheme for the London Olympics and an apartment block for the Peabody Trust in Silvertown.

The conversation also drew in wider architectural themes, touching on contemporary attitudes to construction and sustainability, Modernism’s tendency towards introversion, and the increasing disconnect between abstract ideas and built form.

Niall concluded the conversation saying, “I do think that buildings should be embodiments of ideas, and people working with architects should be confident to say, ‘These are my ideas. What kind of buildings can you make out of them.’ ”

To listen to the full interview click here.

ARCHITECTURE FOUNDATION OF AUSTRALIA CONFERENCE

JANUARY 2014

Niall McLaughlin has been invited to participate in a conference on Milson Island on the Hawkesbury River in Australia. Organised by the Architecture Foundation Australia, the residential event gathers an international field of speakers to explore a chosen theme. It will take place between the 28^th and 30^th of March 2014. This year’s theme will be ‘trace de la main’, taken from the comment by engineer Peter Rice that “whereas a Gothic cathedral will express the real and physical presence of the stone from which it was made, and of the masons who laboured over its construction so many years ago, very few modern buildings carry the same physical presence of the materials of which they were built. In short, ‘the trace de la main’, the evidence of those who built it, is not there.”