Make/Do for all those not in the know is a group of students from Irish Architecture Schools dedicated to promoting architecture to the public. The group was formed at the annual RIAI conference in Westport after the students present were offered a space for an exhibition in Spencer Dock in Dublin in January. Turns out that attempting to co-ordinate a large scale exhibition from five different sides of the country via email while trying to get an architecture degree is no amble in the park. So the Limerick Make/Do delegates hooked up with SofA to create a truly inspiring event - SAUL in the City - and what a great pun!
As with all great things in life - the whole thing was a rather haphazard series of events. On Thursday, following another rather disparaging email from make/do'ers around the country we decided to take things into our own hands. By Monday we had an empty retail space in the middle of Limerick City, posters on the way, half of Limerick emailed, two student lecturers lined up, a melee of photography and artwork from students to exhibit, musical entertainment and kind donations for copious amounts of wine and cheese! And the plan was this - for one day only, plonk the School of Architecture in the middle of the city with the doors flung open - and flung open they were.
Thursday came all too soon - maylines were moved, sketchbooks escorted, chairs borrowed, lighting absconded but we had it - flash studio. There was a great response from the public and local press throughout the day and we were all feeling a little smug. Then the news reached our ears - back in the 'real school of architecture' David Lewis from New York based firm LTL and Irenee Scalbert, renowned architecture critic were giving a lecture. It was a disaster.
We panicked. Who, we thought, will come to see our evening lectures with an architect like David Lewis up for grabs? There was only one thing for it - kidnap David Lewis! And by kidnap I mean we texted the head of the school to see if he'd like to move it into the city - he did. And suddenly our lecturer bill had doubled! Immediately we ran to Fine Wines to get more wine with a sense of urgency like I've never known! The night was a great success - four brilliant lectures in all. The first from David Grace, detailing the development in surf board design. His hands on experience with board making himself as well as his passion for the craft made it a highly entertaining twenty minutes! The second was from kidnap victim David Lewis who showed us a series of beautiful LTL projects. It was fantastic to see the hands on approach his from LTL has to design. The third was from Irenee Scalbert who talked about the development of housing. Finally, Danny gave us an account of his year out in Berlin - great photographs, really entertaining!
We concluded the night with musical entertainment from Sean and friends and a promise to ourselves that we had to do something like this again.....watch this space.