Constructive Interference

“There is no such thing yet as a mainstream circular economy aesthetic - although this would be  the most appropriate expression of our epoch… the development of this aesthetic (which is also  the development of an ethic) is the task of our current era” (1)

Today’s young architects and designers (as well as ethical designers of all generations) exist at a complex front between the hope and innovation embodied in their work, and the realities of the wider architectural profession and construction industry. While the looming, existential issues of climate emergency, increasing social isolation and the impact of commercialisation on our cities and towns pervade conversations and provoke new methodologies, value systems and aesthetics within schools, these ripples are slow to push out to the established ways of working. Even as  positive changes are taking place in thought, the same systems trudge on, at scales of power and capital that can feel oppressively insurmountable. 

Constructive Interference is a natural phenomenon occurring when waves overlap in such a way that they combine to form a larger wave. Disturbances in wave patterns can either enhance both waves, or cause the overlapping waves to cancel each other out. 

This exhibition places student work in conversation with the architectural profession and the construction industry through proximity to the building expo and RIAI conference taking place directly below it. Both the expo and Constructive Interference exhibit materials, methodologies,  ideologies, and stand for their own ways of working. This is both a protest and an invitation, an invitation to consider how we might positively influence each other and our wider network within this ecosystem of construction and spatial production which we each below to. 

Six architecture schools from across Ireland are brought together in this space, each with their  own context and ethos to share. Each school was asked to respond to Rubble’s exhibition design manual, being given the same set of exhibition design infrastructures to appropriate and use to  curate their exhibition as they wished in response to the theme. 

Waves contain the inevitability of nature, the low shout of the seashore, undercurrents of unease.  What does it mean to be nearby one another, to occupy the same ecosystem, to allow ourselves  to be influenced? 

Building Change is a partnership of the six Schools of Architecture in the RoI realigning  architectural education towards a sustainability focus, empowering students to address the  challenges faced by society and building the culture of an inherent sustainability mindset.

(1) Jack Self, ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’, in Real Review Issue 15 (2024)

Participating universities: Technological University Dublin(TUdublin), University College Dublin (UCD), Cork Centre for Architectural Education (CCAE), Atlantic Technological University (ATU), South East Technological University(SETU), University of Limerick (UL)