“How can we know the dancer from the dance”, a line from W. B. Yeats, is used by Níall McLaughlin with regard to architecture; how or why should we separate buildings from the “intangible things that flow through them”?
In our manifesto, we invited architects to think about the materials of architecture as being the free gifts of nature; air, daylight, sunlight, moonlight, wind, gravity. Here the architect has made a platform, an orrery, where the rhythms of daily life, of weather, of use, of social gathering, can be mapped and overlaid on spaces of the buildings. Buildings are seen here as artefacts which channel, gather and facilitate life, and which can develop an active life of their own by virtue of this patina of use.
This is a profound position to which we subscribe, and this work presents a view of FREESPACE which is open in its thinking, rigorous and poetic in its making. These are qualities which are reflected in the wonderful built work of this practice.
To make spaces which make us dance is also such a joyous vision, “we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once” (F. Nietzsche).
YF+SMcN
Níall McLaughlin Architects
Presences