So. Unfortunately the course I was attending at UCD wasn’t working out; but I am damn glad that I at least attempted the shift. Dublin is a lovely city, and hopefully one day, when the world isn’t so crazy, I’ll be able to revisit it (for the 4th time!) and have a chance to truly enjoy it. I’ll be moving back to the UK by the end of the year, and we’ll see what that brings.

I managed to secure a transfer back to CSA|UCA where I did my undergraduate, and I’ve been getting up to speed on their teaching programme since the end of October. This semester has a dual focus of an 8000-10000 dissertation, which I’m using to investigate cybernetics & its relationship to architectural practice since it’s inception - although I’m happy to narrow down the focus as the research continues. We have a presentation for this on Tuesday next week, and I’ve got a very busy few days ahead of me.

The second focus is the design studio. For this first phase of the project up until the 11/12, we’re full steam ahead on contextual research and development of the brief. Similarly to the dissertation, I’ve decided to attempt to play to my strengths and go back to home ground - the LGBTQ+ community, infrastructure, politics; whilst also incorporating research into agriculture & architecture that I began during my time at UCD.

It is early days yet, and I’ll upload my research slides so far, along with the storyboard for the film we have been developing as a primer for our intended focus. The main feedback I have received thus far (which was wholly expected - gratifying in one respect) is to narrow my intended focus and also shift back to a greater emphasis on (beautiful) graphical representation of data. Thus far, the research has looked into contemporary questions of information warfare, corruption, the status of the LGBTQ+ diaspora, economics in the 20th & 21st Century, climate change and architecture & sustainability initiatives.

I also listened to a conference today on research into suicide & self-harm - something completely outside of my area of academic expertise, with the intention of hopefully learning something that may be tangentially useful to later design development stages of the project. When you’re tasked with designing a community from the ground up, perhaps there are, I hesitate to say kinder, but maybe more pragmatic pastoral care decisions to consider? Also, I think its just an interesting change to listen or look into something wholly different once in a while - I certainly had a few lightbulb moments reading into Keynes, Post-Keynes, Hayek & Friedman, and the Doughnut. Yes, Doughnut Economics is a thing.