Making the Built Environment Work

Postscript (July 2011)

From June 27th to July 2nd 2011, forty committed and energetic participants attended the Summer School, Making the Built Environment Work at NUI Maynooth. With backgrounds mainly from architecture, spatial planning and the social sciences, and at all stages of career development from student to established academic / practitioner, participants worked collectively to fashion a truly inter-disciplinary approach to the analysis of both the problems and the promise of Ireland's built environment. Six keynote speakers offered international and comparative perspectives from the disciplines of sociology, architecture, spatial planning, geography and urban design, and a further 22 contributors from third level institutions, private practice and the public sector in Ireland and beyond presented various epistemological and methodological approaches to reading the built environment. The four fieldtrips offered participants the opportunity to begin to work out these different readings in four different landscapes. Working in four different groups the participants made integrated (inter-disciplinary) responses to a particular built environment condition that ranged in emphasis from analysing the condition itself, to providing a direction for response, to a reflection on the interdisciplinary working process.

The Summer School was a fantastic success. Gauging responses from the 40 committed and energetic participants, it presented a unique, desired and valued opportunity for interdisciplinary working that proved to be rewarding, stimulating and brimful of potential for further development and collaborations. We are certain that it what began during the week in NUIM will continue to grow in scope to influence the wider response to built environment amongst all disciplines involved.

We want to take this opportunity to thank: the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences for supporting and investing in this Summer School; the Irish Social Science Platform and the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis for their superb administrative support; the speakers and workshop leaders for generously giving us their time and insights; and the participants for their extraordinary inputs and diligence and for rising with grace and intelligence to the challenge of 'making the built environment work.'

We will be back in contact soon, to follow up on your recommendations for our collective next step!

Mary P. Corcoran & Áine Ryan
Summer School Organisers