The 14th annual All-Ireland Architecture Research Group (AIARG) conference aims to gather knowledge and experience on how architectural practitioners, educators, and theorists understand today’s ethical challenges in architecture.
The Grafton Architects Freespace manifesto for the Venice Biennale 2018 explored the theme of “Earth as our client” which underlines that architects’ ethical responsibilities are much broader than architects’ professional codes of conduct generally frame them to be. These obligations and responsibilities influence architectural practice broadly and profoundly. The conference will seek responses from architects, scholars, educators, and philosophers to the question about the architect’s actual duties to the environment, heritage, public space, society, and the profession itself.
The conference’s main ambition is to explore ethical aspects in the context of current and emerging challenges, such as climate urgency and AI amongst a myriad of others. The organisers wish to document best practices and considerations from Ireland and internationally in how architects deal, or potentially might deal with various ethical dilemmas. The conference seeks to provoke a wide-ranging debate on the profession’s ethics as a whole – in architectural practice, in the theory of architecture, and in the education of architects.
To achieve this, the organisers intend to invite experts at the forefront of this field from Ireland and internationally to discuss ethical issues and plausible ways of dealing with them.
We welcome proposals in the form of abstracts (not exceeding 500 words) under themes related to ethics in architectural practice, including but not confined to such topics as:
- the environment
- heritage and conservation
- public space and society
- the roles and responsibilities of the architectural practitioners in an increasingly complex world
- unethical practices
Abstracts will be double-blind peer-reviewed. The authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to develop papers for the conference. A book of abstracts will be printed ready for the conference.
Please send your abstracts to the following email address on or before the deadline for abstracts outlined below: AIARG2025@setu.ie
Keynote Speakers
Conference Venue: Department of Architecture and Built Environment, The Granary Building, South East Technological University, Waterford, Ireland.
Dates of the conference: 13th and 14th of March 2025
Conference announcement: 7th of November 2024
Extended Deadline for abstract submissions: 10 January 2025
Notification for abstract acceptance: 16th of January 2025
This international conference is an initiative of the All-Ireland Architecture Research Group (AIARG) and key event partners, facilitated by the aRCH Architecture Research Group (a member of SABRE Research Centre) and the Department of Architecture and Built Environment in Waterford, South East Technological University (formerly WIT). Established in 2010, the All-Ireland Architecture Research Group (AIARG) is a network of researchers from nine higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and professionals interested in architectural research. It is at the forefront of establishing a nexus of relationships between research, education, and practice within the field. AIARG seeks to facilitate and foster ongoing development in architecture as a research field in Ireland by providing an infrastructure for research in the form of conferences and peer-review publication opportunities and by raising the profile of research within the education of architects and their subsequent careers as practitioners.
The conference also forms a part of the Building Change initiative which is transforming Architectural education in Ireland through foregrounding climate literacy and climate action in our curricula.
Link to register AIARG 2025
Schedule in pdf AIARG Schedule 2025
AIARG Conference organising committee:
Dr Aleksandar Kostić
Dr Eoghan O Shea
Grace Johnson