AAI Ireland

On the occasion of the 500-year anniversary of the first publication of Thomas More’s work ‘Utopia’, the theme for this year’s AAI 2nd Year week long architectural competition is ‘Utopia’.

‘Utopia is never realized and yet it is indispensable to stimulate change’.
Henri Lefebvre (1991).

The challenge is to chose any Utopian City Plan and analyse the social and design possibilities inherent in its underlying values. As More’s Utopia is structured as “Book I” and its contrast in “Book II”, the Task is to prepare a twin collage, or diptych, that represent ‘values embedded in the plans’.

Image I; A collage of an imagined street or public space of any Utopian City Plan to capture the intended, or unintended consequence, of the grand idea on the threshold between private and public life of its citizens.

Image II; Then imagine and represent its opposite!

The Judges this year are Professor Tom Moylan, Founding Director, Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies, University of Limerick, Miriam Delaney, Lecturer at Dublin Institute of technology and Miriam Fitzpatrick, Lecturer at Waterford Institute of Technology and University College Dublin.