Simon Walker was born in Dublin in 1962, and graduated from University College Dublin in 1992. Following periods living and working in Europe and the us, he is now an architect in private practice in Dublin. He is a studio tutor at UCD and a visiting critic at the Dublin Institute of Technology and the University of Limerick. His firm is a small architectural practice engaged in a variety of projects, for public and private clients. These include houses, urban space and renewal projects, apartment buildings, health care facilities, as well as furniture design and commercial work. He has written about architecture in Ireland in various publications, and his work has been featured in a+u Magazine, and the RIBA Journal. He is a member of the Irish Furniture Designers Network, and has also worked as curator and producer of exhibitions of architecture. Simon Walker is the son of Robin Walker and with Patrick Lynch presents his father’s work at this exhibition.
Patrick Lynch
Lynch Architects are directed by partners Patrick Lynch (BA Hons BArch MPhil ARB RIBA MRIAI) and Claudia Lynch and by associates Naomi Shaw and Michael Gollings. Their work includes a wide range of projects from private houses in London and the countryside to public buildings in London. Recently, they have completed a contemporary art gallery in Clerkenwell that was partly funded with a grant from English Heritage. Currently the practice is working on a social housing project for 36 houses as part of Allies & Morrison’s master plan for Brent Cross; a 3,000 m² office building and library and three blocks of affordable housing at Victoria Transport Interchange for Land Securities; a rural factory and office building in Wiltshire; the master plan for a new employment and housing zone at Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, and several private houses. Their work has been widely published and exhibited internationally. Lynch Architects won the Young Architect of the Year Award in December 2005.
Bótharbuí
Patrick Lynch & Simon Walker
This exhibit tells the story of the house Robin Walker built for his family and friends on the remote Beara Peninsula of Cork, from 1970–72. Called “Bótharbuí” (meaning ‘yellow road’ in Irish), it comprises a settlement of three ancient and three new structures, on a steep wooded slope of several acres, facing across the salt-water Kemare River to the Reeks of Kerry. In the 1970s and 1980s Bótharbuí was a country salon, where the worlds of Dublin politics rubbed shoulders with the artistic community in an informal yet grand manner. The exhibit presents Bótharbuí not as an objective, geometric composition, but as a happening, a confluence of physical and perceptual phenomena. A film of the house is displayed centrally, while parallel screens chart its lineage, its influence and its legacy as an exemplar of the Irish villa.
Credits
Directors: Sue Barr, David Heathcote
Lighting/Sound: Sue Barr, David Heathcote
Camera: Sue Barr, David Heathcote
Concept: Sue Barr, David Heathcote
