9ft in Common, Highly Commended at RIAI Awards 2023

21st November 2023
We’re delighted to share that 9ft in Common was awarded highly commended (which is essentially second place!) in the Research Category at this year’s RIAI Awards. With many thanks as always to our long-time co-lead on this project, Amberlea Neely, of Starling Start.

Passivhaus Designers Certified

13th October 2023
Congratulations to Katie and Graeme in their successful completion of the Passivhaus course, to become Passivhaus Certified Designers! With our many thanks to Barry McCarron and the rest of the course team at South West College for the thorough and inspiring delivery of the course content. 

The completion of this rigorous, technical and informative course now allows Studio idir to offer Passivhaus design on our projects, whether new build, or renovation and retrofit, so please get in contact with your enquiries! For more information on what this internationally recognised, performance-based energy standard is, have a look here.

Reimagining Elderhood Pop-Up

21st August 2023
From 5th-10th August, as part of the local dissemination of our Reimagining Elderhood project in Ballyhackamore, we held a pop-up, drop-in space on the high street where people could wander in for a warm welcome, mapping workshops and chat about how our homes and neighbourhood could better serve those in elder hood. Our exhibition maps and model for this project also featured in SOA Ireland’s exhibition as part of @openhousedublin in Temple bar, with the Reimagining Elderhood film featured and chosen as an Official Selection at The Richard Harris International Film Festival and the Indie Cork Film Festival. Congratulations to SOA Ireland for the success of their beautiful film and to all those involved in the project, including our colleagues; Islander Architects and Ailbhe Cunningham.

RSUA Design Awards: Small Project of the Year 2023

23rd May 2023
We are delighted to have been selected as recipients of an RSUA Design Award 2023, Small Project of the Year for our Ballyhackamore House project. Held in Stormont Parliament buildings, the whole team celebrated with our Director Aisling Rusk at the Awards Ceremony, for this outstanding and well-deserved achievement. With thanks to our many collaborators along the way for their expertise, skill and creativity in making this beautifully crafted home.

Longlisted for The Davidson Prize 2023

30th April 2023
This year Studio Idir entered and where long listed for The Davidson Prize: an ideas competition recognising transformative architecture of the home. The prize exists to celebrate innovative design ideas, to encourage multi-disciplinary collaboration and to promote compelling visual communication. The 2023 theme was Somewhere to Call Home, which asked teams to design new solutions for homelessness. 

Building on our West Belfast Mackies Site concept, Studio idir collaborated with Ian Pitt of Me,Him and Her Design, Peter McKinney of Milly’s farm, and Maura DeMello, Family and Children Services Consultant, to further develop designs for rhiz(H)ome; transitional homes for care-leavers in a community setting. We are very proud of the scheme we entered and were delighted that The Davidson Prize received press coverage in the AJDezeenBD and The Big Issue amongst others. 

RSUA Design Awards Shortlist

5th March 2023
Our Ballyhackamore Extension is one of 10 projects that has been shortlisted for the 2023 RSUA Design Awards. See here. We look forward to welcoming the judges in a few weeks time. We’ve had a few requests for more photos of the project, so head over to the projects tab where we have created a page for this project. Results will be announced in May.

Planning Approved in Malone

28th February 2023
We are delighted to have received Planning Approval for this speculative single-house development on a leafy site in Malone, soon to come to the market. This is what our clients had to say: ‘Thank you all so much for being such a wonderful, creative and dynamic team to work with! It has been a seamless experience from start to finish and we felt extremely confident in your hands at every stage of the process.’

57’10 Lecture Series

17th February 2023
Aisling Rusk was delighted to return to Aberdeen and present some of Studio idir’s work at RGU’s student lecture series, 57’10.  The students have painstakingly researched, created and gifted these beautiful models of a project by each weekly speaker, as a thank you gift.

Congratulations Aisling Madden!

7th November 2022
We are so proud of our very own Aisling Madden for completing the Part Three Professional Practice course to become a fully qualified architect! She has brought so much talent to our team, (not least her gorgeous sketch skills!) and we are excited to see what she accomplishes in her early career as an architect in the months and years to come.

We made the Shortlist!

24th October 2022
We are delighted to share that our entry to PPR’s trailblazing #takebackthecity competition, aiming to tackle housing shortage with and for families in housing need in West Belfast, has been shortlisted, along with some other fantastic proposals! Studio idir are the only practice from this island in the runnings.

See the shortlisted entries and have your say on the Take Back the City website or read about the competition in the Architect’s Journal. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Our proposal for community land trust choosing builds on the ethos of our practice (idir = between) and our Director’s (Aisling Rusk) PhD around creating spaces for multiple forms and levels of connection.

Duplex housing, inspired by Dutch examples, is built from lime-clad hempcrete and arranged around communal shared courtyards (for growing, relaxing and playing together) and along pedestrians street. The Forth meadow Community Greenway remains, this section becoming a linear, forgeable, edible forest. A car-free high street of local independent business is added, along with various community resources, including an integrated primary school, of course. The more we share, the more we all have.