Thurles student wins Thesis of the Year at UL Architecture Exhibition

A Tipperary student has won Best Thesis at the Design@UL exhibition in Limerick.

David Conway of Thurles was awarded the prize for his thesis, titled “No Eschaton: Mortalities in Architecture,” sharing the award with fellow student Nina Winship of Limerick.

The thesis is “grappling with the abandonment of the design and consideration around death in contemporary public life.”

Speaking with Tipperary Live, Conway says he is thrilled to receive the award: “I adore my coursemates and I genuinely don’t think you could score the work in architecture school. It’s all expression at some points. We have an amazing relationship with the teaching staff. They’re like collaborators and friends as much as mentors. It was nice to get acknowledged in this way by people I really respect and admire.”

Speaking on the project, he said: “The last year in architecture school is a year long thesis. It includes a written piece, and the designing of a building which is spurred on by the ideas of the written piece. It’s a lot about figuring out your own creative process, which for me was making models, some paintings, collages, lots of reading, and lots and lots of drawings.”

“All of this work centres around the topic of your choosing. It can be anything that has a relation to, or can be explored through architectural practice. For my topic, I chose death. It sounds very serious, but it’s actually more about life in Limerick city,” he said.

The project “bookends the processional experience of Limerick city by offering a moment of departure from a gathering space at Johns Square and a moment of arrival to the River Shannon at Arthurs Quay Park.”

Conway said he was very inspired by historic architecture, and how the field in the modern day has been influenced by it. He said: "I visited a lot of Neolithic burial sites growing up, especially in Sligo, where my Granny's family is from. I've always been fascinated with that way of marking memories in stone, and how that's evolved to the cemeteries in our towns and cities. I'm very interested in the next chapter of our society. I wonder how our evolving beliefs and values will affect the evolution of our rituals and traditions."

On his plans to further his career following the achievement, Conway said: “I’ve done five years in university, which includes a year I spent working in Switzerland. That’s a long time to be engrossed in a topic. I am fascinated by architecture, and hopefully will work in it. I’m also really into other forms of art and hope to work in many different ways, continuing to develop a practice and find my voice. Right now, I’m cycling and camping in Spain to get away from it all, so who knows?.”

The exhibition showcases works from over 80 final-year and postgraduate students of Architecture, Product Design and Technology, and Design for Health and Wellbeing, representing the best in new design that is for and about people, the spaces they inhabit and the products and systems they use.

The architecture projects on display include reimagined spaces in Limerick City and Mid-West region - making them more accessible for people with complex needs, and examining the relationship between mobility, urban development, fairness and sustainability. Topics addressed include how we can use the lanes of Limerick to create microclimates for people to experience outdoor comfort, how architecture for humans can make space for non-human life such as bird habitat, and how we can design buildings to be capable of living with flood water, rather than building to avoid it.