April Newsletter

EASA Organisers Francis &
Sean at the competition adjudication.

Organisers | Participation | Competition |
Events | Workshops

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Notes from the
organisers

Biofuels....food riots.....global recession.....what a year
2008 has been so far!!!

What a difference a year makes......things have changed
hugely in Ireland since summer 2007. The last few months have seen
Ireland's much heralded economy dubbed the 'Celtic Tiger' shuddering to an
abrupt halt; unemployment in Ireland is now at its highest level in 5
years, economic growth has dropped from 5% in 2007, to a projected 1.1%
this year. In the first three months of 2008 the Government recorded a
deficit of just over 354m euros. This compares with a surplus of 1.8
billion euros in the first three months of last year.

The cause....a collapse of the Irish housing market.
According to the International Monetary Fund, Ireland's housing market is
overvalued by 30%. Residential investment accounts for 12 percent of the
Irish economy, compared with 5 percent in Britain and 4 percent in the
United States. This level of investment has led to the now evident
oversupply on the Irish market. The glut of housing has brought new
construction to a standstill, driving up unemployment and dimming the
prospects for what has been on of Europeâ€™s stellar performers over the
last decade. Last month, only 4,050 houses were completed in Ireland, a
43% fall on the same period last year. So all in all, changing times and
challenging times ahead for Irish Architecture and never before has the
theme of this year's asembly, 'Adaptation' been
more relevant.

Marching uphill when the rest of the country seems to be
dragging itself downwards with the bad news is hard work, but we have the
momentum to attract a couple more positive minded people to join the trek!
As Robert Lewis Stevenson said, 'Don't judge each day by the harvest you
reap, but by the seeds you plant'. Looking forward to seeing you all in
Ireland in August!

Remember, for all your posts, questions, and comments, the
easa blog is at http://easa.antville.org

Extra Places | Payment
Deadline

Thanks to all the hard working NC's nearly every country
in the EASA network has managed to fill its quota leaving us in the very
difficult position as regards allocation out extra places. We have, out of
respect to previous and future EASA organisers reduced the Irish
contingent to partially accommodate their requests. If circumstances
change for some participants between now and the start of the assembly,
rendering them unable to attend the event, we will endeavour to find
replacements.

The deadline for payment of participant fees is Friday 2nd
May. It is integral to the organisation of EASA Ireland 2008 that all
participation fees are received in full and on-time due to bookings that
need to be made in the next month. Payments are only accepted from the
National Contacts of each country and should be made to the account
below.

Your bank will also require our
address;

EASA Ireland Ltd.,

2 Terminus Mills,

Clonskeagh Road,

Dublin 6,

Ireland

Results Announced |
Green Room

The Results for the
Green Room International Student Competiton have been announced. The EASA
Ireland Competition team would like to thank all those who entered. We
received over 50 entries, most of which had a very high standard of
design, interpretation of the brief and presentation.

Overall Winner

Entrant
0307 - Gustav BackstrÃ¶m / Anders Malmberg (SWE) [download]

Most Practical

Entrant
6304 - AndrÃ¡s MÃ¡rk Bartha / Bence KomlÃ³si (HU) [download]

Most Innovative

Entrant 8004 -
Jennifer Ramirez (USA) [download]

Commended

Entrant
6112 - Linus Godet / Nikolaj Friis (CH) [download]

Entrant
6348 - JORGE LDEA (VEN) [download]

EASA Highlights

We would strongly urge
everyone to arrive to EASA on Saturday as the planned lecture series,
opening cermony, parties and workshop fair are very much an huge part of
the Assembly.

Richard Murphy - Richard Murphy Architects

Richard
Murphy is an acclaimed Scottish Architect and was involved in the
organisation of the very first European Architecture Students Assembly in
1981. Richard has completed many award-winning projects in the West of
Ireland. More
>

Yvonne Farrell -
Grafton Architects

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara established Grafton
Architects in 1977 having graduated from UCD in 1974. They have been
studio lecturers at the school of architecture UCD since 1976 and visiting
critics to schools of architecture abroad. They are winners of Meno e Piu
competition for two schools in Prato Smeraldo in Rome in 2007 and they
have exhibited in Ireland and abroad, including an exhibition at the RIAI
Exhibition Centre in 1999, the Venice Biennale 2002, the Mies van der Rohe
Award Exhibition 2003 and at the Dessa Gallery, Ljubljana 2006. More >

Workshops
Announced

We would
like to inform all tutors and participants that the EASA Ireland
2008 Workshop Ideas Fair will take place on
Monday 11th August between 10:30-12:30 in UCD Astra Hall.
Tutors from the 24 workshops selected by EASA Ireland for the assembly in
Letterfrack will present their ideas in a trade fair format. Participants
are required to sign up to their workshop of preference at this
event.

The
Green Room will be our headline workshop. It began as an
international student competition with more than 60 qualified
applications. The winning design by Gustav BackstrÃ¶m and Anders Malmberg
of Sweden was chosen by an adjudication panel of Xavier Dubuisson, Graham
Petrie, Paul Kenny, Michael Haslam and members of EASA Ireland. It will be
developed and constructed by a team of students at the
assembly.

Flux Culture is another of our marquee
workshops. It will be a workshop/thinktank/seminar studying the effects of
Migration on our built environment. The students will develop new maps
chronicling the movement of people in Europe, examine the contributions of
vibrant immigrant communities to our cities and develop new building
typologies to serve them.

Lunch Box is our third headline workshop.
The students will design and construct an outdoor pavilion for the use of
the students of the GMIT campus in Letterfrack, EASA Ireland sees this
workshop as a means of repaying the college and local community for all
their support. It will be led by the distinguished Irish graduate
architects Ronan Costello, Joe Mc Mahon & Dermot
Reynolds.

There
are 21 other workshops, their genesis lying in ideas submitted to EASA
Ireland by potential tutors from all over Europe. In order to finalise our
list, EASA Ireland had to narrow more than 50 proposals down to 21. More
information on these workshops is available on our website here.

Workshop Compilation Document [download]

EASA Ireland
would like to thank our sponsors and all those helping to realise the
EASA008 Summer Assembly;