Scotland + Ireland

Join Karen Anderson, President of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and Emmett Scanlon, Director of the Irish Architecture Foundation for an open conversation exploring stories of reciprocity across and between Scotland and Ireland. Chaired by Andy Summers, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Architecture Fringe.

What is architecture's reciprocal relationship with society? In thinking about our collective public life, what presence do architects have, and what roles do they play within the consciousness of the general public? By sharing stories inspired by their professional and lived experience, Karen and Emmett will range across topics touching upon expanded practices in architecture, community engagement, public construction and national building cultures.

Karen Anderson
Karen is the current President of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. She is an architect and founding partner of architectural design practice Anderson Bell Christie with awards for architecture and urban design. Karen is the former chair of Architecture and Design Scotland and previously a Royal Fine Art Commissioner. Active as an advocate for community participation and best practice in design, she has sat on a number of architecture and design awards panels. Karen is also a visiting Professor at Scott Sutherland School of Architecture in Aberdeen, and an external examiner in Architecture & Urban Planning at the University of Dundee.

Emmett Scanlon
Emmett is an architect, writer, broadcaster and curator. In 2023 he became the Director of the Irish Architecture Foundation, Ireland’s independent organisation for the advancement of culture and discourse in architecture. An award-winning and innovative teacher, he is also Assistant Professor of Architecture at University College Dublin. In 2023, he was the Artistic and Editorial Organiser of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, working with Curator Lesley Lokko, leading her international design and curatorial team. He is the founder of Story, Building, an independent publisher of criticism in architecture, working in print, online and via podcast. Prior to setting up in independent practice in 2006, Emmett was Project Director with Grafton Architects for nine years.

Andy Summers
Andy Summers is an architect, educator, curator, and public-programmer specialising in architecture and the built environment. He is interested in cultural democracy, and his work seeks to expand the role of architecture in public discourse with particular focus on the commons, queerness, racial discrimination, and radical pedagogy. He is a co-founder and co-director of the Architecture Fringe. He represented Scotland at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale with ‘A Fragile Correspondence’, co-curated with colleagues from the Architecture Fringe, -ism magazine, and /other, and is also a Teaching Fellow at the Edinburgh School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture at the University of Edinburgh.

Doors 11:00, Event starts 11:15

Please note this event will be filmed and recorded.

Tickets
Tickets available via Ticket Tailor
FREE

Access
The event will take place on the ground floor of The Briggait, with entry from Clyde Street, with level access via the Clyde Street entrances.

The Core Programme for the Architecture Fringe 2025 has been made possible through the support of Creative Scotland Multi-Year Funding, Moxon Architects, Helen Lucas Architects, and Collective Architecture.