On 8 January 2018, RTC's Dr Sarah Lappin and sound artist and composer Dr Matilde Meireles offered advice on design and sound elements of the student proposals for Public CoLab.
Public CoLab, led by Dr Nuala Flood with Niek Turner and Dr Jasna Mariotti is a live project that harnesses the skills, talents and creativity of the architecture students at Queen's University Belfast. It directs them towards a pressing and pertinent issue facing the people of Derry-Londonderry. The project has been developed in collaboration with a riverfront regeneration initiative called Our Future Foyle. It aims to understand the negative connotations associated with the River Foyle and promote a greater sense of health and wellbeing along its banks. It was commissioned and initiated by the Public Health Agency for Northern Ireland and implemented by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art, London.
The architecture students have designed a number of interactive installations to bring vitality and joy to this part of the city. These interventions provide a place to pause and enjoy the landscape and, also, to showcase the output of one of two creative local enterprises. The first is a musical composition that reflects the River Foyle and the second is a number of 3D prints created as part of Remake, Reimagine Replay - a national lottery funded project that invites the children of Northern Ireland to reinterpret items for the regions museums using 3D printing technologies. A number of the installations, designed by the QUB students, will be built and tested in-situ in late April 2018. The Derry/Londonderry based Fablab will play a key role in the manufacturing process and they have worked closely with the students for the duration of the project.
Image: Proposed interventions created by stage 1 students, QUB, 2017-2018