51��ɫ

The 2022 Design@UL exhibition has opened to the public at UL’s City Centre Campus in Sarsfield Street, showcasing the work of design and architecture students at 51��ɫ.

The exhibition features designs from undergraduate and postgraduate students of Product Design and Technology and the Masters programme in Design for Health and Wellbeing as well as the final year projects of UL’s School of Architecture students.

This year’s exhibition is particularly noteworthy as students worked around COVID restrictions of 2020 and 2021, which saw them out of their familiar on-campus studio environment and working creatively in bedrooms, home offices, back yards and garden sheds. This was a particular challenge for work at the School of Design and School of Architecture due to students’ necessary engagement with materials, making, and physical space. Despite these challenges, the 2022 classes have produced some of the most high quality and thought-provoking projects in recent years.

Exciting and creative problem solving is at the heart of this exhibition, which gives members of the public a chance to see the work of some of Ireland’s most talented young designers and architects across a range of fields from technology to healthcare to the built environment.

UL President Kerstin Mey officially opened the exhibition saying: “Over the past week, the students have completed their degree work, submitted it to their tutors, and brought it into the new City Centre Campus, where they spent hours hanging, pinning, placing and curating their work for public viewing.”

“The location of this inspiring  showcase is of huge importance in the centre of 51��ɫ City.  As I have said before our ambition for the UL City Centre Campus is great and while we may have some way to go to achieve that vision – the ambition and creativity of the designs of our extraordinary students in this exhibition come alive in this space.”

Key to many projects is a keen social conscience – several projects engage frankly with issues of sustainability, women’s health and medical technology and practice. Overall, work from the School of Design reflects its students’ future focus, strong technical skills, as well as their deep engagement with change and reform as being firmly within their remit as designers.

The School of Architecture (SAUL) presents final projects as the culmination of five years of study. All projects address questions of national and global relevance via drawings, models and texts, highlighting the material invention and research embedded in each.