Extract from the Lewis Square case study in Perpective Magazine

There is something liberating in that generous modernist sensibility, and indeed, many of us were schooled in the language of the Modernist Movement that sprang from a desire for social change.

Additionally, for those of us born in Belfast, or industrial-era towns, we have a material and formal acceptance of living in the city expressed as two- and three—storey row housing adjacent to tall linen mills and engineering works. And yet even with those competing physical dimensions, there was a social and physical human scale that framed our daily social intercourse. We have since articulated that experience as a concatenation of urban villages that make the morphology of our small town.

in our contemporary, essentially urban culture, we enjoy and have an existential need for community - for social space — whilst also desiring good quality private external and internal space. The climate emergency, and the expectation of future pandemics have sharpened the important role, responsibilities, and possibilities of and for the architect in that regard.

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Ciaran Mackel, Senior Lecturer Belfast School of Architecture