For Open House Dublin, Blue Drum puts a spotlight on the Loughlinstown Digital Map. We’ll start with something simple: you can’t just look at Loughlinstown, you have to feel it. You need time and you need ways to read both what’s happening now — the “hot” — and what happened before — the “cold”, the memories underneath.

This is a hands-on, immersive think-in to explore why public housing landscapes are, at worst, badly looked after, and, at best, treated as separate bits and pieces — a teen space here, a community garden there — whenever resources appear.

For the Open House Dublin weekend, we’re inviting anyone who’s curious about community and public space to explore how public landscape is shaped over time. This connects directly to the Council of Europe’s Faro Convention, an agreement that says communities are the guardians of their own heritage.

The programme explores Herbert Unger’s original design through the eyes of a local resident, and how his design brought ideas from the garden-city movement to this public housing. Audio and memory recordings will compare what the original design intended with how people actually use the space today.

We’ll be joined by guests who through their experience and practice help us read the patterns in the digital map — and why we need to collect these memories now, while people are still here to share them.

We’re seeking real momentum for community development. Come for the whole of it as sessions build on one another. Especially appealing to residents, community leaders and local representatives from 1970s public housing developments. Open to all, but places are limited and selected on the basis of a short letter of motivation, sent to [email protected]

Wheelchair accessible

Accessible public building