Four new architects and teams have been selected to work with communities around Ireland to co-design an aspect of their built environment, as part of the Irish Architecture Foundation's Reimagine Programme. 

Our September café will focus on Meanwhile Use Spaces, a way of creating a temporary use for a place until a longer plan is in place.

This edition of Reimagine Sessions focuses on the centre of towns, areas that currently face major challenges as we undergo a shift in how we shop, work, travel and live. How can we reimagine a future for our town cores in the face of online retail and dereliction? Could remote working allow us to turn away from long commutes, and refocus our attention on our towns as places for social interaction and connection? What needs to happen for more people to return to Main Street living?

For our August edition, we will be focusing on the critical issue of dereliction in our communities, with widespread impact visually, socially, economically as well as representing a huge loss of our built heritage. If you would like to join us to discuss this topic or to share an example from your own area, join us on ZOOM on Tuesday, August 31st. We would love to hear about successful strategies and case studies, of buildings brought back to life and vibrant, lived-in streets. 

The theme for our next Cafe is "City Villages". We want to celebrate these villages - to hear about why they are special and what we can learn from them as we develop new communities. This cafe is at 1 pm on July 27th.

With the launch of the Government of Ireland's Our Rural Future - Rural Development Policy 2021 - 2025, we are making "Rural Futures" the theme of June's Reimagine Cafe, on June 29th. 

"From Mini Forests to Pocket Parks - Greening Interventions in Public Space". We have invited three speakers to reflect on the value of these small and valuable spaces, and consider ways that we can design our surroundings with the health of our bodies, communities and planet in mind.

The Reimagine Café is a community space for all those involved in placemaking and reimagining their built environment, meeting on the last Tuesday of every month. For our second Café we’ll be sharing reports from around Ireland related to the theme of "Age Friendly Places" in quick-fire 3-minute slots.

Check out our new Reimagine publication, and find out more about our Placemaking programme.

New documentary featuring the Play Park Ballyfermot, an exciting project facilitated by the IAF which created a new place to play, to skate, to run and to BMX!