Design in Dublin: the city as a site of responsive and agile practice

This article looks at design in Dublin from 2008 onwards and makes the assertion that the recession has brought about a number of characteristics in design practice in the city. There is a movement of contemporary design in Dublin that is responsive, agile and civic-minded, practised by designers, communities, activists and the City Council. With relatively limited written sources on design in Dublin from 2008 onwards to rely on, much of the research for this article took the form of finding and assessing recent design projects in order to establish correlations or patterns. Another key part of my research has been to interview a variety of people involved in design in Dublin, including staff in Dublin City Council, practising designers, design curators and journalists. This primary research has been key in formulating a sense of what has been happening in Dublin in recent years in terms of design, and it is through conversation and examination that civic and citizens’ design practices, showing responsiveness and agility, have been identified as recurrent in Dublin design, and that a factor in allowing these modes of practice to develop is the city itself and the situation it has found itself in.