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Dr. Rebecca Jane McConnell

@thefutureblueprint

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Architect Researcher Storyteller.
Explaining the hidden systems shaping your future.
Co founder @critbay
Collab: [email protected]

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Architecture is more than building

Comment SKILL for more information on how you can communicate your thinking better in your portfolio by @thefutureblueprint

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a month ago

Architecture is following instructions

The bar is not THAT high! Sometimes, a company wants to see if you are able to follow simple instructions. If a company is asking you to keep your application to a maximum of 10 A4 pages as a pdf, then why are you posting them your A1 drawings?!

We cover all of this in our new one day course “From Portfolio to Practice in one day”, now available!

Comment INSTRUCTION for more information by @thefutureblueprint

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a month ago

Every architecture portfolio is a story

Our one day video series “from portfolio to practice in one day” is now available! If you are currently preparing your portfolio for employment or are about to begin your final year of architecture school then this series is for you.

Comment PORTFOLIO for more information by @thefutureblueprint

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a month ago

What did architects notice at the festival? Here’s some cool structures from my weekend at @epfestival

This area was unbelievably colourful and full of life in a maze

Deep in the forest !

A really cool structure by @guinness_ireland

A really cool structure by @guinness_ireland

A really cool structure by @guinness_ireland

Revamped bus

An old ship as stage

Art installations

Huge tent that holds 15k +

A female urinal! My highlight by @thefutureblueprint

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2 months ago

Manhattan has a skyscraper with a slight problem. It’s leaning.

One Seaport, a 60-storey luxury residential tower in Lower Manhattan, has earned itself the nickname the “Banana Building” because of its very noticeable curve.

And no, it was not designed like that.

The story of One Seaport is basically a lesson in what happens when ambitious architecture, difficult ground conditions and construction problems collide.

The tower began to lean during construction, reportedly due to issues with its foundations, and what was supposed to be a sleek new addition to the Manhattan skyline became one of New York’s strangest skyscraper stories.

Proof that sometimes the most interesting thing about a building isn’t what the architect intended. It’s what went wrong.

#OneSeaport #Manhattan #NewYorkArchitecture #NYCArchitecture #Skyscraper Architecture ArchitectureTok ArchitectureReels Engineering StructuralEngineering NewYorkCity by @thefutureblueprint

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2 months ago

Can architecture help create a monster? 🧛🏻‍♂️

In 1890, Irish author Bram Stoker arrived in Whitby, a seaside town overlooked by the ruins of a medieval abbey, with a graveyard perched high above the North Sea.

Parts of the real town would eventually make their way into Dracula: the harbour, the cliffs, the churchyard and the famous 199 steps.

Not only did Whitby help shape the world of Dracula… Dracula then began to reshape Whitby.

More than a century later, the town is still internationally associated with the Gothic, attracting visitors searching for the atmosphere Stoker immortalised.

A reminder that architecture doesn’t just provide a backdrop for stories….Sometimes, it helps create them! by @thefutureblueprint

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2 months ago

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2 months ago

This Dublin pub sat empty for around 15 years.

Then housing activists occupied it, renamed it the Anne Devlin Community Centre and opened its doors to the Liberties.

Inside, they created a café, a bicycle-repair workshop, an Irish-language circle, poetry workshops and public meetings about gentrification.

Around six weeks later, the High Court ordered the occupation to end. Two activists who refused to comply with the court orders were arrested, and the building was repossessed.

But the urban question is much more uncomfortable:
In a city facing a housing crisis and a shortage of community space, should buildings be allowed to remain empty for 15 years?

Was this trespassing - or were the activists doing something the city had failed to do?

#Dublin #housing #liberties #thefutureblueprint by @thefutureblueprint

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2 months ago

Belfast taught generations of us how to read the built environment.

A flag, a kerbstone, a school uniform, a street you knew not to take. We learned what side someone was from and how to hide our own.

Now, almost 30 years after the Good Friday Agreement, those same streets are hosting Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann for the first time!!!

It’s a tangible marker of how a city moves through trauma: from checkpoints to crowds, from concealed identity to culture expressed openly, from streets designed to control movement to streets filled with people wandering between sessions.

Belfast is not completely healed, I know this. The peace walls still stand, some gates still close at night, and progress has not reached every neighbourhood equally...But I think you can feel something shifting.

A city once known globally for what it built is learning how to gather again, and it has never felt more exciting to be here. taken in Belfast, Ireland by @thefutureblueprint

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2 months ago

Most cities are still designed around a very simple journey: home, work, home.

But for many primary caregivers, that’s not what daily life looks like at all.

Their day might include dropping children at school, collecting prescriptions, buying groceries, caring for relatives, attending appointments, and fitting paid work somewhere in between. These complex, multi-stop journeys are known in planning research as trip chaining, and they’re far more common among women because they still carry a disproportionate share of unpaid care work.

One city trying to respond to this is Bogotá. Its Care Blocks (Manzanas del Cuidado) bring childcare, healthcare, education, legal support, laundry facilities, and other essential services together within a short walk. Rather than expecting people to fit around the city, the city is redesigned around the realities of care.

It’s a reminder that the way we design our cities isn’t neutral. It can either make everyday life harder, or make it easier.

If you’d like to explore the research behind this, look up:
• Gendered Mobilities by Susan Hanson
• Work on trip chaining and gender by Patricia L. Mokhtarian and colleagues
• Bogotá’s Manzanas del Cuidado (Care Blocks) programme and the city’s Care System

I’d love to know: does this reflect your daily journey? by @thefutureblueprint

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2 months ago

Most festivals build a temporary city.

The Fleadh Cheoil does the opposite. And it’s in Belfast on Sunday!!!! @belfastcitycouncil @visitbelfast @belfastinsiders

For one week, ordinary streets become stages, pubs become concert halls, churches become music venues and schools become competition spaces. Nothing about the buildings changes-only how people use them.

It’s a reminder that great places aren’t defined solely by their architecture, but by the life that fills them.

Maybe the most successful public spaces aren’t the ones we build, but the ones we learn to use differently.

#FleadhCheoil #Ireland #UrbanDesign #Architecture #Placemaking PublicSpace IrishCulture Cities Design TheFutureBlueprint by @thefutureblueprint

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3 months ago

What if your local basketball court could prevent flooding?

In Queens, New York, these basketball courts have been redesigned by Grain Collective to hold up to 330,000 gallons of stormwater during flash floods. Most of the time they’re just courts. But when heavy rain hits, they become part of the city’s flood infrastructure. @graincollective

My favourite part of this project isn’t actually the engineering.

When the designers first met residents, they didn’t start by talking about climate change. They talked about giving the community something they’d actually use: better basketball courts. The flood resilience came with it.

I think that’s a lesson a lot of climate projects miss. People don’t fall in love with infrastructure. They fall in love with places that make their lives better.

As flash flooding becomes more frequent, I think we’ll start seeing more public spaces designed to do two jobs at once.

Architecture is at its best when you barely notice it’s solving a problem. #thefutureblueprint #architecture #design #climatedesign by @thefutureblueprint

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3 months ago