This year’s iteration of Offset may have moved to a later date in the calendar than we were accustomed to, but still takes place in the familiar surrounds of the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Grand Canal Square and still hosts the now to-be-expected stellar line-up form all corners of the creative universe. Since we last met up with Offset, they’ve spread their wings and launched their first international venture, with Offset London taking place last November. Unlike certain other conferences that bring the world to Dublin (ahem), the team still see our city as their home and this
edition of Offset will feature over 20 speakers on its main stage across three days, over 2,500 attendees through its doors, probably as many post-presentation pints and chats in the Ferryman and doubtless ten times as many ideas inspired by a line-up that is guaranteed to not disappoint. For our Design Issue we’ve profiled the work of four of the guests who are visiting the Offset to give us a peek behind the curtain of creativity, starting with Assemble.
Assemble
Doubtless one of the most intriguing studios to be represented at Offset 2016, Assemble are a collective whose work spills across would-be boundaries to the extent that what might be seen as a built environment project became nominated for and eventually won the Turner Prize last year. Nominally an architecture firm, the members of the 18-strong collective are all in the twenties, aren’t all qualified architects and shun the regular hierarchies of traditional firms.
The project for which they were awarded the Turner Prize, Granby Four Streets, centres on a four streets of terraced houses in Toxteth, an area of Liverpool which has suffered greatly from deprivation and poverty. Any visitor to the areas surround Liverpool will be familiar with the sight of tightly fitted Victorian-era redbrick terraces that used to house working class neighbourhoods boarded-over and derelict, one house after another “tinned up” and waiting for the next regeneration plan. Toxteth – aside from being the birthplace of Ringo Starr and Robbie Fowler – is a name that is, sadly, often synonymous with the chaos of the 1981 riots, since when the area has largely been in (mis)managed decline.
Assemble’s creed states that they seek to address the “typical disconnection between the public and the process by which places are made”, and they see on interaction and collaboration with the public as part of their own working practice. The Granby Four Streets was one such project. Assemble worked in collaboration with the Granby Four Streets Community Land Trust to build on the organisation and resistance of local residents who rejected successive cynical, top-down regeneration projects that would have resulted in the demolition of their neighbourhood, and instead defended their homes. Their scheme refurbished homes, transformed some of the derelict spaces into a winter-garden and a workshop, which subsequently provided employment for residents. The process was all built on the initial work of the CLT, and aided by funds from the social investor Steinbeck Studios.
Drawing a defining line around what constitutes art is a philosophical task, and ultimately one without a concrete answer, so it’s certain that Assemble’s victory in the 2015 Turner prize is a decision that is layered in politics. The themes it addresses – housing, protection of public interests over private interests, community, the increasing disparity between London and provincial cities – are hot button issues in the United Kingdom, particularly in the north of England, and it no doubt suited the agenda of the Turner Prize to include this scheme as a work of art. “I think the nomination created a quite uncomfortable sense for us in terms of our work here, because suddenly there was this rarefied eye coming to Granby and looking at peoples lives, and how they’ve occupied space and their activities, which have been so organic,” Assemble designer Fran Edgerly told Tate.
The Turner Prize’s decision to classify this social entrepreneurship-cum-architecture project as art, however, was something out of Assemble’s hands, not something that they courted. Instead Assemble’s focus is on ground-up projects and meaningful communication with residents of the area. Erika Rushton, chair of the Community Land Trust told the Guardian last year that, “Regeneration is always this blunt, abstract, over-professionalised thing, but Assemble have shown how it can be done differently, by making things that people can see, touch, understand and put together for themselves.”
Assemble’s distinctive approach to design quandaries has also seen them fashion temporary public spaces from out-of-use petrol stations (Cineroleum) and under overpasses (Folly for a Flyover) and has also seen them earn major commissions, including an ongoing project to build an art gallery for Goldsmith’s from a series of listed buildings.
Assemble’s presentation will take place on the Main Stage, on Saturday 9th April at 3pm.
Check out our previews of appearances from 4Creative, Studio Dumbar and Stephen Kelleher at this year’s Offset.
Words: Ian Lamont
