UCD Earth Institute Democracy & Environment Series III: 'Building Stories', May 2024.

The UCD Earth Institute city centre seminar series continues with our third Democracy and the Environment event, 'Building Stories: Irish Towns, Vacancy and Data', May 2024.
The seminar session, 'Building Stories: Irish towns, vacancy and data' will reported on and discussed the implications of SFI-funded research that explores the generation of reliable and dynamic baseline data on the likelihood of vacancy as a mechanism for managing the efficient use of our built environment. This research acknowledges the potential for the reuse of existing building stock to provide much needed homes, reduce the embodied carbon of the construction industry, and contribute to the revitalisation of town centres for sustainable communities.
The seminar opened with welcome remarks by Earth Institute Director Professor Eoin O'Neill and featured Dr Philip Crowe (Co-founder UCD Centre for Irish Towns CfIT and Assistant Professor in the UCD School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy and the UCD School of Civil Engineering) with the presentation ‘Building Stories: Irish towns, vacancy and data’. This was followed by a panel discussion with the participation of Ali Harvey (Principal Planner & Project Manager with Nicholas O’Dwyer Ltd) and ​​Dr Gavin McArdle (UCD School of Computer Science and CeDAR), where the audience will be able to engage in a Q&A session, and participants will be able to make connections with similar perspectives around the theme of vacancy in Irish towns and the role of vacant properties in sustainable town regeneration.
The UCD Earth Institute fosters multidisciplinary research and works with stakeholders to address global, regional and national environmental challenges. Based in University College Dublin’s Belfield campus, the Institute is a focal point for UCD’s environmental, climate and sustainability research. See www.ucd.ie/earth for more information about the UCD Earth Institute and our active programmes of event.