PHOTOGRAPHY

        I am a licensed Architect in the State of New York, with experience in the U.S., Ireland, The United Kingdom, Italy and Slovenija.

        For many years in New York, I was Construction Coordinator and Project Architect for a number of Tenement Gut Renovations through various New York City Programs with various Community Organizations, organized through the Housing Development Institute of Catholic Charities, as well as the Housing Division of Brooklyn Catholic Charities. This work was concentrated on the Lower East Side, but there were also projects in The Bronx, and Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights in Brooklyn. I worked with non-Professionals to clean out and secure abandoned buildings and then planned with them on turning the old ‘Railroad Flats’ into apartments for families. I showed the ‘Homesteader’ Groups masonry repair, floor and roof joist repair and carpentry. As renovation work proceeded, I coordinated with Professional Trades funded by the City and saw construction through to completion and occupancy.

      This led to developing and designing a new Lutheran Chapel and Soup Kitchen for Trinity Lower East Side Parish, which was involved in Community Development.

      Before this work in NY, I proposed and set up an office in Dublin in a then disadvantaged Inner City Parish to draft a Development Plan for the Parish, involving Health, Education, and Social Services along with improved Housing pointing the way to the construction of a new and badly needed Community Centre. The Development Plan was an outlined self-help Plan, showing the Community how they could implement these improvements themselves. The office was staffed by 5 local unemployed youths who learned the tools of community development, map making and surveying through the term of the office.

      I was then asked to draft a similar Plan for the impoverished North Wall Docks Area, and then went on to draw up a Community/Visitors Center in the Drumcliffe, County Sligo Cemetery where Yeats is buried.

     Upon completion of Projects in New York, I worked in Milan for a few months and then travelled to Slovenija, where, because of my work experience in Dublin and New York, I was brought to Metelkova, the ex-Jugoslav Army headquarters in Ljubljana. Metelkova was earmarked to become a center for independent Art and Culture, but was partially bulldozed in the middle of the night by the City Government then in power. In turn, it was squatted and occupied; the City turned off water and power and the Complex began experiencing problems on many levels. At Metelkova, I opened an office with a student, a punk who had squatted and a refugee from Bosnia, all of whom took a very active part in drafting a self-help Plan, The Metelkova Development Plan. Upon publication of the Plan, Metelkova began to stabilize and today is a very successful and thriving vibrant Centre for Independent Art and Culture. After publication, I ran a collage workshop for some of the drifters and squatters lodged at Metelkova, using drawings generated by The Development Plan as a basis and starting point to running a workshop. Collages were later exhibited at the City library in Ljubljana.

      Since then I have been in the States  running Construction Sites on a number of Historic Restoration Projects and Civic Projects, while looking to continue the Work I have been previously involved in.