A NEW EXHIBITION launches in Cork tonight that looks at the public role in architecture.

As part of Sharing Architecture, four architectural practices worked with four groups to redesign a bus shelter on the number 208 bus route in the city.

The free exhibition of their final designs from the collaborative process officially opens tonight at in the Atrium of Cork City Hall, as part of this year’s Cork Midsummer Festival.

The project is using design to investigate the impact of architecture on public utilities and, by extension, on people.

The free exhibition will include images, drawings and small scale models of each group’s final designs will be open to the public from 9am until 5pm from tonight until 19 July.

There will also be expert lectures held in conjunction with the exhibition launch in The Atrium in Cork City Hall.

Tonight at 6pm, British architecture collaborative Something & Son, Andrew Merritt and Paul Smyth, will give a talk about their work.

Andrew Merritt says that their use of collaboration with the public means better use of space.

“We’re interested in people’s knowledge because it helps.

“We work with local people and local materials but we do think of it as an international thing.

We don’t start with the design. We look at who is going to use it and how it’s going to be used.

Cork City Council Arts Officer, Liz Meaney said that the project shows something that can be admired.

“Architects and end users have worked together to create something that they, and the rest of the city, can admire. The ultimate aim of this project is to embed the collaborative skills of a project such as this into architectural practice as well as expanding and promoting peoples understanding of the practice of architecture.’

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