Living with Machines Part 2 Project 2022 Dominic Daly University College Dublin | Ireland Approximately one third of the Irish population live in towns, another third in surrounding rural areas. Yet these rural settlements are in a state of crisis fueled by vacancy and inefficacious public spaces; their identities are in urgent need of repair.Situated in the small town of Tullow, Ireland, this thesis is grounded in the deep-rooted interdependence between this community and its agriculture, addressing the issues of public space, identity and festivity in the contemporary Irish town. Rejecting a romanticisation of the bygone days, and instead focusing on making explicit the inherent identities and existing cultural fabric of local communities. The architecture becomes an honest portrait, driven by a celebration of the everyday.The project celebrates the ambivalence of contemporary rural living in its many dualities, combining the town’s seasonal grain drying industry with a town hall and public space. Reimagining the role of the town square in contemporary communities, the existing market square and the new Grain Square are conceived as a pair of unidentical twins. They serve distinct and complementary roles for the town, threading together a sequence of pedestrianized rooms connecting the town’s heart to its hinterland. The Grain Square acts as the interface between the everyday routines of townlife and the workaday rituals of modern farming. Unfolding against the backdrop of the evolving tones, forms and textures of a local agrarian calendar, they serve to mend the fractured identity of this contemporary town. Tutor(s) David Leech Orla Murphy Emmett Scanlon