Road trip to Dublin

A few days ago, we had our forth contemporary design class. When I say class I mean more of a day trip as we took a trip to Dublin for the day to take us out of limerick for a while and perhaps open us up to different cultures. The bus trip over was uneventful given it left at 7 in the morning which may have took its toll.

Because I’m from the south east I travel to Dublin quite a bit, despite this everything we went to see was knew to me and it seems like every time you visit the city you can find something new, as long as your brave enough to deviate from the standard routes through Grafton street and O’Connell street. The first place we went to was the national museum to visit the Eileen Gray exhibition. I have to be honest and say that I’m personally not a big fan of her designs, maybe it’s her style or perhaps it’s the fact I come from the same town as she did, which was mentioned to us more often than not.

Despite my opinions on her design style, it would be hard for anyone to ignore the fact that her work is very impressive. Her designs were revolutionary and she was way ahead of here time, she developed new styles and methods despite having a low standing in social society. I was very impressed at the part of the exhibition which showcased models and photos of the E-1027 which was a house that she designed herself having no experience in architecture prior to this. This stood to me the most as it opened my mind to the fact that we should not limit ourselves to anything whether it be our culture or the course that we study

The final part of our trip brought us on a tour of design partners, which is a design consultancy located in Bray. To say I was very impressed would be an understatement. The studio, the resources, the people, the work, it all captivated exactly what a product designer is and how they operate. They took us on a tour of the whole building and through all of the work areas and as we were walking it felt like I was physically walking through the design process. The trip seemed to bring about some inspiration and motivation that just made me want to go back to the studio and start sketching and improving so I could make the idea of working in a place like design partners a possibility rather than a faraway dream.

Even though we merely travelled to the other side of the country it felt like the trip opened up a new side to design and what each of us could become as designers.