During the pandemic I focused on researching solutions to the housing crisis. I was fascinated to learn more about Open Systems Labs work on Fairhold - A solution to the housing crisis that can be implemented without politicians - and bring it to the Irish context to bring a new vision of how we develop land for housing and creating communities in Ireland.

The Irish Arts Council awarded me a modest grant of €3,000 as part of the Professional Development Award. This funded a 3 month part-time collaborative research residency with Open Systems Lab, to work on Fairhold: A class of home ownership that allows you to own a home for less, but as a place to live, not as a financial asset.

The Atlas of Ownership, was born from this research collaboration, as it emerged through the research & design collaboration as a project in its own right.

We defined a vast scope of research in collecting case studies from around the world and throughout history. I had the chance to take a deep dive into Irelands native legal system Brehon Law, which had existed for thousands of years before colonisation. AOO is a digital, open library of land ownership models across history and around the globe, unbundled and classified in such a way as to allow us to identify patterns across different societies, times in history, and legal systems. We identify universal concepts of human societies’ relationships to land and the earth that stand the test of time based on social and ecological wellbeing and economic fairness. The Atlas is currently utilised as a research tool at an MArch Diploma Unit 9, which focuses on the idea of universal free housing at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.

I presented the Atlas of Ownership at an academic event at the department of Architecture in Cambridge University amongst other leading academics and practitioners in the field in February 2023. https://atlasofownership.org/