Dr. Jason O’Shaughnessy

Jason is a registered Architect and holds a PhD in Architecture from The University of Edinburgh . He graduated with Distinction from The University of Edinburgh and from Queen’s University of Belfast with First Class Honours. He is currently Interim Director at Cork Centre for Architectural Education (UCC/MTU), Director of Teaching & Learning, MArch Programme Director, and Joint Programme Director of the MSc “Re-designing the Post-Industrial City.” His research is intersectional – focused on developing new research practices exploring socio-cultural possibilities through speculative design methodologies, and leads a number of funded research projects including ‘BAUHAUS Goes North’ (2023). His students have won a number of prestigious awards most notably including Winning, Finalist, and Shortlisted projects at the EUMies “Young Talent in Architecture Award” 2023, the RIBA President’s Silver Medal “Serjeant Prize” 2021, and the EAAE Best Diploma Project [Innovation] 2016, while a number of his students were selected for exhibition as part of the “Visionaries” Exhibition at the Lisbon Triennale ‘TERRA’ (2022).

Jason was awarded the Edinburgh Civic Medal (1999) and first place in the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) Graduate Awards for Architecture (1999), and was chosen for Building Design “Class of 1999” showcasing the best Architecture graduates across the UK. He has been has been twice nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – the EUMies Award – in 2009 and 2020. He has received several other Architecture Awards including a Special Commendation at the inaugural World Architecture Festival in Barcelona (2008), an AAI Special Award (2008), and a number of AAI and RIAI Awards and Commendations. He has been an Exhibition Curator of Graduate works at Architecture at the Edge (2023), the Lisbon Triennale (2022), Athens Biennale (2017), Tallinn Architecture Biennale (2013), and Istanbul Design Week (2013).

He has been an invited critic at a number of Schools of Architecture including: The Bartlett, UCL, TU Delft, The Mackintosh School of Architecture, The University of Edinburgh, The Queens University of Belfast, University of Ulster, University of Limerick, University College Dublin, and The Scott Sutherland School of Architecture. He has lectured extensively on his research in architecture – most notably including: Keynote Speaker at “Bauhaus Futures/ Bauhaus Presences” (2022), “Re-appropriation and Representation” (2020), the Andrew Carnegie PhD Symposium at the University of Edinburgh (2014), and the Showcase Lecture at the European Architecture Student Assembly along with Pritzker Prize Laureates Grafton Architects (2008). His most recent essay “John Hejduk and Samuel Beckett: Going on, in Silence and Lateness” was published in “The Place of Silence: Architecture / Media / Philosophy,” Bloomsbury Publishing (2020), and he is currently developing an anthology of architectural works and essays that look at the theoretical limits of Islands – reading them as a distinct topos that exist across children’s literature, mythology, utopian, and cultural treatises.