Posted on by athenamedia

Athena Media sponsored by Dublin Housing Observatory and Happy Scribe in its latest podcast ‘This is Where We Live’

 

Across 2019 Athena Media is anchoring a new podcast sharing conversations and stories about how we shape and create great places to live. The podcast series This is Where we Live has been inspired by the continued housing and homelessness crisis in Irish cities, particularly Dublin, and began when Athena Media producer Helen Shaw visited Vienna last December for a Housing for All conference.  (Read Helen’s blog essay on the visit and why Vienna is a public housing model for Europe).

The interviews she collected there seeded the new podcast series which has grown rapidly across 2019 with interviews with:
 
Dr Ellen Rowley, Architectural Historian on 14 Henrietta Street, the Tenement Museum.

Kieran Rose, on a Life of Activism and City Planning.

Eoin Carroll Housing Researcher on the Right to Housing

Dr Dáithí Downey – Head of Housing Policy, Research & Development. Dublin City Council

Jeanette Lowe – an artist capturing disappearing communities in the city

 Philip Lawton on Why Cities Need Connected Thinking And Planning To Work

Ruth McManus on the vision behind Drumcondra and social housing in Dublin City

Eoin O’Mahony on why Dublin is a tale of two cities

Grainne Hassett, architect, on shaping great places to live

Tony Fahey on the causes of the housing crisis

Joe Brady, Urban Geographer walks us through the history of Marino

Michaela Kauer on the Vienna Housing Model

Leilani Farha – Is Housing the battle ground of the 21st Century?

Dr Orna Rosenfeld on trends in European housing policy

Sorcha Edwards of Housing Europe on why public housing matters

Karin Ramser Director of Vienna’s Community Housing

Hugh Brennan CEO, O Cualann Cohousing, Poppintree, Ballymun, Dublin

Dr Ruth McManus on Drumcondra’s history of Social Housing from the 1920-60s

Dr Joe Brady – How could we build Marino in 1920s Dublin and not today?

 

 

 

By April the series gained the support and sponsorship of the Dublin Housing Observatory, a research and development initiative from Dublin City Council, and a new digital media start-up Happy Scribe. Since then we’ve added more conversations and our latest with Mark O’Brien, the Director and CEO of Axis Arts Centre in Ballymun, goes out this week. The podcast focus is not just on the political and economic story behind housing and cities but tries to unpack what makes a great town or city, and how we shape and build community.

 

Our interest is not just building bricks but the ways in which we think about urban planning and development and how resources and facilities like transport, leisure and arts are as critical to making a place as a housing or apartment complex. The project is actively seeking the support of its listeners through Patreon to ensure we can run across the year and help build a public conversation about where we live and how policy directs it.

 
If you’d like to get involved or feed back to us contact us via the website www.thisiswherewelive.ie and do share and review the podcast online. We’re currently available on 11 platforms from Soundcloud to iTunes, Spotify to Anchor. We’ve also added resources including videos and documents to the website  – like this lovely piece on cycling with Ellen Rowley and Ellen’s podcast with us and her conversation about the Dublin Tenement Museum can be heard here.