Andy Groarke

The Department of Architecture welcomes Andy Groarke of Carmody Groarke for his lecture, "Permanence is a Privilege." The lecture examines the themes of the endurance and longevity of architecture in recent cultural projects by Carmody Groarke. Our research and process-led approach considers every scale of the architectural project, ranging from the ingredients and sources of new building materials to the presence of vast engineering structures at the sublime scale of landscapes.

Innovative and sustainable practices in designing and making architecture emerge through close collaboration with artists, scientists, curators, conservators, and clients. This aims to give architecture its best chance of achieving environmental, social, and cultural resilience over time.

We will contrast the different approaches taken in the refurbishment and extension of a historic museum in the heart of Ghent, with the making of two new national library archive buildings for the United Kingdom and France. Each project finds its architectural identity through form, construction and environmental innovation, balancing the necessity for long-term endurance with the evolving needs of society.

Andy is a founding director at Carmody Groarke. He studied architecture at The University of Sheffield and worked at David Chipperfield Architects and Haworth Tompkins before establishing Carmody Groarke in 2006 with Kevin Carmody.

Andy lectures internationally on the work of Carmody Groarke and has taught architecture at schools including the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL), The Royal College of Art, Porto Academy in Porto and Versailles, The University of Stuttgart, Cornell University (Ithaca) where he was Gensler Visiting Design Critic, Harvard GSD where he was visiting design critic and Yale School of Architecture, where he was William Henry Bishop Visiting Professor.

He has been a Visiting Professor of practice at The University of Sheffield since 2014 and an External Examiner at the London School of Architecture since 2021.

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