About

An Irish eco dude in Brazil: My name is Duncan Crowley, im an Irish architect living and working in Curitiba, Brazil. I focus on urban ecology, open creative systems, bikes, gardens & fun. I fully agree with Jaime Lerner: “The city is not the problem, it’s the solution”.

Duncan Crowley é um arquiteto irlandês vive e trabalha em Curitiba, Brasil. Ele se concentra em ecologia urbana, sistemas criativas abertas, bicicletas, jardins e coisas divertidos. (Portugese)

Duncan Crowley es un arquitecto irlandés que viven y trabajan en Curitiba, Brasil. Él se centra en la ecología urbana, sistemas creativos abiertos, bicicletas, jardines y cosas divertidos. (Spanish) 

Duncan believes in dreaming boldly and from that, turning ideas into realities.

He is an Irish architect living in the Brazilian city of Curitiba. Why there? Because Duncan agrees that the major challenge of our times is in making cities more susatainable. To create eco cities; ecologically sound, socially just, vibrant and beautiful places to live, work and play. Curitiba has been leading this movement since the 1970’s. He set up “Dublin eco city group” in 2005 and in 2003 was in Bosnia working on “Eco city Banja Luka”.

Prior to Brazil, Duncan lived in the bold city of Barcelona for 7 years. His architectural ideas were published in “The Self Sufficient City, Envisioning the habitat of the future” by IAAC, the accompanying short video was shown at CCCB. While working with “Eco Intelligent Growth” he submitted “Towards a healthier, happier, eco-effective Barcelona” for a white paper on sustainable development for Catalunya to CADS. He also worked as a city tour guide; bicycle tours to Antoni Gaudi’s creations and architectural, ecological, artistic and historical walking tours. He helped found the city Transition group too.

In Ireland, he summed up his architectural, eco and social ideas in a 2005 architectural thesis: “CATALYST @ Botanic Spine”. It proposed an orbital 18 km long eco corridor for Dublin city, to act as an urban greenway and CPUL. He organised bike rides along the corridor, planted urban fruit trees and created a number of community gardens. These eco projects were discussed in Irish media and also at the Irish Pavilion at the 2005 Venice Art Bienalle.

In 2006 he left Ireland. At the Venice architectural Bienale he was invited to dwell in METAVILLA (The French Pavilion) and participate in residentMETA with Patrick Bouchain and EXYZT. He also participated in Lucien Kroll’s week of ecological dialogues for Moments d’Architecture. He has worked in 5 different architectural offices of varying size and on architectural projects in 9 countries.

This blog started on April 1st 2014, it will contain much of whats to come here in Curitiba. It will also have a few references to architectural issues and experiences from Barcelona, Ireland and the few journeys inbetween.

I can be contacted at anirishecodudeinbrazil@gmail.com and you can also follow my tweets at @irishecodudebrz. You can find me also on Architecture Weekend and on LinkedIn at Duncan Crowley.

To get to know me and my eco interests a bit better, here is a short vid from Barcelona that was screened at the CCCB in 2010. The eco-urban project it accompanys was selected as a finalist by IAAC (Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalunya) for their competition: “The Self Sufficient City, Envisioning the habitat of the future“. That work was published in the book of the same name, details of the project can be found at: A Transition Vision For Barcelona City

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