In this reflective and enriching memoir, John Tuomey navigates the places and memories of his life over the scope of twenty-five years. First recognised for the urban regeneration of Dublin’s Temple Bar, which included the construction of the Irish Film Institute, the National Photographic Archive and Gallery of Photography, his life in architecture led him to design social and cultural spaces such as the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, the Glucksman Gallery in UCC and the Victoria & Albert East Museum in London. Imbued with many inter-textual references to poetry, drama and literature and written in limpid prose, this memoir is inherently literary in nature. Tuomey looks back to his early life where he was born in Tralee and lived in different counties around Ireland, from small towns to country landscapes, from schooldays in Dundalk to student activism at University College Dublin. He traces the pathways that led to his formation as an architect, reflecting on the many cultural and social influences on his life. He excels in capturing the social landscape of Dublin in the 1980s and pays particular attention to the many buildings and social hubs of the inner city. His transient years of moving from Dublin to London, and subsequently working in places like Nairobi and Milan, chronicle the international influences on his outlook. The key relationships in his life, including meeting his future wife, Sheila – a fellow student of architecture in UCD – and his pivotal employment by James Stirling in 1976, form the backbone of his personal and professional life. Tuomey’s expertise in his field is unsurpassed, with meticulous detail given to the finer aspects of design and architecture. His thoughts on the challenges facing the encroaching erasure of city life in Dublin are essential reading for anyone with an interest in the future of building in the city.

More Space for Architecture features a fascinating selection of buildings and projects designed by Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey over a seven-year period, from 2015 to 2021. Unbuilt and unpublished designs act like stepping stones to trace a continuous path between a wide range of recent and realised works, which includes schools, universities, housing, artist collaborations and public buildings. Context-sensitive buildings on complex and difficult sites in Dublin, Cork and Budapest are outlined and presented in detail for the reader, from conceptual sketches through to completion. Competition-winning projects under construction include the highly public V&A East and Sadler's Wells East, both currently on site at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, London; the new Academic Hub in TU Dublin's city centre campus; and the brand new extension at the School of Architecture at Liverpool University. The book also features a collection of reflective essays written by O'Donnell + Tuomey, which includes a selection of O'Donnell's characteristic watercolour studies, expanding on ideas aired in public lectures and developed in studio conversations. More Space for Architecture is a companion volume to the earlier monograph from O'Donnell + Tuomey, Space for Architecture, first published by Artifice Press in 2014 and one of the publishing house's biggest sellers.

A medium-sized Dublin-based practice, O'Donnell + Tuomey Architects have been involved with urban design, educational and cultural buildings, houses and housing projects in Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK. They have recently won competitions for two key projects in London: the Photographers Gallery and the London School of Economics Students' Centre.
Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey, who both teach at University College Dublin and lecture internationally, are the authors of this book. They look at the way in which different geographical, social and political influences have shaped their latest works and approach to architecture generally.
The book is divided into eight sections, each dealing with a different aspect of the practice's concerns: Studio, Courtyards, The World Outside, London Times, Subtraction and Addition, Venice Excursions, Building Ground and Cats Cradles. Specific photographic documentation has been produced for the purpose of inclusion in this book, so as to evoticatively capture its essence.
In the chapter dedicated to their numerous Venician excursions, Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey explain their on-going relation to the city's (as well as to its region's) heritage and contemporary culture. Not only has the practice represented Ireland at the 2004 International Venice Architecture Biennale, but their multiple 'encounters' with the works of Aldo Rossi, Carlo Scarpa, and Andrea Palladio, amongst others, have deeply influenced their work over the years. This is seen in elements such as the responsiveness of their buildings' forms to their sites, as well as by an interest in materiality, manifest in their facades as well as in their attention to detail and fascination for craft manufacturing processes.