Uncle Toby's Garden collects the installations, pavilions, models and drawings Níall McLaughlin Architects have made in collaboration with others between 1990 and 2026 — the work at the edges of the practice, where the thinking happens.
About This Book
Most architectural monographs present finished buildings and imply a straight line from intention to result. This one does the opposite. Drawn from three and a half decades of collaborative work, it catalogues the practice's open-ended processes — its digressions and reversals, the routes not taken — and in doing so reframes architecture as a set of performances: ritual, collaboration, speculation and play. The material is the kind usually left out: installations built for a single occasion, pavilions, study models, drawings made to think with rather than to instruct. Published by Objectif in 2026, the year Níall McLaughlin received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, it offers an unusually candid picture of how a Stirling Prize-winning practice actually works.
Key Features
- Installations, pavilions, models and drawings spanning 1990 to 2026
- Focused on collaborative work rather than the practice's built commissions
- Documents open-ended process — digressions and reversals included
- Published by Objectif, a non-profit edition supporting artistic and literary work
What You'll Discover
- What thirty-five years of a practice's peripheral work reveals that its buildings don't
- How ritual, speculation and play function as working methods rather than themes
- The role of the model and the drawing as instruments of thought, not presentation
- A counter-history of a practice best known for chapels, libraries and colleges
About the Author
Níall McLaughlin is an Irish architect who founded Níall McLaughlin Architects in London in 1991. The practice won the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2022 for the New Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and McLaughlin received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2026 for lifetime achievement. He has taught at the Bartlett School of Architecture for over 25 years, with visiting professorships at UCLA and Yale.
Specifications
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783982671222
- Publisher: Objectif Edition
- Publication Date: 2026
Perfect For: Readers interested in how architects actually think, followers of Níall McLaughlin's work, and anyone drawn to models, drawings and the unbuilt.