Laurence Lord is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Co-Director BSc Architecture at the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen’s University Belfast. Laurence is also the founding partner of AP+E. AP+E is a design and research office based in Ireland and The Netherlands, driven by a strong interest in the social and cultural value of architecture.

Laurence founded the office in 2013 along with Jeffrey Bolhuis, the work includes exhibition making, urban design, regional strategies, adaptive reuse, and curation. AP+E have recently delivered multiple community led masterplans across Ireland and the Netherlands, including Lusk for Life, Fingal's inaugural Town Centre First Plan. Lusk for Life was shortlisted out of 1100 projects for a New European Bauhaus Award 2022. It was the only Irish Project shortlisted.

Laurence was part of the Curatorial Team for Professor Lesley Lokko, Curator for the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, Biennale Architettura 2023, The Laboratory of the Future. 

Previously Laurence co-curated Free Market, the Irish National Pavilion at the 16th International Biennale Architettura in Venice in 2018. Free Market is an ongoing research project into the public spaces and potential development of market towns in Ireland which toured Ireland in 2019. Free Market won an AAI Award and an RIAI Research Award in 2020. In 2019 Laurence represented Free Market at an Oireachtas committee in Dáil Éireann, advocating for a Town Centre First policy based on the Free Market research, whioch has now become policy.

Laurence won the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland Future Award in 2021. Laurence has given talks at Open House Belfast, the Architectural Association of Ireland, the RIAI Conference, Limerick School of Art & Design, UL, TUD, UCD, Luzern School of Engineering and NewNowNext with the Irish Architecture Foundation.

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