Tara Kennedy is a Lecturer in Architectural Design at Cork Centre for Architectural Education in University College Cork where she currently coordinates the Year 2 Design Studio Programme and the Undergraduate Dissertation Programme. Tara is an architect and artist (BFA, BSc, MArch, MRIAI). Her work includes design, teaching and collaborative research projects and she was awarded the Arts Council of Ireland Next Generation Award 2017 for Architecture. She practices independently and with John McLaughlin Architects and has specialist experience in collaborative and public engagement projects. She was Co-Curator of ‘Free Market’, the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 which won an RIAI Award for Research and an AAI Architecture Award in 2020. She has curated the international conference Beyond Participation with the Irish Architecture Foundation, 2018 and 2016. In 2015 she was awarded the Arts Council / Create Artist in the Community Scheme Bursary Award: Collaborative Arts and Architecture.

Since 2008 she has been working with Jo Anne Butler as Culturstruction, an experimental, socially-engaged design studio working in the overlaps of art and architecture whose current clients include the Irish Museum of Modern Art. She was a founder and curator of Commonage, a non-profit organisation programming art and design in a rural community context.Tara lives in Bantry, Co. Cork where she is Creative Director of the drawing studio Work Shop. She holds a BSc in Architecture (2010) and a Master of Architecture (2013) from University College Dublin and Professional Diploma UCD RIAI (2020). Prior to this she received a BFA (Sculpture) from NCAD (1st class hons, 2005).