Mandy O’Neill: Best Laid Plans: A photo-sculptural, embodied response to spatial and social transformation, through a study of housing-led development in Cabra, Dublin 7. In 2020, spatial transformation in the form of a new housing development in Cabra, Dublin 7, dovetailed with new directions emerging in my photographic work. Through experimental and iterative artistic processes I set out to deepen and accelerate my practice, asking how expanded photography methods could be an effective way to open dialogue about the lived experience of this spatial and social transformation. Multiple photographic approaches were enacted through photo-walks of Cabra, including repeat photography, typologies and street photography. An impulsive, embodied response to the built environment shaped the nature of the photographs produced, as did the weather and lighting conditions. Photo-walks were documented in field diaries, with photographs and text combined as part of the research creation process. Photographic materials were then edited and constructed, in the artist’s studio, and used as reference towards hybrid artefacts. Methods of community engagement were enacted throughout the research in the form of interviews, photoelicitation sessions and book-making workshops. The results were manifest in a series of artefacts presented in the exhibition Best Laid Plans, at the Irish Architectural Archive, September 6th -November 29th 2024. Thematically the artefacts address the topics of housing-led development and the effects of planning, through a case study of Cabra, while also considering the wider historical and national context of housing. Key findings included the effectiveness of hybrid, materially engaged, spatialised practice in engaging interdisciplinary audiences, and stimulating interest around the topic of both housing led development and expanded photography practice. The artistic processes outlined in this thesis, add valuable tacit knowledge as a contribution to the field of expanded photography practice. Informed by theories of material thinking and material engagement, the research argues for the value of praxical knowledge which emerges through interaction with materials, and the efficacy of photography-based installation to affectively engage an audience.