Manor Park's Digital Hub Plan

[lexington]

Manor Park Homebuilders Limited, the property development firm headed by Cork-man Michael O'Driscoll and owned jointly by DCC and businessman Joe Moran, is set to lodge perhaps its most ambitious scheme (and among Dublin's most ambitious schemes!) to date with Dublin City Council. Following a protracted to-and-fro on development options for the area, terms were agreed in November 2005 on a €118m deal allowing for the SPV 'Digital Hub by Manor Park Homebuilders Limited' to develop a 2.66-acre section dubbed the 'Crane Street' site of the Digital Hub (contractors P. Elliot & Co. were awarded rights to develop the remaining site).

The total development will include a gross-floor area of 39,817sq m of office space a 360-bedroom hotel with 85x 2-bedroom aparthotel units over 5,134sq m of retail space; 125 apartment units (41x 1-bedroom, 52x 2-bedroom, 32x 3-bedroom); a 2-storey creche 2-storey Educational Resource Centre.

11 blocks in total will be divided across the site - undoubtedly the most controversial element, Block J (the Hotel Block) will rise 47-storeys over garden podium level! It should be noted here however that the garden podium level itself rises to 4-storeys (therefore Block J may be said to rise 51-storeys in height with the inclusion of garden podium floors).

Other striking elements include Office Block K, reaching 29-storeys; Office Block I towering 22-storeys; Residential Block H, which will rise 17-storeys; Residential Block E which rises 15-storeys; Office Block F being 13-storeys and Office Block G being 10-storeys - all above blocks being over garden podium level. Other elements stem to in-and-around 7-storeys in height.

The scheme will be constructed over basement car-parking for 731 vehicles and 861 bicycle-stand spaces. The main vehicular entrance to the proposal will be accessed from Rainsford Street with deliveries and loading being located at the existing entrance on Thomas Court.

Permission for the massive, high-density development is being sought for a period of 10-years.

The original masterplan for the site was devised jointly by O'Mahony Pike Architects and McCullough Mulvin Architects. An aerial render image of their proposal may be seen below:


Manor Park Homebuilders are also involved in plans at Charles Haughey's former Abbeville Estate and a €500m+ redevelopment project for Cork's Horgan's Quay in the North Docklands where the formation of application is now scheduled to advance.

[damnedarchitect]

Lex - do you know where the 51 story building is in that render?

Everything looks lowrise there.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by damnedarchitect

Lex - do you know where the 51 story building is in that render?

Everything looks lowrise there.

That image posted is taken from the original masterplan - prior to the successful tenders by Manor Park Homebuilders and P. Elliot & Co. Ltd - designed by O'Mahony Pike Architects and McCullough Mulvin Architects. It does not relate to the forthcoming application.

Here's another image giving perspective of both sites.


Manor Park's application concerns the southern site (one to the right).

[ewankennedy]

Originally Posted by lexington

11 blocks in total will be divided across the site - undoubtedly the most controversial element, Block J (the Hotel Block) will rise 47-storeys over garden podium level! It should be noted here however that the garden podium level itself rises to 4-storeys (therefore Block J may be said to rise 51-storeys in height with the inclusion of garden podium floors).

Other striking elements include Office Block K, reaching 29-storeys; Office Block I towering 22-storeys; Residential Block H, which will rise 17-storeys; Residential Block E which rises 15-storeys; Office Block F being 13-storeys and Office Block G being 10-storeys - all above blocks being over garden podium level. Other elements stem to in-and-around 7-storeys in height.

51 storeys in the heart of Dublin?? Wow!! Surely Irelands tallest building? Any pics? I'm surprised this hasnt caused more gasps.

[jdivision]

Originally Posted by ewankennedy

51 storeys in the heart of Dublin?? Wow!! Surely Irelands tallest building? Any pics? I'm surprised this hasnt caused more gasps.

It will, believe me. this is first anybody heard about it. And if it has any chance of getting through expect massive revisions to P Elliott & Co's plan for the site across the road which has two "towers" proposed, one 15 and one 16 storeys high on a larger site.

[d_d_dallas]

Never mind 51... how about 29, 22, 17, 15, 13, 10 and 7 storeys in height ALL ON THE SAME SITE!!!

[jdivision]

Originally Posted by d_d_dallas

Never mind 51... how about 29, 22, 17, 15, 13, 10 and 7 storeys in height ALL ON THE SAME SITE!!!

There's an image of it one page 10 of today's Irish Times. Doesn't look too bad I have to say.

[a boyle]

Originally Posted by d_d_dallas

Never mind 51... how about 29, 22, 17, 15, 13, 10 and 7 storeys in height ALL ON THE SAME SITE!!!

once you go over 7/8 storeys it doesn't really matter how high you go. At least that is the perspective from the ground.

This could be just what the doctor orderered for dublin. We need a new substantial middle class area in the inner city , in order to change people desire to continually move to the suburbs.

If the plan is sound this should go ahead , it is about time that rich people started living beside poor people.

From a planning point of view it is sound with proper transport links around. it also shifts interest to the east of the city which is good. It would be important that the buildings have a family bent to them , i.e. big apparments.

Architecturally ,i haven't seen the times photos and i can't find it in dublincity.ie. . It is vital that it actually looks nice .

[lexington]

I have to say from the little I've seen, it does look pretty impressive. I would like to see a few more montages from various angles - but the taller, hotel structure (Block J) is pretty striking, in a good way. I will reserve final judgement until I see a few more images.

[phil]

Has this site been designated as suitable for such a scale of development in the City Development Plan?

[DGF]

The image in the Irish Times looks impressive alright and the cluster of tall towers could really transform this part of the city. The proposal to insert a series of eight story blocks into the gaps between existing three to four floor buildings facing on to Thomas street looks a bit more problematic though. Reads a bit like a set of broken teeth IMHO.

[PVC King]

It will be interesting to see the completed application; this is an elevated site and I imagine that there will be at least some opposition to the plans based on the rough outline we've seen here. It is however reassuring to see De Blacham & Meaghar's involvement but as the cliche says 'the proof will be in the pudding'

[ihateawake]

Architecturally ,i haven't seen the times photos and i can't find it in dublincity.ie. . It is vital that it actually looks nice .

It looks very nice... (at least in model form)




I think this would add a touch of international class to dublin that I dont think it has quite yet.
Please excuse the quality, camera phone

[Devin]

PLAN FOR 'MINI-MANHATTAN' IN DUBLIN'S LIBERTIES

Frank McDonald, Environment Editor


Planning permission is being sought from Dublin City Council for two of the tallest buildings yet proposed anywhere in Ireland - and both of them would be even higher than the Spire in O'Connell Street.

The two glazed towers are the key elements of a Digital Hub scheme by Manor Park Homes (MPH) for a 2.5-acre site on Thomas Street in the Liberties, between St Catherine's church and the Guinness Hop Store.

Designed by award-winning architects deBlacam and Meagher, the tallest of the towers would be 171 metres (564ft) high, making it nearly three times the height of Liberty Hall - the city's tallest building.

With a helicopter pad at roof level, the proposed tower would rise 47 storeys from a podium, which in itself would be four storeys high. It would contain a 360-bedroom hotel, with 80 serviced apartments on upper floors.

The second tower in this "mini-Manhattan" project would be 124 metres (409ft) high - three metres taller than the Spire - and would contain 33 floors of offices designed to accommodate digital technology companies.

The podium on which the towers would stand is envisaged as a lively space, animated by having creches, bars and restaurants opening onto it. Its centrepiece would be a circular landscaped area, with walkways.

On the Thomas Street frontage, a series of five eight-storey blocks would be inserted between protected historic buildings. Their design echoes deBlacam and Meagher's award-winning Wooden Building in the west end of Temple Bar.

A stone staircase, six metres wide, would lead up from the street to the podium level. Beneath the podium, a brick-vaulted gallery - 140 metres long - would extend right through the site, and would be lined with food courts and other retail outlets.

According to Shane deBlacam, the scheme was inspired by Aurora Place in Sydney, Australia, which was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. It also consists of two tall towers and "lifts everything else in the city around it", he said.

"There's no reason why Dublin shouldn't have a skyline like that, with slender towers sticking up to great heights. The history of architecture is about putting buildings on a hill" - a reference to the fact that Thomas Street is on a ridge.

Asked why they had departed so radically from the relatively modest heights envisaged in the Digital Hub master plan, Mr deBlacam said its densities were "at the lower end of what Dublin could take" and this was about "real regeneration".

MPH's planning consultant, Stephen Little, said there was a "tradition" of tall buildings in the Liberties, citing the nine-storey Guinness Storehouse as a precedent. The Digital Hub was also part of a strategy of moving the city centre westwards.

Alan Sherwood of TDI Consultants, who have been advising on the scheme, said it had been tailored to the needs of firms employing up to 20 people who wanted offices with small floorplates in buildings with "soul".

On the central issue of its soaring heights, John Moran - MPH's development director - pointed out that the city council's planners had granted permission for a 12-storey tower in nearby School Street, "so we're not the ones who broke the glass".
© The Irish Times

47 and 33-storey buildings on Thomas Street? Okaaaayy ….

There’s just a few minor matters such as the area not being designated for tall buildings (unless you want to say the site is in the Heuston area, which is pushing it a little) and a few whimsical Development Plan policies protecting the scale of the historic core (which Thomas Street is in) and the setting and prominence of protected structures and historic landmarks such as St. Catherine’s. But never mind that!

While I think this particular vision of Shane De Blacam’s is daft and a non-runner, I would actually agree with a lot of what he has to say about height in the city generally, and the desirability of diversity in Dublin’s skyline. His 9-storey Wooden Building in Temple Bar is a perfect example of a taller structure appropriately built in a historic area (though I think the original 13-storey height he wanted to build it at would have been too much in that location so close to City Hall and the Newcomen Bank etc.).

A Sunday newspaper article from last year said that buildings such as the Wooden Building hadn’t 'yet changed the minds of planners who fall back time and again to the conventional formula of a 4-storey building with one setback and space for a shopfront at the bottom. As he walks around Dublin City, Shane DeBlacam watches a skyline appearing that has no diversity, filled as it is with apartment buildings that are all the same'.
(The Sunday Tribune Property, 3 July, 2005)

Agreed. But you have to be sooo careful. The ‘go higher’ message can be – and has been – misinterpreted as ‘how much floorspace can I possibly cram onto this site’ to the detriment of the city. And the greedy, ignorant results of this development strategy are already evident. Notable examples in my opinion are the Capel Building, the new buildings at Ardee Street on the Coombe bypass and, most serious of all, the new building at the bottom of Henrietta Street, which destroys a 250-plus year old scale order between Bolton Street and the city’s most important Georgian Street.

As for the ‘we need this height to get density up in the city’ argument being peddled in the above piece, pull the other one Shane. It’s well known that much upper-floor space in the city lays waste (older building stock particularly); we can’t even use the space we’ve got. We’re only really beginning to get out of this period of the city being full of disused buildings, full of wasting assets, as well as beginning to build appropriately on the ample brownfield sites in and around the centre. The idea that achieving high density does not per se require building high-rise has been gone over at length on the forum in the past, probably best expressed by Frank Taylor on this thread: http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=4277

And I don’t get the sticking in of new 8-storey buildings between the protected structures on this part of Thomas Street, which the scheme proposes. What about the existing buildings there? There is a substantially-intact historic streetscape on Thomas Street (as well as a consistent scale). Assuming you can take out anything that’s not protected is just crass and planning-by-numbers. Thomas Street is a Conservation Area anyway, which favours maintenance of all older buildings of merit and that new infill respects the scale.

And just to prove that I don’t have a problem with the placing of taller new buildings next to older ones, these images show a newly-constructed building adjoining some former mill-buildings at Bellvue in Islandbridge. The scale, proportion and positioning of the new building is such that a good relationship is made:

(though not all of the new buildings in the Bellvue scheme are a success imo)

[archipig]

Looks like a little version of Ground Zero. My guess is that either it will be rejected out of hand or forced to lop off about 20 stories.

[a boyle]

I think it is mad enough to work. The whole area there consists of tall structures. and i think it could be a great place for such a daring scheme. From street level it doesn't feel much different whether a building is 6 storey high or fifty. You can only strecth your neck to see the first few storeys when beside it. I need to see what kind of materials will be used and exactly what kind of bulk the scheme will have, but very inspiring.

[ctesiphon]

I agree with most of what Devin has to say on this, so I won't double up. Just to highlight one point (among many) that raised my eyebrow:

"The history of architecture is about putting buildings on a hill."

Is it? Defensive architecture and egotistical architecture certainly (which one is this?), but not architecture generally.
I await the tiresome, threadbare San Gimignano references with a weary head...

[malec]

Wow, they definitely have balls to propose something like that. I'd like to see a proper render though before judging, in order to see the details of the design.
Anyway, I'll give it a 99.5% chance...





of it being axed that is.

[hutton]

Originally Posted by malec

Wow, they definitely have balls to propose something like that. I'd like to see a proper render though before judging, in order to see the details of the design.
Anyway, I'll give it a 99.5% chance...

of it being axed that is.

snigger,snigger.
I hope youre right. A barking idea that would be cited in other proposals if it got the go-ahead.

The proposed tower would rise 47 storeys from a podium, and yet John Moran, MPH's development director, points to permission granted for a 12-storey tower nearby, and says "so we're not the ones who broke the glass"???


Bonkers.

[PVC King]

Originally Posted by Devin

I don't think any contributor needs to state that they are for or against tall buildings being inserted beside heritage buildings per se; but if the rumours that 8 storey infill will be sought at this part of Thomas St then I think all previous stances are irrelevant.

If Guinness had not preseerved the city end of St James' St so well then I would not have an opinion on this but given particular peoples efforts over the years to keep this area reasonably horror story free then the insertion of dominant modern infill would be entirely inappropriate to this location. I'm sure that De Blacham & Meaghar are more than capable of building a stunning building within the existing building lines that provides both adequate treatment of the neighbouring buildings and an examplar of contemporary design.

[rag]

I do like that they have the guts to proposed such a seemingly ridiculous height. I'm looking forward to seeing more images of the proposal. Nice to see the country being not so dismissive of taller buildings as perhaps it once was, say 10-15 years ago.

Also, its good to see a scheme that has a cluster of tall towers at last. I was getting tired of various schemes having a 'signiture' / 'landmark' / 32 story / 60m etc etc building with the one tall building being part of a much wider proposal, with the end result of having one isolated tower looking quite lonely and tbh a bit silly on its own. The 32 story scheme (name escape me now..) to be near Hueston station comes to mind.

[GrahamH]

This is all very tiresome. If the site wasn't identified as suitable for tall buildings in the height survey comissioned by DCC (which I don't think it is anyway, being at neither extremity of the city) then it shouldn't be built. Plain and simple. The eight storey blocks pushing into Thomas St sound particularly intrusive.
Also, why it is being hailed as a 47 storey scheme when it is clearly 51 is nothing but blatent obfuscation in avoiding mentioning the war: the 50 mark.

Alas I fear these scheme has legs given the ambitiousness of the project, the level of detail and amount of effort exerted, and the fact that such a project wouldn't be proposed were it not to have a decent chance of getting approval, even if at 60-70% of the proposed scale.

[paul h]

what is the difference really between 40 or 50 stories
it seems maybe they try for a 50 story building knowing it doesnt have a hope, then when its scaled down to something like 10 floors nimbys are happy and developer gets his building

[d_d_dallas]

did the developers engage in any pre-planning with city council? this reminds me of another de-b & m high rise project in an unsuitable area

http://www.irish-architecture.com/news/2004/000201.html

[Devin]

Originally Posted by paul h

what is the difference really between 40 or 50 stories
it seems maybe they try for a 50 story building knowing it doesnt have a hope, then when its scaled down to something like 10 floors nimbys are happy and developer gets his building

The difference is high rise buildings look stupid in historic areas full stop. It just looks like the area went through a period where nobody gave a toss about it, so developers built whatever they liked. This can be seen in many British and other cities. Look at the Montparnasse tower in Paris – what does it do for the area? Nothing! It’s seen as a one-off mistake.

I get the feeling Shane deBlacam (and this plan is his vision) thinks he is ten years ahead of us all, and that in the future we will all see things his way. Were he to read this, I’m sure he would think ‘bloody closed-mind conservationist’ or somesuch. And he’ll probably hiss and steam in the newspaper when this ‘mini-Manhattan’ for Thomas Street gets thrown out like he did when his Donnybrook 32-storey tower was thrown out, and say ‘there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be allowed to build this’. But no, Mr. deBlacam, there is. Modern high-rise buildings in historic areas in European cities just look stupid end of story, and this is recognised around Europe. And Thomas Street is one of the very best and richest historic districts we’ve got.

Debate on where high-rise should be located in Dublin was fully run on the Dublin Skyline and other threads, so there is no need to get into that here.

They’re going to have a tough time with this proposal any which way, because it’s in Zone 5 and so officially in the central area, the objective for which is to '... reinforce, strenghten and protect its civic design character and dignity'. Zone 5 ends just to the west of the proposed site. Had it been in this area (Zone 7), things might have been slightly more favourable from their point of view, though probably not much. Also, it is rumoured the Chief City Planner is not a fan of the proposal.