college green/ o'connell street plaza and pedestrians

[missarchi]

I think this is a pilot test...
bumps work regardless of if there is a speed limit or not otherwise the car cops it.

[Devin]

What Luas woulda been like coming in to College Green ............ rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

[johnglas]

It's amazing how elegant and uncluttered these old pics look; 60 years of planning and more professional architectural education have not really moved us forward...

[alonso]

having an economy and around 3 million extra people in the country kinda had an impact too

[Denton]

The reality is that no building should have been built at all let alone set back from the original line. To block the beautiful AIB building is a total disgrace. The site should just have been made a simple mini-square. If something had to use the space then maybe allow a temporary retail setup

The site where the "robocop" building is was a park for much of the 90s.

I grew up with a school friend who lived in the Sick and Indigent poor house, the last remaining house of that terrace, but on the street to the Dublin Castle gate. It still stands today.


The small park was dab, grey and usually empty.

Although in the awful Jackie Chan movie The Medalion it is seen with a String Quartet playing.


The park was there well into the 2000s, till about 2005.


It had a couple of statues and plaque's in it as well, but i cant remember what for.

It was a good little plaza but it was never used, and was pretty ugly. However it was a good space during the St Patrick's Day Parade.

It's now long gone, and replaced by the green monster and a white open space that also not appealing like the park before it.

[gunter]

more tram tracks and a lot more activity in a view looking up Dame Street, . . . . but still no clutter.



How on earth did all these people get to their destinations without signs telling them where to go and at what speed

[Devin]

Standards of city centre signage and public realm works are plummeting at the moment, aside from in a few isolated locations such as O'Connell Street. New signs indicating the College Green Bus Gate are a sloppy mess, with poles projecting above and below the signs (see below). And no chance they would try to combine the signs with existing signs in the street in order to avoid more clutter.

Meanwhile the council's Roads Maintenance dept. are slapping cheap brittle white granite in amongst 150 or 200-year old yellow granite pavements, even though they are legally required to preserve and protect these pavements under Policy H22 of the Dublin City Development Plan 2005-11.

Has anyone read the new Draft Dublin City Development Plan 2011-17?? It's full of wondrous guff about the city, while the actual place outside is going to hell!

Dublin City Council does not have a coordinated strategy for city-centre public realm works ....... and it's not for want of being asked to come up with one.

[johnglas]

alonso: 'Events, dear boy, events.' (Harold Macmillan, allegedly.) I think they probably had an economy in 1900 (with a city about half the size), and they had congestion and traffic and trams and just as many pedestrians. And, ah yes, aesthetics and a sense of townscape - how primitive.
Cities need a sense of themselves and developments have to conform to what that sense is; if it's all just laissez-faire and a shrug of the shoulders, then you'll get the clutter modern cities (at least on these islands) suffer from.

[layo]

Check out these pictures of Dublin from 1961. There's a couple from around college green. Everywhere looks stunning without the signage that litters the city centre at the moment.


http://www.grangemoregolf.com/year-2009/Killerig_2009/Golf_Photos/Dublin_1961.html

[missarchi]

the latest speed bumps...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5ZwbDj7sQM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEcY75K2z0U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg79_mM2CNY

these look the part

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joycelynk/4132447932/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/briandeadly/2664386020/sizes/o/

heritage version

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cultiv8/2418316175/sizes/l/

[fergalr]

Wonderful old pictures there. Turns out that Government Bldgs has always had neighbouring structures peering over the parapet.

http://www.grangemoregolf.com/sconlon/Image033.html

[missarchi]

ladies night...
I'm not sure about this option the centre line needs to be adjusted...
The old and new pavements might be a story in itself.

[missarchi]

The skills to pay the bills?
Question time...

http://www.riai.ie/news/article/riai_urban_design_seminar_and_workshop_series_april_20101/

[gunter]

Attended one of those RIAI - 'Urban Design' - CPD courses a couple of years ago, it was truely dismal, and three days long.

I see this one is six days.

[missarchi]

what will gross max say...

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/property/2010/0318/1224266495629.html

[missarchi]

do we have any ministers?

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/comment/should-ministers-become-involved-with-street-design?/5005054.article

[missarchi]

archial?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/motors/2010/0922/1224279422669.html

[missarchi]

http://3twenty10.ie/3twenty10/Entries_-_List/Entries/2010/9/18_EU_373.html

[missarchi]

and next week we're off to the zoo...

Making water dance: the art of fountain design

One of the simplest ways to instil a sense of joy in to an otherwise boring space is to install a fountain. Whether it's the famous Trevi Fountain in Rome, or a small water feature on a balcony, fountains have the power to captivate and uplift the human spirit. You would have to go back to ancient Rome to discover when we began using water as a decorative element in our gardens and public squares. By the 15th and 16th centuries the Italian Renaissance fountaineers seemed to have mastered the art, but our first guest this week has reinvented the fountain for the modern age.

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2010/02/bdn_20100217_1505.mp3

[Peter Fitz]

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1082147

Excellent job on Capital D Graham. I think that is the first time I have ever heard the plight and potential of College Green, and indeed the wider city, so ably articulated on a national platform (archiseek aside ).

[StephenC]

The full report by Dublin Civic Trust entitled Defining Dublin's Historic Core is available to download from their website http://www.dublincivictrust.ie/publications.php.

[missarchi]

I think there should be one landscape/architecture student design module on O'Connell st Bridge/ rabbit station that would go along way...

Lets see what happens...

[SeamusOG]

[Excellent job on Capital D Graham. I think that is the first time I have ever heard the plight and potential of College Green, and indeed the wider city, so ably articulated on a national platform (archiseek aside ).

It was indeed. And, though I don't currently live in Dublin, or even Ireland, it has always been a great pleasure to visit this board and top up on what is going on in architecture in Ireland, Britain and in the wider world.

One of the highlights of my many visits here has been the opportunity to view the posts by Graham, almost without exception full of depth, clarity and warmth.

It was great to finally put a face to a name. For such a young man, he really is a credit to himself.

[SeamusOG]

I was also very interested to hear the approach of DCC to the Transport 21 project in this TV programme.

Mr Keohane of DCC seemed to be fairly clear that the policy was that the T21 project should be implemented first, and the necessary work in the city centre would then be done.

I've seen a number of cities in Europe where the two things have been done side by side. Munich would be one example.

Neither Dublin's most important T21 projects (like the metro or interconnector) nor the removal of traffic from large parts of the city centre are going to be easy tasks. There is, I hope, no doubt about that.

But is doing these projects in two phases better than doing them in one? I remain to be convinced.

[Devin]

Interesting pic here from around 1960, capturing College Gn just before the 'blitz' from 1960 on. Amazingly intact, like a museum of high quality 18th & 19th century buildings.