National Children's Hospital design

[gunter]

OK, some good points there BTH, and a decent tower option to throw into the mix.

Generally I would agree with the 'slenderness' concept for tall buildings, but on this occassion I think if they went down that route - at this location - it would probably just end up looking like a corporate tower incongruously stranded in the north inner city, with all the precedent implications for opportunistic copycat applications that brings . . . assuming the property market ever recovers.

One of the things I like about the present Mater proposal is that it doesn't particularly look like a corporate block and its form has a undeniable distinctiveness that could conceivably stand as a successful and convincing one-off, validating the case made for a modern landmark public building that the architects make. I do also think it has a certain elegance, although that is one aspect of the scheme that could certainly use a bit more work IMO.

[Morlan]

I think it's absolutely hideous and far too tall for that part of the City Centre. ABP made the right decision.

Why not stick it in the Docklands close to the East Link, Port Tunnel and Luas. There's a lot more space and it's more accessible than the Mater site. The footprint could be vastly increased and the height reduced to 2 or 3 storeys - a more suitable height for a children's hospital.

[Frank Taylor]

The tall tower jokingly suggested would have significantly increased lift requirement, reduced green areas, increased energy requirements, increased costs, increased shadowing and visibility, skyline impact yet
... it would be a slender tower...

These rules of thumb are just that - pointers to what might work. Consider the ground scrapers that encircle Merrion Square, would they be better as vertical towers?


Consider the many UK council flat blocks like those in Larne. Does their height redeem them?


You can argue for a move to the docks but this will require a move of the teaching hospital unless of course you want children to die to save the character of North Gardiner Street from a glimpse of shininess in the sky. Locating our public amenities based on ample parking and fast access by car is a great part of the reason that adults need to visit hospitals in the first place.

There is a unique requirement for this facility in this location. Yes it will be visible in the neighbourhood and yes it will alter some views significantly. But the building serves a significant civic and practical function and will invigorate the area. The idea that people surrounded by crack houses and street crime will suffer as a result of the influx of regular human beings is derisory.

ABP did not do wrong - it did its job for once, determining that the hospital failed its subjectivce arbitrary aesthetic test. The legislature failed by allowing a situation to arise where a critical public facility has been thwarted because ABP had no power to balance its aesthetic judgement against the project's wider societal benefits.

In this situation, emergency legislation should be enacted to overcome the failure of planning legislation to allow a balance to be made between the functional requirements of the nation on the visual amenity of a few streets. After all, current legislation allows the demolition of entire streets where a road is desired.

[GrahamH]

Frank, this was categorically not an exclusively 'aesthetic' judgement, and to describe it as such misrepresents the Board's decision. The proposed building bulldozed through a Local Area Plan, a statutory instrument designed specifically to accommodate this development. It wasn't even a question of grazing over the boundaries of the plan - it simply demolished it. To descibe it as an 'aesthetic judgement' is facile and makes a mockery of good planning principles, never mind the significant public funds invested in this masterplanning. Either you waste public money on sound professional planning, or waste it on client - i.e. governmental - incompetence. Personally, out of principle, precendent and the wider public good, I prefer the former, regardless of scale.

As a significant aside, I have it on good authority that the reason the Board, having considered the Inspector's report, and under considerable pressure, decided to base their judgement largely on the impact of the skyline of the city, was to facilitate government in leaving the option of the site open, rather than wiping it out on accessibility and other grounds raised in the Inspector's report.

[Frank Taylor]

We've previously been through the verbatim transcript of ABP's verdict.

Graham, do you think that the Mater is inaccessible? Do you agree with Philip Lynch's assessment that the city centre 'is a cul-de-sac' and that the outskirts of the M50 are a more suitable location for civic amenities?

What is your suggested solution? Underground hospital? Slender tower? Rebuild teaching hospital plus children's hospital elsewhere? Do nothing? Not your problem?

Cian Ginty's view looks about right to me. The apocalypse of a glimpse of shiny:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost ... stcount=35

[missarchi]

CPO Guinness? phibsplan... bulldoze docklands... Or redesign...

M50 for important hospital is a no no...

average...

[Paul Clerkin]

Another suggestion for a location

[Frank Taylor]

Nuns offer more space on Mater site for children's hospital by offering footprint of adult hospital:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news ... 74598.html

Harry Crosbie makes spirited pitch for sticking to Mater site:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opi ... 81345.html

4 weeks to go for 'Dolphin group' to decide on location.

Mater now favourite location again.

[PVC King]

I see the operational rationale of having maternity, childrens and adults hospitals together if that is possible. I am not familier with a simlar tri-location in any traditional City Centre location elsewhere but it may be a good opportunity to set the bar far higher.

What I do not see a rationale in is the creation of 1,400 car spaces at a 'City Centre Location'

What I would like to see happen

1. A design emerge that has no more than 400 additional car spaces; all of which would be a sub-basement level and for which a lease would be offered to the private sector or NPRF so that income streams could assist meet interest costs on the wider project.

2. A park and ride facilty arrangement somewhere on the M50 intersecting with a future Luas line (served by bus in the interim) for routine appointments where people from outside the GDA can locate easily; clearly wandering around Hardwicke Street looking for parking ain't ideal.

2. A building envelope that respects its context and is of a decent architectural quality.

3. Fierce lobbying to get the Luas lines to Ballymun (and beyond) as well as IE commuter serves at Broombridge way up the agenda to ensure that sustainable commuting is available for its workforce.

There is a great opportunity to deliver a centre of excellence in healthcare; there is a further incentive to build a highly labour intensive building by people many of whom are far too over qualified to build anything comparable in this climate.

Please do not mess the next application up; get your ducks lined up and shoot to score to a converted crowd.

[SeamusOG]

This whole thing appears to have gone off the boil. It seems to have taken a lot longer than the Minister insisted, to come up with a plausible solution. Nothing yet...

[thebig C]

Well, well, well, the Mater site has been ditched and St James is now the prefered location! The saga is over, or, just begining.....

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... king3.html

http://www.thejournal.ie/childrens-hosp ... 6-Oct2012/

The design shown above is aparently notional, so there will presumably be an architectural competition.

Listening to the news yesterday, I was surprised how many comentators harped on about height being an important issue. The author of the Dolphin report into the location even stated that he encouraged St James to utilised other parts of their campus to spread the buildings footprint and reduce the height.....possibly preventing the future tri-location of a maternity hospital to the campus! Seriously, height should not be a paramount issue with a development like this......but then I think ABP and An Taisce knew what they were doing with the last application.....they scared the bejesus out out anybody who was even thinking about anything over 6 floors!!

C

[gunter]

The really important thing was that an urban location was chosen [as belatedly acknowledged by Frank McDonald yesterday], if this project had gone to a green field site somewhere on the periphery of the city on the basis of accessibility from the M50, we might as well have taken all the policy documents and planning strategies and tipped onto the compost heap.

Obviously there are going to be sensitivities to be taken into account in the design – this site is in Kilmainham after all – but that shouldn’t mean that the new building has to be some unlovely ziggurat stepping down on all perimeters to the scale of a terraced house, this is a time for showing some real belief in urbanism and putting together a design strategy that inspires, not compromises itself into a mediocrity based on offending the fewest people to the least degree.

[StephenC]

deleted

[StephenC]

Listening to the news yesterday, I was surprised how many comentators harped on about height being an important issue. The author of the Dolphin report into the location even stated that he encouraged St James to utilised other parts of their campus to spread the buildings footprint and reduce the height.....possibly preventing the future tri-location of a maternity hospital to the campus! Seriously, height should not be a paramount issue with a development like this......but then I think ABP and An Taisce knew what they were doing with the last application.....they scared the bejesus out out anybody who was even thinking about anything over 6 floors!!

C

I think its more to do with a general lack of understanding of the planning system to be honest. The whole point of planning is that it should be an integral part of the project from the very start...not a tacked on paper exercise at the very end.

The Mater site was so obviously and patently too small, both for the proposed hospital and certainly for the inevitable extensions required in 20-30 years. It was screamingly obvious from the start. The point here is that if good planning had been utilised then this issue would have be recognised early in the process before wads of cash were forked out to design the monstrous building that finally emerged.

Perhaps with this new site, less visually sensitive, and I would argue better connected, we can achieve a more sustainable plan for this facility, without the need to create something that can be seen from Wales.