Convention centre

[poukai]

Plans on theccd.ie (why they bothered to include 'the' as part of a major domain name i'll never know).

Um, maybe because ccd.ie was already taken?

[Peter Fitz]

good point

[murrmurr]

what like, http://www.theo2.ie ?

[CraigFay]

Took a few pictures yesterday

[fergalr]

Is that stumpy growth behind the keg atrium going to turn into the tower... or just remain a stump? It's just that I don't see any lift or emergency exit shafts going up. And it'll look odd as a stump. Also, "stump" is almost as much fun to type as it is to say.

[johnglas]

Craigfay: good pics. That man glaring at you looks as though he's about to run over and nutter you. Did he?

[CraigFay]

Thankfully, I turned left But if I had crossed the road, who knows...

[jdivision]

The lift will be able to bring up an arctic truck container so don't think they've been installed yet

[rob mc]

Is that stumpy growth behind the keg atrium going to turn into the tower... or just remain a stump? It's just that I don't see any lift or emergency exit shafts going up. And it'll look odd as a stump. Also, "stump" is almost as much fun to type as it is to say.

I don't know for certain but i'm pretty sure there is planning permission for a hotel on the site. so maybe thats gonna be it, again i'm not sure tho

[ihateawake]

I had thought that the decision on their tall hotel was due in jan, but I cant find any info on it, anyone? I doubt they would have recieved permission though. It would be like dublins beetham, though I think it would sit better with the streetscape here, while beetham has none.

[jdivision]

Decided last week:
http://www.tribune.ie/business/news/article/2009/apr/05/planners-veto-treasurys-plans-for-spencer-dock-hot/
but I think they still have permission for a 14-storey hotel.

[ihateawake]

Thanks for that. Disappointing, was hoping for some relief of the monotony, ill never understand ABP :/

[fergalr]

Is blue hour at night the new sunny sky for renderings of Dublin?

[SunnyDub]

Have they changed the name? Convention Centre Dublin sounds wrong...I prefer National Conference Centre

[CC105]

Hotel planning refused as too tall - - -for docklands - -Good luck!

[reddy]

Just passed across O Connell Bridge last night - was a beautiful evening - and the view towards the conference centre looks great. The barrel was glistening in the evening sun and its a another real civic addition to the quays.

Pity about the hotel though. It looked like an elegant proposal.

[cgcsb]

Hotel planning refused as too tall - - -for docklands - -Good luck!

Too tall for the docklands? isn't the whole point of the docklands that greater heights can be achieved without a negative impact on Georgian Dublin.

[rob mc]

Too tall for the docklands? isn't the whole point of the docklands that greater heights can be achieved without a negative impact on Georgian Dublin.

32 floors is a bit excessive tho, Dublin has to gradually get taller not just plonk a 120 metre skyscraper in the middle of 6 story buildings.

[cgcsb]

Well don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of this building per say but a break in continuous 6 story offices would be nice. Surely they don't need 32 floors. Could they not settle for 28 or 24 maybe? Aqua Vetro will be the same size

[rob mc]

Well don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of this building per say but a break in continuous 6 story offices would be nice. Surely they don't need 32 floors. Could they not settle for 28 or 24 maybe? Aqua Vetro will be the same size

Well there is planning permission for a 14 story hotel which in my opinion could be a bit bigger, but as you say it would grant respite form the usual six story shite . Not sure what they are waiting for tho.

Is Aqua gonna be that big??so that will be Ireland's tallest building when built,who would have thought that 2 years ago

[cgcsb]

yes I believe it will be the tallest when It's finished(2012) just overtaking the Obel in Belfast(2010). For a while there, it looked like it was going to be the Watchtower. It still might be if the application for change of use is accepted.

[poukai]

The upload rather crapped up the quality of this one, but I still like the night view better than the day one...

[Satrastar]

Wow, that's a very nice picture. Can you upload it on flickr so we can see the full quality? That would be great

[GrahamH]

Lovely glossy sheen there alright!

Truly, I want to like the NCC. It is important to feel affection for a public building. I agree with reddy about the striking view from O'Connell Bridge - a view vista is born in the city. Very surprising to see it glinting beneath the Loop Line Bridge!

But so very sadly, this is where the love affair must end. I visited the site over the weekend for the very first time since construction began. Never have I been more sorely disappointed with a piece of architecture. Aside from the drum, which holds obvious - if popular - appeal, the building as a whole is the most spectacularly ugly concoction to land in the city since Robocop on Dame Street. It is so breath-takingly, staggeringly bad in real life as to make one wonder why the Emperor has no clothes. Is nobody else actually seeing this?! Really, get down there and have a look at what is unfolding before our eyes!

A gigantic, immensely arrogant, dusty pink, stone-clad leaden block, topped with swoopy parapets plucked from of the worst Miami beach residential architecture of the 1980s, barely punctuated by random, minimal flush bands of windows employed as postmodernist racing stripes. This host box for the poor unfortunate drum has translated so spectacularly badly from concept into real life (though it must be acknowledged a number of people here did point this out long before now), that it is nothing short of an embarrassment to the city as a supposedly prized civic building. At least Mansfield's stuff out on the M50 is shameless, even comforting, in its ignorance; the NCC by contrast - which has PPP written all over it - has no such excuse.

I love the drum: obvious but fun and civic-minded, but the rest is well, I really don't know what else to say...

What would be the icing on the cake now would be a chic 30-storey plus slab block rising out of it! The last thing this yoke needs is further complication. Such a disappointment. Here's hoping most delegates will arrive along the quay and look up at the imposing projecting barrel - one of its few virtues.

[Morlan]