High Rise Building

ah ah ah, so now you’re all for a Dublin metroplis..!!!!.

😉

I suppose that in many cases, and particularly in more built up areas, people don’t want to have to put up with derecliction of buildings that are awaiting a developer to purchase nearby buildings so that redevelopment can go ahead. Other reasons that people don’t like them is that they often alter a place so much, due their scale, that peoples view of what they like about an area changes dramatically, and their sense of attachement to that place is eroded. Overshadowing and overlooking of surrounding smaller buildings is often another factor when people object to taller buildings.

One of the most common reasons for building tall is due to the cost of land. There’s an optimum height beyond which it just doesn’t stay profitable to build above, unless you increase the floor plate, or can obtain ‘x’ amount in rental or sale value. I’m not a Q.S. but have been told that its beyond the 20 to 30 storey range for Dublin, buildings higher than this tend to be loss-making but act as a flagship while also divert attention away from much larger element which consists of relatively low-rise blocks but contain huge amounts of floor space.

I think its because land has become so expensive that these mid-rise schemes are being considered. Though I doubt land prices have hit the London CBD levels yet; where over the last couple of years there’s been a spate of proposed buildings that are high-rise in the proper sense.
http://www.hughpearman.com/articles5/skyscrapers.html

Although it seems over here proposals for anything beyond 4 storeys adjacent to semi-d housing estates are termed ‘high-rise’ by residents associations so as to well up local hysteria. Or anytime the national press get wind of a potential application which consists of a 10-storey + element they also label it high rise.

Originally posted by Craig Davis

Although it seems over here proposals for anything beyond 4 storeys adjacent to semi-d housing estates are termed ‘high-rise’ by residents associations so as to well up local hysteria. Or anytime the national press get wind of a potential application which consists of a 10-storey + element they also label it high rise.

I don’t think it is hysteria. I find that normally it is actually genuine concern about the future of someones area. I don’t think it is a bad thing that people actually care about their surroundings at all. If you think of the examples of medium rise buildings in this country such as Cork County Hall, Liberty Hall, Hawkins House etc etc, it is not difficult to understand peoples fears of taller buildings. I personally think that Liberty Hall could actually look quite nice if its windows were sorted out and maybe public access was given back so as to give a feeling of public ownership to the building, but at present I can understand why most people hate it. Also, does anyone know what the state of play with Cork County Hall is at present? It was meant to get an overhaul a few years ago, but I was not sure if it ever happened or not.

well i think there should be a definition of what high rise is, and more importantly, what it is not. people who have a difficulty with taller (than 4 storeys) buildings may be genuinely concerned about physical and social impacts of taller buildings, but surely isnt there a responsibility on behalf of architects and planners to address these concerns in a realistic fashion – by demonstrating that taller buildings can have positive impacts and that they can be desirable if designed and located appropriately. And also it needs to be demonstrated that the often quoted examples of ‘bad’ high rises such as Ballymun did not fail as development models as a result of their height. Height had nothing to do with Ballymun’s ‘failure’ – the problems associated with Ballymun are the same as the problems associated with poor quality and under serviced local authority housing built after the 1960s in urban areas in ireland- whether they are 1,2,3 or 10 storey housing.

Furthermore, i really dont understand what is being referred to as a ‘fear of taller buildings’ in respect of Hawkins, Liberty and County Hall Cork. there are far scarier buildings than these in our cities that are two three and four storeys, and again, it is not their height that creates supposedly negative impacts, it is more to do with form, articulation, materials, lack of maintenance. Also, restricting building heights to 5 – 9 storeys will not do anything to ensure a human scale or provide people with a sense of ‘civic ownership’ – the ambition to retain and instill ‘civic ownership’ is extremely important and desirable – but will not succeed by a committment to the fallacy that height restrictions will guarantee this – there are many many factors that contribute to achieving a human scale and civic ownership within the built environment – simply focussing on height is a lazy response and needs to be tackled.

Yeah – the height issue is a convenient excuse for the failure of Ballymun whenever the anti tall brigade are in town.
Yee Haw – on what basis are you saying that highrise does not equal more space? Yes – with more height comes the need for more services etc – but this is 2004 and these things can be designed for. I think we need to cop on with our attitude to taller structures unless we are happy to allow the average house price in Dublin to hit 400k and commute from Carlow to Baggot St.
Infrastructre such a the Luas is a joke when it runs through a route primarily of semidetached three beds.
It is true that high density does not necessarily equal high rise.
There is a mentality in this country that a building if deemed “tall” gets objected to purely on the basis of it being tall. I am certain that in any case that a “tall” building got proposed – it was objected to prior to any design even being seen! The argument that the designs proposed were not good is not a valid one – as there are some people who irrespective of the design would object no matter. They are happy with a 5+1 cereal box city.
Also when we go on about “tall” – we’re not really discussing tall or even high rise. The heuston gate building is probably the only building that would qualify as tall.

As for County Hall in Cork – the Shay Cleary renovations are at an advanced stage.

As in actually being deconstructed and rebuilt!
Haven’t actually been in that part of Cork in about six months – but last time I saw it all the concrete columns were removed and work was staring on the new base of the building.
That building has had zero maintenance performed on in it in 40 years, so to see it without all those grotty columns it looked eerily clean!

An early image of Cork County Hall from the competition stage (although I believe the design has been substantially altered & improved since):

A description as given on the SCA website:

REFURBISHMENT AND EXTENSION TO CORK COUNTY HALL.
1999 –
The project involves the recladding and general fitting out of an existing 1960’s tower block along with the provision of further office accommodation in a five storey extension and a new concourse and council chamber.
The scheme proposes an L shaped arrangement of tower block and extension embracing a double height concourse containing the council chamber as a special element. This primary strategy brings the County Hall into a direct relationship with the street in that the main entrance now has a frontal relationship with it. This is further emphasised by the placing of a light steel and glass canopy at the pavement edge. The concourse can be accessed from three sides allowing easy movement to the building from the various carparking areas. The concourse is seen as mediating between the various elements of the composition. It is a rectilinear hall of slender steel columns supporting a glazed roof. It sits in the L shaped configuration established by the tower block and the new extension. It is 7.8m high and contains all of the more public functions at ground and first floor levels.
The extension forms the southern flank of the proposed L shaped configuration. It is five storeys in height and accommodates public counters and meeting rooms at ground floor, the members rooms and chairmans office at first floor and back up administration office space for the remaining floors. Its southern side is treated elementally with setbacks at ground and fourth floor and it employs the glass louvre shading device that is proposed for the tower block.
The existing building has many strong characteristics which the proposal enhances and highlights in a sympathetic way. Its relationship to the main road is powerful and elegant in that it presents a slender delicately proportioned form to the approach. The additions both in terms of scale and disposition are arranged to avoid compromising its form. Its general aesthetic of a layered façade comprising applied non structural frame and setback full height glazing is again endorsed and reinterpreted by the proposal.

5-9. that’s the crap that has kept this country from proper development

Look, that’s precisely it…that’s the attitude that I hate…that favouring a predominantly 9-storey city over a (say) predominantly 20-storey city is holding back ‘proper’ development. THAT’S crap! Fin, if Dublin was TRULY 9 storeys, there’d be no need for any 20-30 storeys, and so you’re then in a position to CHOOSE when you want them, when they’re suitable, when it’s for the people (ie for a civic reasons, and not for look-at-me architects or for commercial reasons).

on what basis are you saying that highrise does not equal more space? Yes – with more height comes the need for more services etc – but this is 2004 and these things can be designed for. I think we need to cop on with our attitude to taller structures unless we are happy to allow the average house price in Dublin to hit 400k and commute from Carlow to Baggot St.

What I’m saying is that of course highrise = more space on the ground, but I’d far rather have half as much space, and have quality, sun-drenched spaces rather than sit-under-the-concrete-overhang-of-some-tower-on-‘the-landscape-flows-through’-stilts…I have to say, I’m a bit flabbergasted…to think that in this day and age, no-one seems to be learning from our former ‘greats’ mistakes…Corb for one, realised that his acres-of-space-around-remote-towers idea just did not work…so who cares about quantity.

If Dublin actually was 5-9 storeys…I’m talking bulk here…I see no prob with a 9 storey building having an interesting roofline, jumping to 12-15 storeys for (say) 25% of the facade…this for me is one of my major gripes with the Docklands…all buildings are just boring parapets at a uniform height…no provision was allowed to break the skyline for the main conference room/canteen, etc…so if Dub actually was 5-9 storey rather than the 2-storey, 3-bed semi that d_d_dallas is talking about there’d be no problem with Luas’s or anything else!

One major gripe that I have with forming a city out of towers, is that each building just does its own thing…I know that many would say that this is simply a symptom of the increase of building at the urban block scale rather than urban plot of yesteryear, but you get a rather broken streetscape, and all those horrible ‘gaps’ between the blocks…look for eg at the Murray O’Laoire white office block in the northside docks at the Spencer Dock corner…a white, metal trellis was erected at the time, partly because of the gap…they were trying to do something with it…and that’s the prob that I have with building very tall…that automatically these gaps are generally created, whereas as at a lower storey, designers feel a greater need to actually examine the streetscape rather then standing over their 1:2000 model and patting themselves on the back.

There was a thread about this a while ago:

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2594&highlight=heuston+gate

There is more links about it there