National Children’s Hospital design

Planning will be a nightmare

Roof gardens are a clearly a sham. They will end up being patio spaces and smoking areas for staff.

Obviously they are trying to justify the city centre location and lack of open space for patients and families.

That is horrendous

Actually worse than horrendous, what planet did this come from……

don’t worry about how bad it looks
it”ll never be built in that form or in that location

OMG, having heard various heights mentioned over the past few years ranging from 9-20 stories, I was interested to see what the finished product would look like…..

Honestly, I had no idea it would be this bulky. It almost looks like a groundscraper, completely belieing the fact that if built it would be Dublins tallest. What that says to me is at even at that considerable height they have tried to limit its impact on the skyline…possibly for planning reasons?! Looking at the renders its blatantly obvious that they had to fiil every square inch of the limited site to try and minimise scale. And the simple fact that the needed that scale just serves to highlight the obvious detractions regarding the site. Assuming that the render supplied is show the building in its absolute best light, even I am shocked at just how squashed it is!

In terms of design, its not too bad (If it was an office headquarters on a greenfield or suitably corporate site not surrounded by historical Georgian and Victorian buildings!).

BTW, I have tried only addressing the architectural aspect. As for the other “issues” all I can say is that its glaringly obvious that if this wasn’t one B.Aherns constituency, then none of us would be discussing this matter. De javu, another legacy of that little spiv that is causing problems!

It looks like something that was previously refused planning permission in downtown Las Vegas.

Aside from the fact that it is in the wrong location (and we all know why that is), surely a building catering for ill children should reflect the tastes of those under the age of 18. It may sound silly, but were any of the patients in Crumlin or Temple St asked their opinion on what a childrens hospital should look like?

Surely a more cheerful structure on a greenfield site with real grass and parkland (rather than the rooftop frippery illustrated above would be more beneficial to a child’s health.)

And speaking of the roof, what the hell is the story with the helipad?
It looks large enough to accommodate the entire fleet based out in Baldonnell.

Our childrens hospital is a monster too

“for the sick kids”

How did we get to a situation where so many people just don’t trust urbanism?

We have people on the radio at the moment [some of them educated people] complaining about the location of the hospital because . . . . ‘it’s in the centre of the city’

This is the legacy of decades of urban neglect and wanton suburbanization, we’ve raised a whole generation of citizens who genuinely think that a national childrens hospital should be built out on a motorway junction.

Every time you think we’ve turned the corner, we’re starting to understand, we’re beginning to see, something like this turns up to show you that, deep down, we’ve lost our belief in urbanism, deep down we’re hostile to it because we won’t be able to turn right, we won’t be able to find a parking space and the buildings are all big.

We have so much work to do.

Hey Gunther

This has nothing to do with urbanism, which I would also be pasionately in favour of. It is simply a matter of accessability and flexability.

Put simply, 70% of referals/patients to the hospital will be from rural areas. The Mater site is just very awkward to get to, particularly given the added problems of traffic and one way systems in the area.

Also, as you can see the building completely fills the site….meaning zero room for expansion. If you think that the grounds of every hospital in Ireland are cluttered with portacabins because of a fundamental failure of forward space requirement planning. Moreover that this hospital has less beds then the 3 Hospitals its replacing. Obviously then its very probable it will need to be extended……which is impossible!

I do agree with your point about the Irish populace having an anti urban almost parochial mentality when it comes to the built environment, and it depresses me too. But this just isn’t one of those occasions.

C

This has everything to do with urbanism, big C.

If you concede that something like a National Childrens Hospital really can’t be built on a city centre site like Eccles Street, because the centre of the capital city is somehow inaccessible to people, and some of the streets are one-way, and because the site’s urban restrictions are somehow beyond the scope of architectural and engineering solution, what you’re doing is giving up on the big issue . . . . the urban issue.

People might be having a go at the roof gardens, or the parking arrangements, or that platform sandal on the roof with the helipad [which I personally think looks quite well articulated], but in reality they’re giving expression to a failure of belief in urbanism, IMO.

Assuming that the professionals who put this plan together know what they’re at, and the hospital does actually fit, which it appears to do quite snugly, I would take the absence of any opportunity to stack pre-fabs all over the place on surface carparks as another positive.

You wouldnt see that built in Las Vegas FFS, never mind Dublin

It would be hilarious if they got permission but had to chop off the “sandal” portion.

feel bad admitting this but its growing on me…

also think that it could have a transformational impact on this part of the North Inner city

Er, have they considered how they are going to get a patient on a stretcher from the helipad into the actual building?

It’s not big enough.Stick an extra 10 floors on to cater for more beds, and pop it down in the docklands.That way it’s easily accessible to the whole country by road(port tunnel), rail(DART/Luas) and sea(slightly less important, I know).It also gives us our first tall building. Everybody’s happy!

You could even stick an extra 25 floors on it and call it the U2 tower.

it’s gonna be breezy up there.

@eia340600 wrote:

it’s Not Big Enough.stick An Extra 10 Floors On To Cater For More Beds, And Pop It Down In The Docklands.that Way It’s Easily Accessible To The Whole Country By Road(port Tunnel), Rail(dart/luas) And Sea(slightly Less Important, I Know).it Also Gives Us Our First Tall Building. Everybody’s Happy!

+1

The other benefit of doing it in the docklands is that there would be buckets of space for pharma companies to co-locate specialist R & D units with access to specialist medical practitioners to develop and co-ordinate pioneering treatments.

It’s meant to be located next to a major adult teaching hospital. Temple Street hospital (for anyone who hasn’t witnessed it) is a ramshackle Dickensian nightmare. A collection of decaying, half-built structures tied together with twine. It makes Holles Street look like the Starship Enterprise and it’s been that way for decades.

The major consideration in reorganising hospital facilities ought to be whether the patients will have better survival rates as a result. What we usually hear about is the inconvenience to the hospital staff who will have a longer commute or will lose a free parking space. The location is not inaccessible to cars being sited on the junction of the NCR and Dorset Street. Taxis and Ambulances will have no problem reaching it.

Obesity and long term public health are improved by locating major public facilities in places accessible to the best public transport. The Metro North Mater station is to be built at this site by direct public contract rather than as part of the PPP. New A&E outpatient facilities for children at other locations are to be designated as part of the plan, so not every sick kid will be sent to the Mater for triage.

As regards the design, I like the attempt to balance the existing terrace on the North side of Eccles Street with a matching terrace to fill the gap up to the private hospital. I see no reason the roof gardens can’t be built and would be of obvious benefit to the patients. The shoe shaped building on top is sufficiently set back to avoid any major looming over the neighbouring streets.

What I’d love to know is what is a suitable site; near the Red Cow roundabout and its attendant chaos?

I believe in urbanism, I just don’t trust the HSE and Dublin City Council.

The roof gardens are fantastic, I just don’t believe they will be maintained or even properly created. Don’t expect the HSE to be a pioneer.

As for traffic management, we know Dublin City Council isn’t able to effectively manage traffic. And this part of Dublin is arguably the most congested part of the city.

And the Civic element of the scheme will similarly be lost by the Council who will no doubt clutter the area with barriers, traffic lights every 100 yards (incorrectly sequenced) and empty sign poles. Has the council ever managed to create a single Civic space of any real merit?

perhaps I might dare to speak as a parent here – and one who has had to avail of the fantastic expertise of Crumlin on more occasions that I would like to remember. For those who have not had the displeasure, a children’s hospital is simply the most horrendous place you will ever wish to never visit. Children, especially young ones, do not understand being sick and don’t understand pain so they cry. Scream. A lot. Constantly. Transport is important. Parking is important – do you fancy bringing a projectile vomiting screaming 3 year old to the hospital on the bus or the luas or try to get a taxi driver to take them? Children who go to crumlin regularly do not associate those visits with fluffy bunnies – do you think a bus or luas journey makes them feel better? Do you think it might be easier if you have to bring their little sibling along too? Conversely, do you think it’s great fun to be gridlocked in the town centre with all that going on in the back of your own car? Parking at crumlin is a nightmare but at least you can get there and then improvise- Infrastructure is hugely important.

You might think, given the above that a green field site by the sea would be better but, in reality, a children’s hospital is better sited in or near a city or town. The parents of sick children are, in effect, captives. At best one parent takes a break at a time so having somewhere to actually go is a real bonus. If anything a building such as this could be used as a catalyst to breathe live into one of our boom year struggling satellite towns

The external skin of a building such as this is really peripheral – it is the functionality and practicality that are key. Hospitals, unlike private clinics perhaps, don’t lend themselves to huge expanses of curtain walling – walls are where all the getyoubetter stuff goes. The roof gardens are fine in theory – and good for an environmentally friendly building but parents – and especially sick children – will not use them. An internalised climatically controlled garden space would be a great bonus, as would be any facilities for the energetically well siblings of sick kids.

I’d have the same suspicions as a lot of posters about the abilities of the HSE and Dublin City Council to deliver this project unf – – ked up, and the choice of site may well have been influenced initially by constituency nest feathering, but however they’ve arived at it, with this project on this site, for once they seem to have hit on the optimum solution.

As presented, the proposal appears to be a well planned and well designed structure on a prime urban site adjacent to another major hospital and almost adjacent to the present location of one of the three constituent childrens hospitals that will amalgamate into this new National Childrens Hospital. This tells us that the location is capable of working provided the increases in people movements, including car traffic, are managed.

We can all swap stories of the panic experienced in journeys to hospital with sick children and no single location of hospital will suit everyone, but the core of the centre of the capital city is where the greatest number of transport routes converge, and it is also the heart of the population centre with the greatest density, and these are both compelling reasons to locate a major new national facility of this importance in a place like this.

Maybe DCC will screw up the planning decision and later screw up the traffic management, and maybe the HSE will screw up the funding and the hospital management, but right now the question is: do we have faith in the urban concept, or are we really out-of-towners to the core of our being?

Thunderbirds are Go!!

I’ve never understood the opposotion to the Mater site in terms of accessibility. I’d guess about one third of the people in a children’s hospital would be the children and their parents, about half would be staff, and the rest visiting suppliers/contractors. from the point of view of the staff, the contractrs and suppliers/contractors the centre is the obvious place for it, The same is trues for half the patients and their parents – those who live in Dublin. For the rest of the country the journey times from the M50 intersections are about equal to Eccles Street or Crumlin. I did a quick study on Google maps which I know is not infallible but at least would be equally inaccuarte in respect of both locations. I might have made a mistake but the results were [excuse the messy tabulation]:

Mater Crumlin
Km Mins Km Mins
Loughlinstown 18.9 28 24.8 17
Tallaght 10.6 18 8.9 9
Newlands X 10.2 18 4.6 6
Liffey Valley 10.6 14 8.9 10
Blanchardstown 7.0 11 12.5 12
Finglas 6.6 9 10.7 18
Santry 6.6 9 12.3 22
(Northern Cross) 9.6 16 15.0 29

I didn’t think the tabs would just disappear completely. Here another go.

Louglinstown: Mater18.9 km 28 min Crumlin 24.8km 17min
Tallaght: Mater 10.6 18 Crumlin 8.9 9
Newlands Cross: Mater 10.2 18 Crumlin 4.6 6
Liffey Valley: Mater 10.6 14 Crumlin 8.9 10
Blanchardstown: Mater 7.0 11 Crumlin 12.5 12
Finglas: Mater 6.6 9 Crumlin 10.7 18
Santry:Mater 6.6 9 Crumlin 12.3 22
(Northern Cross): Mater 9.6 16 Crumlin 15.0 29

@Frank Taylor wrote:

It’s meant to be located next to a major adult teaching hospital. Temple Street hospital (for anyone who hasn’t witnessed it) is a ramshackle Dickensian nightmare. A collection of decaying, half-built structures tied together with twine. It makes Holles Street look like the Starship Enterprise and it’s been that way for decades.

Holles St is a fine hospital; yes it is an period building but it has been adapted to meet the needs of each era.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

The major consideration in reorganising hospital facilities ought to be whether the patients will have better survival rates as a result. What we usually hear about is the inconvenience to the hospital staff who will have a longer commute or will lose a free parking space. The location is not inaccessible to cars being sited on the junction of the NCR and Dorset Street. Taxis and Ambulances will have no problem reaching it.

Nor would they have an issue with a docklands site with unincumbered access and egress designed specifically to purpose.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

Obesity and long term public health are improved by locating major public facilities in places accessible to the best public transport. The Metro North Mater station is to be built at this site by direct public contract rather than as part of the PPP. New A&E outpatient facilities for children at other locations are to be designated as part of the plan, so not every sick kid will be sent to the Mater for triage.

Please do not hold up a project that lacks planning consent or more relevant funding as justification.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

As regards the design, I like the attempt to balance the existing terrace on the North side of Eccles Street with a matching terrace to fill the gap up to the private hospital. I see no reason the roof gardens can’t be built and would be of obvious benefit to the patients. The shoe shaped building on top is sufficiently set back to avoid any major looming over the neighbouring streets.

I doubt I am alone in querying the fit of a sixteen story slab block with a Georgian style terrace. UNESCO designation for World Heritage site with a slab like this 400-600m from Mounjoy Sq? Build it in the docklands and have every major pharmaceutical company going leverage it to develop new pioneering treatments in Peadiatrics; global cluster of excellence where the space exists to locate the players.

@goneill wrote:

I didn’t think the tabs would just disappear completely. Here another go.

Louglinstown: Mater18.9 km 28 min Crumlin 24.8km 17min
Tallaght: Mater 10.6 18 Crumlin 8.9 9
Newlands Cross: Mater 10.2 18 Crumlin 4.6 6
Liffey Valley: Mater 10.6 14 Crumlin 8.9 10
Blanchardstown: Mater 7.0 11 Crumlin 12.5 12
Finglas: Mater 6.6 9 Crumlin 10.7 18
Santry:Mater 6.6 9 Crumlin 12.3 22
(Northern Cross): Mater 9.6 16 Crumlin 15.0 29

How is this relevant. The important issue is not wheter the new facility is close to areas around Dublin, this is supposed to serve the whole country from Kerry to Donegal, the Arann Islands to Lambay Island. As a result it is really massive, so massive that it dwarfs the local and larger aspect of the city. It is so dense that it will necessarily pull all available investment into the black hole that it is. In other words the more money spent on this the more that will have to be spent on this especially if it goes wrong no one will want to stop it preferring to prop it up rather than admit its failings. I would look at the belated change of heart by Maurice Neligan amongst others. The key issue is the “little problems”, the necessary health and welfare of the children. A couple of wind swept (yes they are above the street buffer zone of the city) roof gardens will not compensate for what should be recuperating gardens, parks and courts. The “sandal” design of the cake topping will also contribute to wind induced laminar flow increasing disruption at roof level. If we are to properly weight up all the factors necessary for a centre of excellence then maybe a different site would be better. More importantly would it be possible to locate 4 such national children’s hospitals around the country for the same cost. Surely there most have been some basic feasability study completed to justify this which would have estbalished this elvel of impact long before the fancy graphics…… PR wins in this case I fear.

While I agree with gunter and the need to promote urbanism – this is not a Dublin childrens hospital, but a national one – 50% of those using it will not be from the GDA. Families travelling from Waterford, Cork, Killarney, Limerick, Galway, Sligo have already travelled for several hours – are we then going to subject them to another ordeal travelling through Dublin city traffic? (as hats said sick children will not be brought on the train to Heuston, change onto the Luas and then the metro). Aside from that issue, the building just does not fit on its site – hence the height required in a Georgian area. We can be too sensitive on the issue of height in this country, but this is no elegant tower proposed here. The Docklands would be better if it must be in the city.

However surely a greenfield site is the obvious solution – somewhere like Newlands cross which has luas (potential of more efficient commuting pattern with staff etc from the city), a proposed metro west (PVC has a coronary!) which links to the Kildare and Navan rail lines (without a tunnel), and is pretty much the centre of the national motorway network. Do the Newlands Cross flyover at the same time and a lot of the Red Cow freeflow problems disappear.

@corkblow-in wrote:

– this is not a Dublin childrens hospital, but a national one – 50% of those using it will not be from the GDA.

That’s only partially true though isn’t it? I mean this hospital replaces three existing Dublin childrens hospitals as well as centralizing the country’s top pediatric expertise on one site. If yoy’ve got a sick child in Dublin this is where you’ll go, but if you’ve got a sick child in Sligo, you’ll only be making this trip if he needs very specialist care . . . . as far as I understand it anyway, I don’t think this is intended to be some kind of centralized kids vomittorium

@corkblow-in wrote:

However surely a greenfield site is the obvious solution – somewhere like Newlands cross . . . .

This is the – ”I believe in urbanism, but . . .” – argument.

Green fields are for sheep and football, hospitals belong in cities.

I remain thoroughly on the fence on this one. At the end of the day, none of us know the ins and outs of the demands of a children’s hospital – that’s why consultants were paid megabucks to do that thinking for us and come up with an appropriate site. But I do despise the mind-numbingly suburban hand-wringing about car parking and access to the Mater area that’s been dominating media discourse, and where an entirely car dependant site – both for staff and patients – is being encouraged at all costs hanging off the State’s most congested motorway. What an obscene prospect. Realistically, how many children need to be delivered to hospital in a car? Actually no – I’m not having this debate – we’re ill-informed, so let’s not go down the Liveline route.

Rather, it is the chosen site and its planning context that matters here. As is, the Mater has an extremely demanding impact on this area of the city. Coupled with a substantial expansion of that hospital, plus the construction of one of the largest children’s hospitals in Europe on the same site, I have grave concerns about the capacity of this already under strain part of the north inner city, with its network of Georgian streets and what are supposed to be residential areas, to cope with the resulting pressures. The hospital is quite clearly shoe-horned into the site, no question, and if this was a speculative office development there would very rightly be uproar about it. I don’t think anyone could genuinely claim with a straight face that this is the ideal site for the National Children’s Hospital, nor that the design takes cognisance of its context above street level. The lower levels certainly have merit. We have yet to see the streetscape renders of the impact of this spaceship and I’m betting it’s not gonna be pretty.

I’m all for an urban site, just not this one. McKinsey did state that co-location with a major teaching hospital is not strictly necessary if other factors are brought into play.

I realise the contradiction of saying I believe in Urbanism but stick the hospital in Newlands Cross – there are times when the exceptions should be made – & I believe this is one. The site I’m thinking of was proposed by the IRFU as a replacement for Landsdowne Road – a case where a greenfleld site was not appropriate IMO.

This is (or should be) a large floorplate building being proposed for a site that can only accommodate it by rising to 16 floors. I don’t know if vertical circulation is more or less efficient for a hospital – as Graham said none of us know exactly what the intricacies are. But the building just doesn’t sit comfortably. I would agree that hospitals belong in urban areas – maybe in the Docklands with other coarse grain development – or maybe Tallaght – I don’t know.

The car dependency issue is a concern, and I’m sure the accessibility of the hospitals being amalgamated was considered, but taking a step back the issue is the same whether the hospital is in the Mater or any other site. At this time the preferred mode of transport is the car and we need to wean ourselves off it – restricting car access to a hospital is not where I’d start though!

The Mater is well served by Dublin Bus, and potentially a metro – maybe. Newlands has the Luas, bus routes serving Belgard, Tallaght and Clondalkin; a design for a metro linking to the mainline rail lines (ok – we may not see it this century!) and potential for a park and ride at kingswood / citywest using the red line extension. Restricted parking (particularly for staff) can be imposed as easily in Newlands as the Mater.

Maybe it’s the fact that theres a distinct whiff of political interference by a certain newspaper columnist who did a nixer as Taoiseach a while ago that has me questioning the site so much – because I certainly hope I never have a cause to visit the institution wherever it’s constructed.

@corkblow-in wrote:

However surely a greenfield site is the obvious solution – somewhere like Newlands cross which has luas (potential of more efficient commuting pattern with staff etc from the city), a proposed metro west (PVC has a coronary!) which links to the Kildare and Navan rail lines (without a tunnel), and is pretty much the centre of the national motorway network. Do the Newlands Cross flyover at the same time and a lot of the Red Cow freeflow problems disappear.

PVC is in agreement in principal with Newlands Cross as the space exists for pharma companies to co-locate; suprisingly I also agree with a version of Metro West but built as spurs off Dart to Tallaght and gradually extended north as add ons that link the Interconnector lines with Blanchardstown/Intel to the Airport. Alternatively just build it in the Docklands where all modes of transport will exist i.e. Rail, Lightrail and motorway connection.

I agree with Shadow and Gunter that there are issues in terms of the structure of the health service but do not understand such a complex subject; however I do believe that a national centre of excellence is disireable given the importance of Pharma to the economy and its ability to contribute to any hospital of a sufficient scale.

My thinking is similar to Graham’s that a major factor is existing built heritage; I have long been disheartened by the way that north georgian Dublin was very much the poor relation of its southside cousin; this would not have been proposed in Dublin 2 as a credible proposal. Have we completely given up on North Georgian Dublin?

the site is not that hard to get to, if you are coming from the country, just go around the m50 until the m3 junction and its a straight road all the way to mountjoy where you swing right or its easy enough to get to dorset street from the n1 or 2. all the calls for the docks seem to forget the port tunnell toll or actually getting to the docks lets face it, anything inside the north circular in the most congested part of the city and after 200+km thats all you need.
plus metro north is supposed to stop at the mater and it is probably as likely to be built as this or DIT grangegorman

I like the location but the architecture could be “better” it’s very standard fare
Massing of hospitals like this is quite common any better or different renders?

I appreciate that there’s a toll on the m1 tunnel for parents, but there isn’t for ambulances.It’s a quick access route to the whole north-eastern coast.People coming from the country won’t be emergency cases.They’ll either be long term treatment(who can park at the red cow/pace/sandyford and hop on a train or they’ll be ambulance transfer, which won’t have to pay a toll.As for A&E – If it wasn’t urgent enough to warrant paying the tunnel toll, its not so urgent that it cant sit in s few minutes traffic.

@archipig wrote:

Er, have they considered how they are going to get a patient on a stretcher from the helipad into the actual building?

Gravity feed chute.

Its not the drop, its the sudden sharp stop at the end…

ONQ.

@gunter wrote:

This is the – ”I believe in urbanism, but . . .” – argument.

Green fields are for sheep and football, hospitals belong in cities.

Unless of course its a TB Sanatorium in which case the top of a Swiss mountain might be preferable.

Nothing like testing the immune systems of children in a centre city environment.

I remember when I started attending my studies in Bolton Street way before the introduction of the smokeless coal in Dublin.

I could “see” the greyness in the air we were breathing.

Is an urban environment good for sick kids?

Or is that too obvious a question?

ONQ.

@adrian5987 wrote:

all the calls for the docks seem to forget the port tunnell toll or actually getting to the docks lets face it, anything inside the north circular in the most congested part of the city and after 200+km thats all you need.

The last thing a sick parent is going worry about is a few euro for a toll; isn’t the M3 you referred to above already tolled? Expect tolls on the other major aerterial routes within a couple of years; sadly the party is over and the hangover needs to be paid for.

The docklands has a motorway, light rail, commuter rail and soon to be interconnector; from an access point of view it doesn’t get any better.

Wrong site on so many levels and the design is hardly iconic either; it looks like East Wall gate after a spin in the microwave

To be honest, I don’t see the point in shutting down 3 hospitals for one. Expand Temple Street and that will be that.

@GTSC wrote:

To be honest, I don’t see the point in shutting down 3 hospitals for one. Expand Temple Street and that will be that.

Eh, the amalgamation will save childrens’ lives by offering all the expertise in the country under one roof.Every specialist in the nation will be within minutes of the sick child.Less administration staff are required, no needless transportation, higher efficiency and easy access are all good reasons for having 1 big one instead of three small ones.
Temple Street isn’t fit for the purpose, it was never meant to be a hospital.It was a house, that was then converted to offer an 8 bed hospital.It has since been expanded again and again to become the illegible, inefficient, dull, mess that it is.That’s not mentioning the lack of room for expansion.

Children’s Hospital will ‘proceed as planned’
Updated: 15:54, Saturday, 16 October 2010

Both the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health have said that the new National Childrens’ Hospital in Dublin will proceed as planned.

National Children’s Hospital – Chairman of development board resigned
Brian Cowen – Project is not in doubt Both the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health have said that the new National Childrens’ Hospital in Dublin will proceed as planned.

Their comments come in the wake of the resignation of the chairman of the hospital’s development board last week.

Philip Lynch cited differences with Health Minister Harney on what he called a number of significant and fundamental issues.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio, Ms Harney said that it is ‘a major priority’ of hers to build the National Children’s Hospital, and that she is passionately committed to it.

The Minister told Marian Finuance that she lost confidence in Mr Lynch’s capacity to chair the hospital’s development board.

Ms Harney said it was not in the remit of the former chairman to revisit the Government’s decision on the location.

She said that the mandate of the development board was ‘to build a hospital at that site (at the Mater).’

Ms Harney paid tribute to the fantastic work Mr Lynch did, but she insisted that he had gone outside his mandate by ‘going out reviewing green field sites’ which ‘clearly wasn’t appropriate,’ she said, ‘because the decision was made four years ago.’

She said that there was ‘a lot of innuendo about how the site was chosen,’ and that ‘there was never going to be unanimity about the site.’

Taoiseach Brian Cowen today echoed Ms Harney’s assertion that the project is not in doubt, and will proceed as planned.

It is to be developed on a site adjacent to the Mater Hospital in Dublin at an expected cost of €650m. Mr Lynch has expressed concerns over a funding gap, what he termed the absence of governance proposals, and challenges for the Mater site.

There have been varying reactions from lobby groups to his departure.

The New Children’s Hospital Alliance wants the project to be put on hold immediately, while the New Crumlin Hospital Group warned against delays amid the current controversy.

The Tallaght Hospital Action Group has said it is glad that levels of services for children to be located at the Urgent and Ambulatory Care Centres at Tallaght Hospital is now being raised.

A government in denial; whats new?

“The last thing a sick parent is going worry about is a few euro for a toll; isn’t the M3 you referred to above already tolled?”
when they are visiting their long time ill child 10e each time is really going to start adding up, the m3 is two 1.30e tolls,1/4 or 1/8 the price.
anyway, im only trying to say if its in the city its probably in the best place, with the facilities already there but i think onq’s point that it is for kids and should they really be listening to the constant sirens in the area from ambulances going to the mater or the fire brigade leaving the phibsboro station or a guard pulling out from mountjoy across the road? im sure a site nearISH the m50 would be best.

@adrian5987 wrote:

that it is for kids and should they really be listening to the constant sirens

There in a hospital.They’ll hear sirens.I dont’ think there’s much that can be done about that, unfortunately.If there is soundproofing to be done, it will stop the sounds of the other services aswell.

@adrian5987 wrote:

it is for kids and should they really be listening to the constant sirens

There in a hospital.They’ll hear sirens.I dont’ think there’s much that can be done about that, unfortunately.If there is soundproofing to be done, it will stop the sounds of the other services aswell.

ambulences usually only have their sirens on when they need someone to get out of their way, ie at a junction (especially doyles corner-n2/n3), if its not in the city centre, less traffic, less sirens! i live a 2-3hundred meters from an ambulence station in donegal and never hear them. although i do admit it cant be completely eliminated, its the little things that will make a difference when your in hospital for weeks or months

Less traffic, fewer sirens. Has grammar and syntax been a victim of the recession as well?

Nope he just wants the hospital at the route leading to the closest junction to motorway network for him.

If Adrian is that DIMBY 150-200 miles away what is he like in a realistic Dimby-sphere?

sorry about the grammer its not great to begin with but that was bad.
pvc, your distance is out by about 100times!!!
i favoured the mater as a CITY CENTRE location only because if the government is going to keep pressing these centres of excellence in health well suddenly one street holds pretty much a facility for everything. i was favouring the mater over the docks, if you want to pick a major hospital somewhere else fine but no one was proposing that!
overall i DONT want it in the city, it should be somewhere easily accessable for all (including the 75% of the population outside dublin), it should really be close to the m50 somewhere, with a rail link. (and incase you havnt noticed there is no rail in donegal so i am not looking for the handiest route for me).

@johnglas wrote:

Less traffic, fewer sirens. Has grammar and syntax been a victim of the recession as well?

That should be ‘HAVE grammar and syntax been VICTIMS of the recession as well?’. Oh dear!

@rumpelstiltskin wrote:

That should be ‘HAVE grammar and syntax been VICTIMS of the recession as well?’. Oh dear!

Children! Please!

This is not about the English language. It’s about your hospital.

Seamus: Touche! (Accent omitted) Of course, it’s not about language, but the fad for stream-of-consciousness, never mind what old rope you write down in whatever construct is just an insult to the reader. We all make mistakes (as I (not i) demonstated), but most people do make an effort, and clarity does help the argument.
I’m not sure it is about the hospital; it’s an awful beast on tight site, but is an edge-city location the answer?

PS I can save myself by linking ‘grammar and syntax’ as one concept, but I’m just digging a hole…

@rumpelstiltskin wrote:

That should be ‘HAVE grammar and syntax been VICTIMS of the recession as well?’. Oh dear!

The S was cut in the emergency budget due to this recession.

To get this discussion back on track; what do we actually know about this proposal other than it is to be 16 storey’s high and 400-600m from Mountjoy Square?

I am very supportive of the use and if there is to be a stimulus concept then this is something that will leave a very tangiable benefit to the population and may create further growth in the life sciences area which is per capita the best industry in the World.

One must conclude that if the Chair of the development committee resigned prematurely based on the site being unsuitable and that if there are no details as to who designed it, when it will be lodged for planning and what John Gormley has to say re its fit with designation of Georgian Dublin as a World Heritage site that it is probably a non-runner that FF want for the spring election. This project was approved by Government in 2006 when funding was abundant, how did it take 4 years to get to a pre-planning application announcement.

The soldier has no clothes

Back to hospital discussion – I wonder if that mean rescue for Murray O’Laoire?

http://www.murrayolaoire.com/news_10/Childrens-Hospital-Ireland-10.html

Their first design was extremaly iddyllic:

Pity they finished with dish on the pile of glass boxes…

15/8/2011

So now that the Liveline debate about the proposed city centre location of the new National Children’s Hospital versus the side of a motorway has temporarily subsided, has anybody actually seen what is proposed for the north inner city? Has anybody even cast a sideways glance at the jaw-dropping scale and design of the development? Has so much a word been spoken in public about this impending project outside of medical and parking requirements?

It is not so much baffling, as thoroughly frightening, the complete lack of public discourse and media coverage there has been about the unprecedented planning impact of one of the largest buildings ever constructed in Ireland being shoe-horned into an already dense urban site. A site, incidentally, that has strategic impact on a district that forms part of the State’s tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, never mind its principally residential environment.

The sheer size of this hospital is mind-blowing. It is nearly impossible to calculate the scale of its impact on the north inner city – a development so audacious, not even Patrick Gallagher in his maddest moments would have proposed it. A number of Georgian and Victorian residential streets will be transformed into scenes from Independence Day.

If you saw this at the end of the street, you’d swerve the car back the way you came.

Charming Nelson Street, with little more than half the proposed building in view.

A quaint little red brick road. Can you imagine this being proposed in Dublin 6? Haha – the very notion is hilarious. But on the northside, who gives a toss? None of the consultants involved in bringing this behemoth into being live within a five mile radius of it.

Outside St. George’s Church, it can’t even fit in the frame.

It is considerably dominant over O’Connell Street – a key chimneyed vista that confirms the scale and character of Dublin as a low-rise city.

Eccles Street itself.

Forgive my cynical eye, but the eight-storey block to the immediate left of the existing Mater Private red brick block is supposed to be twice the height of the four-storey block fronting Eccles Street, yet looks nothing like this. Mentally scale up the four-storey block to eight storeys and one gets a much truer sense of the scale of this development.

One can only take these photomontages with a large grain of salt. Firstly, as static images can never truly capture the scale of development when experienced on the ground in the here and now, and secondly as, at the very least selective views are taken, and perspective trickery involved in presenting vistas.

The only positive part of the design in my view is the handsome facade to Eccles Street, which will be granite if I recall.

But truly, the numbers for this project are staggering – of a scale that a German planner I have heard mentioned has said would never get built on an equivalent site in Germany. The height, the floor areas, the patient throughput, the associated service infrastructure to make it all happen are all of an unprecedented scale.

It is important to state that this hospital should be built on an urban site – just not this one. Never in a million years would a speculative building of this design or scale get permission for here – not even for a low intensity office or residential use, never mind a buzzing hospital. It’s not even sheer height from a traditional roofline aesthetic perspective that matters, but rather the staggering scale relative to its receiving environment. It just wouldn’t happen anywhere else.

I also don’t like the ‘playful’, tongue in cheek design, chosen to be ‘reflective’ of the hospital’s function. The flippant spaceship design is entirely inappropriate for a major civic building, not least in an urban context where there is nothing even remotely comparable by way of scale or massing, thus demanding a much more responsible, contextual design aesthetic. It is the interior and outdoor spaces that count in a child’s world, not the dressing of an anonymous skyscraper in a big city.

The Convention Centre’s slab block hotel got thrown out of planning partly due to its intrusion on the Georgian mile on the southside. Will equivalent consideration be given to its northside colleague? Does anyone actually care?

On must also ask about the need for a wider masterplan for the hospital, rather than dumping it, typically Irish style, detached and in isolation from its context. How is it proposed to integrate it into the surrounding streets? Is a proper medical district proposed? What about ancillary and complimentary services, and earmarked sites for long-term expansion and consolidation? What is the future for the historic houses in the area – their uses, their conservation and upping their dismal presentation to the streets? What of the public realm of Eccles Street? Will the new granite surfaces ‘fall off a cliff’ in the classic Dublin manner into untouched surfaces and street furniture on Nelson Street? Will traffic be largely eliminated, or maintained as a hostile ‘strategic artery’ to the North Circular Road? Where will staff live? Is there a masterplan for a new residential community in the area?

From what I have read of the development and seen in presentation form, there is a bucketload of unanswered, not to mention unanswerable, questions about this hospital – a development that is being shovelled through the planning system almost entirely on medical and political grounds, with scant regard for typical planning norms. It is amazing that medical consultants can be hired from all over the world to advise on a project of this kind, yet the elephant in the room of the local planning context is completely ignored! It’s truly extraordinary. If ever there was a case of nobody batting for Dublin, this is it.

The development is currently before An Bord Pleanála, with public submissions permitted for the next four weeks until mid-September.

Plans can be viewed here.

http://www.newchildrenshospitalplanningapplication.ie/

It is not an ugly design; it just doesn’t fit onto the site and the site is simply too elevated for a number of key vistas, take the view from the Spire; roughly 1/3 of its bulk is visable, why has the bulk nt been shifted aroung the site to protect that vista?

Taking the view from St George’s even shifting the bulk around it is going to have significant impacts; it is further noted that none of the suspended access equipment is displayed on the montages; are the windows going to be cleaned by abseilers?

The country needs a childrens hospital; why isn’t one of the significant NAMA sites in the North Docklands being used; Liam Carroll might after all have left the country something of value in public infrastructure terms. This design would actually look good on a sea level flat brownland site, if they showed it in true detail.

Not ugly? Personally I think its utterly vile and will destroy the north inner city. A misguided and failed attempt at “iconic” architecture where simplicity, clarity and elegance should have been the primary goals – quite apart from the nightmarish functionality issues. I can’t believe this is sailing through but as Graham says, its the northside so “who cares”?

There is a big difference between ugly and inappropriate; this proposal is clearly inappropriate to its context but in the right setting it is not ugly; it is a large scale urban hospital that is not dissimilar to a lot of office projects getting built in functional office markets.

This project was part of a wider agenda to make Metro North stack up by siting every available project along its catchment; now that Metro North has been shelved this project lacks the transport infrastructure to service the staffing levels. I suggest the project be moved to Upper Sherriff Street which is on a Luas Line and where Nama have extensive holdings and as Luas has a one interchange position with both major National Rail lines and the soon to be joined up Luas Green line.

I know the difference. I think its both ugly AND inappropriate. The lower levels are reminiscent of stacked prefabs. The upper levels look like a tacky Vegas hotel. This would be revolting no matter the location.
Obviously much smaller but the Evelina hospital in London by Hopkins is a great example of a hospital building in an urban context, rational, practical and yet still with the element of joy and uplift for the children within.

The style of the lower level is very much back into fashion of late; there a real good late 1960’s example of this style just off Rue de Rennes in Paris with superb detailing; this style is popping up all over the place in urban infill over the last couple of years, if the finishes are good it is one of the few designs that looks better out of the ground than in fantasy montage. The upper section is I concede a little gimmicky. The real point here is that this building is designed in a manner that has no respect for its context and simply seeks to cram as much floor space as is possible into a site that is severly constrained.

I don’t agree with BTW that it is ugly but you do have to ask the question how can cliffs of corporate style glass in a predominently residential area be considered in any way appropriate? A project on this scale needs to go where the sites are; docklands; every piece of office development land taken out of the pipeline increases the value of the rest….

The Hardwick Place, Mountjoy Street, Nelson Street and O’Connell Street images show a slick glazed finish on the curvy upper structure, the Eccles Street and Leo Street views show a multiple [storey-consealing] horizontal brise-soleil as the finish here, which is it?

Inappropriate and at times jumbled; taking the view up Eccles Street the four storey section with set back is not bad and with the stucco section at the end of the image this would not look out of place in Victoria. I do however share Graham’s concerns that the image most certainly does not convey the bulk and massing of an 8 storey structure; let alone one that goes to mid teens next to a residential street.

You are right however that in trying to cram as much as is possible into the site it is completely inappropriate that it does use far more styles than are optimum.

Yes it is a bit over the top – I think that’s what’s so good about it. I’m sorry to have to break this to you, but Dublin will never be a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of what is in and around that area is mediocre garbage. The fact that Dublin is a low-rise city is what makes it architecturally boring – at least in terms of modern architecture. We need a bit of contrast and ambition, and I think this is as interesting and out of the box as the Central Bank on Dame Street which ended up considerably elevating the whole area.

I don’t normally agree with rumpel, but in this case I think the architectural bravado is justified by the project being a new National Childrens Hospital . . . . . and why should that not be an urban landmark?

There’s not much point in us banging the drum for urbanism and then demand that significant new buildings make no impact.

As distinct from the recently proposed shopping centre on the Carlton site, a new national institution of this importance should make an impact on the cityscape, it should be a landmark.

I agree with Graham and PVC that there are aspects of the design that do not looked resolved and the podium blocks are a pretty muddled montage of familiar fare, seemingly including a swatch of Dublin-Airport-1970, and I don’t think the balance between the base and the curvy upper block is right, but apart from that and the indecision about the facade treatment, I’d be broadly in favour of the way the scheme is shaping up, and totally in favour of the location.

@gunter wrote:

There’s not much point in us banging the drum for urbanism and then demand that significant new buildings make no impact.

No-one is saying for second that particular sites are not suited to making statements; buildings like the Guinness Storehouse have made a great contribution. However the location of the statement must be made from an appropriate site; this proposal can only be described as a heckler in the position of its attempted statement.

@gunter wrote:

As distinct from the recently proposed shopping centre on the Carlton site, a new national institution of this importance should make an impact on the cityscape, it should be a landmark.

No argument that it should be permitted to make a statement; however in the context of a significant development land surplus where the government has urban land coming out its eyeballs why would one select a site where at least 4 distinct styles are required to cram the quantum of required space into a site that is just too small.

@gunter wrote:

I agree with Graham and PVC that there are aspects of the design that do not looked resolved and the podium blocks are a pretty muddled montage of familiar fare, seemingly including a swatch of Dublin-Airport-1970, and I don’t think the balance between the base and the curvy upper block is right, but apart from that and the indecision about the facade treatment, I’d be broadly in favour of the way the scheme is shaping up, and totally in favour of the location.

To come back to Rumple’s comparison with Stephenson’s Central Bank conceived in the early 1970’s; firstly Stephensons design was based on a strong single style, it was based on a single fashion, it was slender (not as slender after its height reduction), involved a very low site coverage percentage, provided a lot of public open space.

This proposal in contrast has been selected purely on the basis that the land was there and despite Nama drowning in Liam Carrolls extensive holdings it seems to have been selected based on its proximity to the axed Metro North project.

Break this proposal back to first principles of planning, i.e. appropriate development of any site and you could not select a more inappropriate design for such a constrained site.

@PVC King wrote:

@gunter wrote:

There’s not much point in us banging the drum for urbanism and then demand that significant new buildings make no impact.

No-one is saying for second that particular sites are not suited to making statements; buildings like the Guinness Storehouse have made a great contribution. However the location of the statement must be made from an appropriate site; this proposal can only be described as a heckler in the position of its attempted statement.

@gunter wrote:

As distinct from the recently proposed shopping centre on the Carlton site, a new national institution of this importance should make an impact on the cityscape, it should be a landmark.

No argument that it should be permitted to make a statement; however in the context of a significant development land surplus where the government has urban land coming out its eyeballs why would one select a site where at least 4 distinct styles are required to cram the quantum of required space into a site that is just too small.

@gunter wrote:

I agree with Graham and PVC that there are aspects of the design that do not looked resolved and the podium blocks are a pretty muddled montage of familiar fare, seemingly including a swatch of Dublin-Airport-1970, and I don’t think the balance between the base and the curvy upper block is right, but apart from that and the indecision about the facade treatment, I’d be broadly in favour of the way the scheme is shaping up, and totally in favour of the location.

To come back to Rumple’s comparison with Stephenson’s Central Bank conceived in the early 1970’s; firstly Stephensons design was based on a strong single style, it was based on a single fashion, it was slender (not as slender after its height reduction), involved a very low site coverage percentage, provided a lot of public open space.

This proposal in contrast has been selected purely on the basis that the land was there and despite Nama drowning in Liam Carrolls extensive holdings it seems to have been selected based on its proximity to the axed Metro North project.

Break this proposal back to first principles of planning, i.e. appropriate development of any site and you could not select a more inappropriate design for such a constrained site.

Gunther your comments on the above 3 images on planning grounds is awaited.

It’s the muddled base that I find objectionable in the Nelson Street image rather than the upper structure, although I think the slick corporate glazing in this representation is not as successful as the Venetian-blind like brise-soliel in some of the other images. In fairness to them, Nelson Street needs a bit work anyway.

I’d like to see the Hardwick Street image from a little further back on Temple Street to gauge the hospital and the spire of George’s together, but I think I’m going to like the juxtaposition and, from a planning point of view, this is urbasism, is it not? As with the Nelson Street image, I think the corporate slickness of the glazing would be less successful than something more distinctive.

On Leo Street, What is ‘a quaint little road’ doing in the city centre?

Re-work Nelson Street!!!!

The only rework you could undertake would remove 25% of the floor space and thus not perform its function as a National Childrens Hospital; a project many regard as key to delivery of continued excellence in life sciences. This is just is the wrong site.

If it is this crammed day 1 where do future extensions go?

Where do the ancillary businesses and research institutes go?

Put the lot in the docklands and allow the further development of the countries biggest industry where the key players can participate fully in development of pioneering techniques that make children better.

As for Leo Street it is quaint and is a great example of the Victorians prioritising higher density development where the transport infrastructure existed to serve it….

Just a simple question….

How many sick children are there in the country?

How many bed spaces would that require?

How big should the building be or rather how do you provide for sick children and if so is there a more effective way of providing that.

This looks like a solution looking for a problem. And of course if you provide it it will be used. The over medication of life and over reliance on more and more expensive diagnosis (a failure to make judgements) especially nuclear and computer based diagnosis has been writ large. We get exactly what we deserve and this is a concretisaiton of the ineffectual primary care system in the country.

Beware experts and their Trojan Horses.

Even though I think this is an ugly mother, with poor enviornmental design (especially everything above the 5th floor) it will break the overtly restrictive height limits in Dublin once and for all. Joining that other monster at Smithfield we will have a datum to work to.

Increasing density is an essential part of moving into the 21st century for Dublin but this monocultural edifice is not the way to go.

Wayhey! Build shit buildings just to make a point. Remind me not to hire you as an architect.

I am not defending either, both are horrendous examples lacking in scale and character and more importantly do not contribute to an urban envrionment fit for people.

@GrahamH wrote:

Charming Nelson Street, with little more than half the proposed building in view.

A quaint little red brick road. Can you imagine this being proposed in Dublin 6? Haha – the very notion is hilarious. But on the northside, who gives a toss? None of the consultants involved in bringing this behemoth into being live within a five mile radius of it.

Outside St. George’s Church, it can’t even fit in the frame.

Forgive my cynical eye, but the eight-storey block to the immediate left of the existing Mater Private red brick block is supposed to be twice the height of the four-storey block fronting Eccles Street, yet looks nothing like this. Mentally scale up the four-storey block to eight storeys and one gets a much truer sense of the scale of this development.

One can only take these photomontages with a large grain of salt. Firstly, as static images can never truly capture the scale of development when experienced on the ground in the here and now, and secondly as, at the very least selective views are taken, and perspective trickery involved in presenting vistas.

This cannot be repeated often enough…………………..

It sure is a behemoth.

Two more elevations. It really is the case that when your a certain size you can fuck context. And this thing is huge.

Almost looks a boat maybe the titanic? or a sub…
who is investing in this? or is that private?

The plant room 16 commercial storeys or equivelent to 20 resdiential storeys up would be a great site for mobile phone transmitters; no doubt there would be great interest. :clap:

Who did those residents think they were buying 2 storey houses in Leo Street and renovating them and calling them home; many of them in negative equity for the next 15 years, lets finish their chances of ever getting their money back by placing the last but biggest monument to the we can do anything anywhere tiger in their back yard and obliterate their natural light, destroy their streetscape and show them that properties like theirs were always meant to be damp flats for recently qualified nurses from Ballydehob.

There are so many sites in Nama that could accomodate the floorspace requirement this scheme brings; some of these sites even have enough extra space for additional floorspace for the major pharmas to lease space for research and development operations that could be transformative for their sector and the country’s leading role in that sector. Why would anyone possibly want to build a flagship project on the wrong site; so wrong that the head of oversight has publicly said so and even considered an edge city site; why was a NAMA site in the docklands not weighed up?

They’re using a post tsunami urban aesthetic reference, what’s wrong with that?

At least they’re putting some critical thought into the design. And I guess they’re continuing the fine tradition of the Mater with regards to architecture.

How does this design respect the great tradition that you refer to?

that is a farily horrendous looking yoke..

yoke is about the right word for it imo.

@magwea wrote:

At least they’re putting some critical thought into the design. And I guess they’re continuing the fine tradition of the Mater with regards to architecture.

Hopefully this is sarcasm… The elevations really tell the tale of what a shockingly misguided design this is.

PVC King and BTH, I always thought the Mater infamous for demolishing half of Eccles Street and getting architecture students up in arms.

Unfortunately, you won’t get the same reaction out of current crop of architecture students regarding this development, they’re far to concerned with their grades to be worried about the city’s architecture.

I was very relieved when the decision was made to place this hospital in the city centre. The case against was summed up by Philip Lynch the former chair of the hospital development board who said on radio:
“the people who designed the M50, when that was agreed on, everything was going to happen outside of that”
He then went on to describe the city centre as a ‘cul-de-sac’

I don’t share Mr Lynch’s vision of the future of cities.

All hospital consolidation debates are partly motivated by the concerns of senior medical staff who wish to avoid the disruption of moving house or enduring a longer commute. These people are well able to eloquently make their case outlining benefits for patients and wealthy enough to fund a campaign.

So the design looks like a spaceship hovering next to Mountjoy Prison. All curvy and shocking and rising alien-like from behind the redbrick houses. But haven’t we had this debate before?

Kind of like this:

Everyone likes that spaceship, don’t they? And a stadium is less important/vital than a national hospital.

This the reality of Dorset Street for decades as we all know it. It is awful and depressing and a spaceship is not going to make it look worse. Not for a second.

As an aside, I think that the shell of the metro station may have to be built at the same time as the hospital as it goes underneath.

Frank

There are key differences between the Aviva and this.

1. The Aviva could by having one end taken down to a lower height protect all rights of light
2. The Aviva is far more remote from a Georgian Core
3. The Aviva site is far from elevated indeed flood risk was a live consideration.
4. The Aviva was plugged in to an actual live piece of transport infrastructure
5. There were no other sites capable of taking the Aviva at a city centre location; land values were at the time Aviva in Wonderland.

Your entire argument is predicated on a premise that because this is inside the canals/M50 that it is acceptable; that you have made this argument surprises and disapoints me; why could this not go into North Wall, maybe some good could after all come out of the Anglo Hulk that gets too much unwanted attention, no shortage of other land down there to link into or if not big enough the Merchants Gate site is certainly more than big enough to accomodate this.

Here’s a photo of the model to get a feel for the new building context with others and the footprint. It obviously doesn’t really fit the space and it’s about twice the height you’d expect.

Anywhere in the city would suit me. The recommendations from their two international experts reports (one commissioned by Harney, the other by Reilly) were the same: that the children’s hospital should be built next to a major teaching hospital. Presumably they considered Vincents and James. The IFSC has the o2 experience and the r2d2 centre – not a major teaching hospital. Reilly had opposed the siting of the hospital but couldn’t ignore both reports.

Lansdowne Rd is Georgian last time I checked. Other buildings are Victorian. D4 is hardly 2nd tier Dublin. The concerns about the Aviva were overstated. The finished building is a net gain to the area and the compromise on lowering the Vavasour Square side was a mistake and an example of the few triumphing over the many.

see post below

Anywhere in the city would suit me. The recommendations from their two international experts reports (one commissioned by Harney, the other by Reilly) were the same: that the children’s hospital should be built next to a major teaching hospital. Presumably they considered Vincents and James. The IFSC has the o2 experience and the r2d2 centre – not a major teaching hospital. Reilly had opposed the siting of the hospital but couldn’t ignore both reports.

North Docks are 15 mins walk from the back of TCD; and 10-15 minutes drive from either Vincents, Beamount and the Mater; Crumlin is a fair distance from St James’ Hospital. There is as you will accept a real difference between adult medicine and paediatrics which is a family of specialties each in their own right. This is a two question equation, is the site the right one from a logistical viewpoint and can the site accomodate the quantum of floorspace required in compliance with the principles of sustainable development. In any event the Docklands as a location would be served by Luas and have an almost direct connection to the motorway network and port tunnel for Dublin Airport and patients/organs/bloods being transfered by plane; the Mater has a Metro that is 25-50 years away and how many traffic lights this side of Whitehall Church?

A quaint little red brick road. Can you imagine this being proposed in Dublin 6? Haha – the very notion is hilarious. But on the northside, who gives a toss? None of the consultants involved in bringing this behemoth into being live within a five mile radius of it.

Outside St. George’s Church, it can’t even fit in the frame.

All courtesy and copyright Graham Hickey

Landsdowne Road is a mix of late Victorian houses i.e. one of the last phases of the Pembroke Estate and mid 20th century commercial buildings of mixed to dubious quality. St Georges Church is a real gem and does not need to have whats left of its context destroyed. It is not credible to argue that this elevated site can accomodate this development in a sustainable manner. Build it 30 floors high in docklands but 16 storeys plus plant at this location is gross over development.

It will add a sense of place. I used to live on Nelson street. I doubt my quality of life would have been disimproved by having a spaceship hospital at the end of the street vista.

Perhaps the building could be made smaller if they removed some of the 972 parking spaces they have planned.

Holles Stret has zero spaces for patients and so does the Rotunda. That seems to work.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

It will add a sense of place. I used to live on Nelson street. I doubt my quality of life would have been disimproved by having a spaceship hospital at the end of the street vista.

You could argue that any tall structure adds a sense of place; you cannot argue against this disrupting a number of important vistas that have a good sense of balance. The principle of gateway always involves tall slender structures; this is a mid rise whale which was only designed with the intention of cramming a pre-determined floorspace into an unsuitable site; you can’t blame the architects for anything other than advising unrealistic expectations. The Shard or Alta Vetro it isn’t.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

Perhaps the building could be made smaller if they removed some of the 972 parking spaces they have planned.

The income from parking will pay for the operation of all the public open and internal recreational space at the site; parking at this location would conservatively net €2m-€3m a year; it is also required from people travelling from unconnected towns such as say Ballinrobe or Blacklion; you would get lost trying to find this ill conceived proposal from the Ilac or Parnell Centre if it weren’t so out of scale.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

Holles Stret has zero spaces for patients and so does the Rotunda. That seems to work.

Funding is tight and from doubts expressed as to the need for this quantum of floor space by some people one can only conclude a certain element of this hospital will be given over to private operations being carried out on non-national patients that do not have access to top quality procedures in their own domiciles. If that is the case it makes sense, this country has a strong position in healthcare and this could be a great way of subsidising the Irish healthcare system and providing top level employment.

One of the biggest failures of the Late Late Government was to send everyone in the audience to the UK to get procedures done instead of building excess capacity in Ireland. Be a world leader in this field and you win a lot of influential friends; just build the facility somewhere where future growth can be accomodated and does not obliterate the area it surrounds…..

In any case, the political war is over. Now the planning war and then the funding war. I disagree that the building will detract from the area.

Back to parking for a second: From talking to staff at the Mater, there is virtually no staff parking provided on site. Instead, the hospital rents a car park from Dalymount Park in Phibsborough. Staff pay a hefty fee for usage. Obviously this presents a large incentive to staff not to drive to work. There is some visitor parking on Eccles St but not much.

Anyhow, the new building containing a&e, theatres and wards is due to open early next year and comes with 440 underground spaces and 350 above ground. I don’t know how these spaces are to be divided between staff and patients. The national childrens hospital comes with 972 spaces to be divided 3:1 in favour of visitors/staff.

I don’t believe that making it easier for staff to drive to work will improve the area or prevent lardy matron syndrome.

That said, I can imagine that parking provision was a primary driver for staff acceptance of these redevelopments.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

In any case, the political war is over. Now the planning war and then the funding war. I disagree that the building will detract from the area.

I could post many examples of how that type of cladding degrades over time; however I will just leave you with the proposals clear destruction of St George’s, an utterly sublime 18th century church that has been restored to the highest standards. On that image alone the scheme should be refused; if your view of the area is so low, why did you live there?

@Frank Taylor wrote:

Back to parking for a second: From talking to staff at the Mater, there is virtually no staff parking provided on site. Instead, the hospital rents a car park from Dalymount Park in Phibsborough. Staff pay a hefty fee for usage. Obviously this presents a large incentive to staff not to drive to work. There is some visitor parking on Eccles St but not much.

As would terminating the arrangement at Dalymount and letting the market value the demand value of individual car-space offered to all and sundry.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

Anyhow, the new building containing a&e, theatres and wards is due to open early next year and comes with 440 underground spaces and 350 above ground. I don’t know how these spaces are to be divided between staff and patients. The national childrens hospital comes with 972 spaces to be divided 3:1 in favour of visitors/staff.

The new building comprising the Mater Hospital; the proposal to hijack the Maters future development potential as an adult hospital must also be considered; if you fill the site with childrens wards then the Mater can not expand their own campus over time. A very short sighted idea.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

I don’t believe that making it easier for staff to drive to work will improve the area or prevent lardy matron syndrome.

That said, I can imagine that parking provision was a primary driver for staff acceptance of these redevelopments.

I don’t disagree that it is likely that staff peace was bought with parking privilages; medical staff like all others must go to market to get parking unless the hospital is in area that is relatively remote. I believe moving this to the Docklands would see far more sustainable commuting patterns via Luas and or overground into Spencer Dock or the cycle network; a relocation down there would really encourage completion of S2S.

It is my understanding that the vast amount of car parking provision is a ‘temporary’ measure, designed to ease the transition to a public transport-oriented patient throughput, and to fill the accessibility void in advance Metro coming on stream (ahem). It is intended that a significant amount of parking – perhaps the uppermost deck of the basement – will be subsumed back into the hospital as ancillary space within the short to medium term. The remaining quantum is apparently in line with ‘international norms’ regarding consultant and doctor on call access to the hospital as well as other emergency staff and visitor car parking.

In all of this discussion, there is a key issue that will raise its head in the An Bord Pleanála assessment. That is the recent award winning Phibsborough/Mountjoy Local Area Plan (LAP), drafted for Dublin City Council primarily to plan for the strategic insertion of a National Children’s Hospital there, as well as the development of the Mountjoy Prison site. Its expressly stated provisions and outline plans for the hospital frankly appear to be half the floor area and overall size of what is now being proposed. It never fails to amaze how public planning policy, paid for by public money for the public good, even in this reflective climate, is still being bulldozed through, contorted, twisted and sculpted to the needs of a developing class, and that includes the State.

A few lines from the LAP that specifically accommodate and plan for the requirements of this national facility:

Tall buildings should be appropriate in terms of proportion, composition and their visual impact; they should be slender and have a minimum height to width ratio (slenderness ratio) of 3:1, and generally should not exceed [16 floors] or 50m in height.

What is proposed is a vast heaving behemoth of an ungainly groundscraper, with a lumpen ratio of goodness only knows, and a height well in excess of 70m on the heightest point in the city. Welcome to Irish planning.

An overriding consideration will be whether the height proposed has any negative impact on the established amenity of existing buildings, especially homes and protected structures within the plan area. Privacy, daylighting and shadow analysis will also be required.

The very habitable nature, never mind amenity, of large tracts of low-scale terraced housing is being impacted by this proposal. This would never in a million years even get past concept stage on the south side, never mind in any civilised city.

In summary, all tall landmark building proposals will be assessed in accordance with the Dublin City Development Plan and the policies of this LAP, having full regard to the impact on the amenity of existing occupiers and buildings, including privacy, overshadowing and conservation considerations. Any proposal must also demonstrate that there is a strong urban design rationale and identify the architectural and planning gains to be delivered by the height proposed.

How are any of the above being catered for? By contrast, the draft images in the LAP take cognisance of nearly all of the above, based around courtyards and slim blocks ranging from 5 to a maximum of 12 storeys.

This hospital proposal has got to the same stage that we hit late last year with the financial crisis, where the figures are so off the scale, the entire vista presented is so bonkers, and the future prospects so ghastly, that nobody actually sees it anymore. It’s so completely nuts that it might actually get through in the blind ignorance of it all. When something approaches such echelons of barminess, sure what does an extra quantum leap in floorspace, storeys or facilities matter relative to context? Sure we’re all on the happy pills now!

There is little doubt in my mind that this is Convention Centre Dublin Round II, only this version has the clout to impart its ignorance on large tracts of the city. It is such a crude, ungainly, incoherent, compromised and flawed building, both its design and its relationship with its setting, that it in no way whatever deserves to be a major civic building, and less still that public funds be directed towards such a damaging project for the city of Dublin.

Yet again our beleaguered city gets dumped on with a major mediocre building to serve a national interest, that neither respects, compliments or embellishes Dublin’s architectural repertoire, its urban structure, or its civic pride as a capital city. In the eyes of national government, it is a facility that is to be shovelled in at all costs, as has so sadly been the case over the past half century – a city to be carved up and dumped upon as required.

Without question, the National Children’s Hospital should be located in Dublin city, and without hesitation it should be a building of architectural excellence, distinction and potential landmark status. But the simple reality is that this site is not capable of accommodating the needs of this hospital without coming to a ghastly compromise – as the current proposal demonstrates.

2 second 2 cents…

The only way I can see around it is phasing the demo of the new works/old hospital. and ringfencing the site close to the boundary with a new structure that steps back.
The old hopital takes up quite a chunck…

@GrahamH wrote:

It is my understanding that the vast amount of car parking provision is a ‘temporary’ measure, designed to ease the transition to a public transport-oriented patient throughput, and to fill the accessibility void in advance Metro coming on stream (ahem). It is intended that a significant amount of parking – perhaps the uppermost deck of the basement – will be subsumed back into the hospital as ancillary space within the short to medium term. The remaining quantum is apparently in line with ‘international norms’ regarding consultant and doctor on call access to the hospital as well as other emergency staff and visitor car parking.

It’s very hard to convert multi-storey car parks to other uses. We all know the problem with ‘temporary’ arrangements (temporary signs on O’Connell Street, temporary car park on Leinster Lawn)

Does a LAP have any legal status or is it just a ‘have regard’ type of thing?

One the one hand, LA planners around the country are arguing with people over cm difference in domestic extensions and whether their bungalow windows match the shape of their out of sight neighbour, meanwhile ABP grants permission for an illegal casino in 2 mile borris with a plastic white house replica. The words arbitrary and random and inconsistent and irrational and unfair spring to mind. So I agree with you that anything is possible now.

I had the misfortune to bring an old relative in to the Mater A&E a few years ago. It was like being transported to Kinshasa. When I thought things couldn’t get any worse, a prisoner was carried in handcuffed to a stretcher to cheers from his zombie mates awaiting treatment for injuries recieved while skagged out of it. Looking around the streetscape of NCR with the prison on one side and the concrete a&e barracks on the other is to look at the lowest urban form. The area is of interest as a perfect reproduction of a Dickensian nightmare (with cars).

Leo Street is going to be ludicrously overlooked and everyone should be adequately compensated. Although I notice that nearly every house in the terrace has filled their rear yard with a kitchen extension.

Beautiful St George’s Church is surrounded by schlock on all sides. There’s a lego office block, a spar and then the council flat crescent that replaced the georgian crescent at Hardwicke Place. The Mater private is industrial quality nothingness.

re slenderness
it’s going to look slender from the sides!

I agree with alot of the sentiments expressed here, moreso after viewing the renders.

It has probably already been touched on but even with its 16 stories, the impression is overwhelmingly horizontal. That in itself leads to much of the loomimg aspect of the building. Therefore, taking into account what has been stated above, I would have to wonder if it was actually taller would its impact ,conversely, be reduced?! Afterall taller buildings tend to give the impression of soaring rather then brooding over the parapets of their neighbours. In fact, when this was first mooted, I heard references to it being over 20 floors.

As regards the location. It is hard to see it changing now that two reports have reccommended the Mater site. Reilly had pinned his hopes on the second report voting for a different location. If he changes to site in the aftermath of that he will be open to all sorts of accusations. Looking at James’s or Vincents…..in spite of its Luas and rail connectivity the streets around James are argueably worse then the NCR area and much of its property is taken up with random 1-2 storey “structures” so redolent of Irish hospitals. Likewise Vincents now has comparitively little space since the new extention was built (to replace the 13 storey nurses home).

C

Perhaps this is a ruse to free up all the old hospital sites for commercial development. Cynical, me, no…..

They’d have to make it about 500m high to get a 3:1 slenderness ratio. 128 floors?

What a load of rubbish.

They just haven’t got the dough for even a small children’s hospital, in town or out the suburbs.
And won’t have it either for some time to come from what I extract from Dr Reilly’s weakly promising tone.

@teak wrote:

What a load of rubbish.

They just haven’t got the dough for even a small children’s hospital, in town or out the suburbs.
And won’t have it either for some time to come from what I extract from Dr Reilly’s weakly promising tone.

In fact it appears that the money problem has been resolved by means of a stroke. The decision was made to sell the lottery and to allow the new owner to take 50m/year from the proceeds for 20/30yrs for a billion upfront. That’s easily enough to fund the hospital.

political war won, funding war won, planning war lost.

Where do we go from here? ABP said they didn’t want to just lop a couple of storeys off the top as this would make the hospital dysfunctional.

This case underlines a fundamental problem with the planning system: it cannot balance planning criteria against other public benefits. In this case children will die to protect an unmeasurable, arbitrary and subjective idea of the visual amenity of Dorset Street.

Perhaps the lotto money could be used to resurrect the mountjoy prison move plan and the children’s hospital could be built on the old prison site.

Montevetro on Barrow Street is the same height as the proposed children’s hospital and adjacent to hundreds of 1 and 2 storey cottages. My arbitrary, subjective and unmeasurable opinion is that these buildings enhance the local amenities in every way and are a net benefit to the locality and the country.

In fact it appears that the money problem has been resolved by means of a stroke.

Oh, Frank — you can’t be that innocent.
This was no more an independent planning decision than so many other contrary Bórd Pleanála decisions were.
It is the clearest government-directed decision that I have heard of, and there have been so many.

“Resolving” the funding problem by a suggested bleeding of the lottery just served to give the Dept of Finance another source for the general budget. No way would the lottery cash would be given over to major national social infrastructure by this government or the DoF .
All budgeting in the DoF is now not only zero-based (i.e. is there an absolute need for this item ?) but also, because of our national mess, subject to scrutiny as to the amount, payment means and purchase time : everything being geared to run on our skeletal current revenues, all previewed by the troika. Just like nearly every household budget at the present time, in other words.

Where do we go from here?

If Noel Smyth and the rest of them are serious about this – and not just working a national crisis to the advantage of his own clients and their property assets – then he’ll just have to start a general fund-raising effort to get this project started.
Ideally, some site could be agreed so that a good measure of co-location, general site suitability and cost efficiency is obtained.
Then the nation put some of their money where their mouths are.

I see no other economically feasible way.

Clearly a hospital on another site would involve a whole new design.
And a very flexible and ultra-lean design at that.
Just wondering how many architects on this forum would be up for contributing their time and skills gratis to this sort of project . . .

I don’t believe that there is a conspiracy between ABP and government so that planning decisions are made secretly by the executive. Maybe this is because I’m naive or maybe it’s because I’m sane.

A half billion euro hospital is not going to be built with architect goodwill nixers.Noel Smyth has his own problems now as does Philip Lynch.

As designed, the proposed Children’s Hospital did intrude on the sky-line, that’s not in question, but it’s a subjective judgement whether that intrusion would be damaging to the visual amenity of the city, or have negative impact on the Gorgian heritage of the city, or whatever the phrase was.

Are the current members of Bord Pleanala actually qualified to make that judgement?

The Mater site presents a huge design challenge, there’s no denying that, but personally I thought the architects made a decent attempt to rise to that challenge and although there were clearly some unresolved design issues, I believe the basic design concept was sound and I would like to see them do a Benson+Forsyth on this and turn disaster into triumph with an application of a bit of skill and clear thinking.

The bigger issue for me is that the whole question of an urban location for something like a National Children’s Hospital raises its ugly head again with predictable calls for a ‘green-field’ site, or ‘somewhere on the M50’.

Belief in urbanism is at stake here.

Finally some clear air…..

What is astonishing is that in spite of potential concerns, a project of national importance that an Option B was not available should there be a serious problem like planning.

While the issue of density is still to be seriously discussed in Dublin, this scheme was an appalling groundscrapper. Option B should have been at least considered because of the risk associated with the Mater, especially the first time someone did the analytical section or 3d massing diagram which showed the impact of the structure on the buildings, streetscape.

The idea that a National Centre should always be in the centre of Dublin with all its transportation concerns is seriously flawed.

The first question should always be access. Before a single architectural drawing is made a systematic review of all transportation densities would have prioritised access and once overlaid with available or nearby hospital infrastructure. In the absence of such a collocation hospital it may have been wiser to build a complete replacement medical campus with new Children’s Hospital and a new Adult Research Hospital. That would free up everyone’s thinking and provide for new solutions.

The first question is quality of medical care measured by patient outcomes. Staff/visitor parking is of little importance by comparison.

The access issues were ruled acceptable by ABP. N1 meets N2 meets N3 all with bus/emergency lanes, Drumcondra railway station, future metro station.

I was scared when I heard Philip Lynch on radio state that the city centre was a cul-de-sac and that everything should go outside the M50. It certainly makes sense if you own the land outside the M50 (which Lynch did not). It fits the bertie bowl / aquatic centre / citywest vision of an oil dependent future.

As a matter of interest have any of you seen the state of Temple Street hospital? It hasn’t changed much in 40 years – it’s a collection of outhouses and portakabins stacked up like a favela with rickety rotting connecting bridges and corridors.

My earlier post never posted….

On the one hand, I welcome the decision because I don’t believe that the underlying planning rationale for a such a large and long-term development was flawed. The site is too small and too constrained to accommodate such a squat building without going taller and slimmer. You can see that from the huge bulk proposed. I also made the point that a development such as this, with its national importance and the need to continually develop and renew itself, should be based in a campus, with the potential to expand. This would not have be achieved. I also abhor the ugly and looming effect that the proposed building would have had on the city skyline and on the immediate area…although I appreciate most of us simply pay lip service to the beauty of the Georgian city.

On the otherhand, I think the Board have been very naive to put forward such a simple argument, essentially an aesthetic argument to refuse permission. I think it should have been much more comprehensive. The reference to one of those bland DCC Development Plan objectives “to protect the skyline” is unfortunately. This is a completely subjective interpretation.

Its been very illustrative of the crazed thinking of our upper echelons however, in particular the complete lack of respect for ‘planning’. Planning should have been a primary consideration from the outset…rather than a paper exercise to be undertaken at the end of the process.

access is about getting the patients there not the staff…… without the patients treatment is kind of redundant

Another hospital (of its time) which was built without regard of the skyline. On this fair isle too

Surprise surprise, it emerges that An Bord Pleanala raised concerns about the ‘constrained nature’ of the Mater site to the hospital development company in pre-planning consultations in Nov 2010.

Hilarious moanfest on the subject of shockin tall buildings on Joeeee Duffy now….

Voted on Archiseek poll yet? https://archiseek.com/2012/design-rejected-hospital/

The planning process needs ‘finessing’ now
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0227/breaking6.html

I was one of those who was never quite convinced about the matter Hospital site. However, having listened to the arguements advanced by qualified medical practicioners about it merits I was in agreement that it should be sited here. Consequently I was shocked at ABPs decision. To judge a building such as this purely on aestetics is absolutely deplorable! I know ABP was formed to eliminate politicians from planning however, there should now be serious questions as to ABPs operations. Have we simply swapped elected politicians with hidden agendas for unelected faceless civil servants whith their own agendas?! That view is reenforced by the staggering lack of any building over 10 floors despite the fact that we have recently emerged from one of the greatest construction booms in European history!

The deal with the hospital itself and how we are to proceed….

Building a smaller hospital on the same site is the nightmare senario. You would have the same problems associated with the site without the benefits of having such a future proofed facility.

The design for this hospital has been laboured over for 10 years now. The building is over 1 million sq ft out of the necessity to have a world class centre for children. Anything less is an appaling compromise.

Its worth mentioning that we have a fairly bad history when it comes to providing future capacity in hospitals. Tallaght Hospital rather notoriously was deemed too small just a few years after completion and after 25 years of planning!! Visit any major hospital in Dublin and you will find their properties are littered with portakabins and other temporary structures as they desperately try to accommodate a myriad of workers!

A smaller hospital will only result in a separate facility being built on a different site 10-15 years later to meet the shortfall in capacity and capability thus making a mockery of the need to centralise into one centre of excellence!

I note that James Reilly has flagged the posibility of the architects conducting some sort of redesign. However, as I understand it the original plans were over 20 floors so, at 16 floors it has already tweaked to lessen the impact on the skyline. There was a limited ammount of outside garden space provided to benefit the patients and visitors…presumably this would be completly covered in any attempt to lower the buildings height and bulk. A true groundscraper!!

As it is, this is such a technologically advanced building in form construction materials and function that even a redesign would cost alot of time and money. Therefore, there are only two realistic options…:

Over-rule ABP by way of passing a law to permit the construction of the current building on the current site. Or, simply build thie existing proposal on a greenfield site! Both options have drawbacks, but any reduction in the standard or volume of of the building is a worse vista!

C

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0229/1224312524371.html
children’s hospital to be scaled back to avoid impairment of historic views from Mountjoy exercise yard

Relief was expressed outside the historic Big Tree alcohol interpretative centre which had risked overshadowing and serious harm to its artistic endeavours.

The planners have managed to protect Fay’s Dancing Shoes from the menace of a tall building across the street.

No to mention WE BUY GOLD, whose aesthetic integrity was under threat.

Who needs a grandiose children’s hospital anyway? Sure what have children ever done for us?

Frank….goood photographic post…the point is very well made.

IMO, as I stated in my previous post a scaled back hospital is the nightmare senario. It will be a monument to stupidity if they proceed with a less capable hospital.

I noticed James Nix ( who was An Taisces representative in this whole mess) had an article in The Times, in which he suggested the ” Heuston Gate” as a potential venue for a 8 Storey Hospital with the same floor space (albeit with 12000sqm floor plates!!!!). At face value it seems to have merit until you consider the implications…….

The Heuston Gate development site including a very fine 32 storey building by Paul Keogh, presumably still has planning permission. Siting a new 8 storey Childrens Hospital here would effectively torpedo any chance of this tower being built. If it were to be built at 117m it would set a new benchmark for height and scale in the city rather then the 60m/16 stories that is Liberty Hall! That would be a nightmare outcome of the anti-highrise brigade.

So it seems that they are not content to destroy one highrise proposal by rejecting a Childrens Hospital….now they want to destroy another highrise proposal precisely by building another Childrens Hospital. The disingenuousness and fanatacism of these people is staggering!!

I note some posters above are talking about ABP and the Government conspiring to contrive this decision. Well, a far more plausable conspiracy involves ABP, An Taisce and the usual suspects deliberately refusing the proposed Childrens Hospital to end once and for all any idea of building tall in Dublin. Its having the desired effect. Already several commentators in the media were reporting on the new Liberty Hall proposal and commenting “Well, if An Bord Pleanala refused a childrens Hospital because it was too high they will never allow this”!! Rest assured all State building projects will have taken note and will opt for lower buildings just for an easy life!

Rather predictably, all of the attention focused on the Political side of this debacle, there was no light shone into the dark agenda ridden unelected recesses of An Bord Pleanala.

C

Why can’t we look at sites beside the mater for the required space?

Hardwicke st flats are ripe for bulldozing and the tenants could easily be rehoused by Nama in better standard then they currently have. That would free up plenty of space and allow this part of the city to be transformed and returned to some of the grandeur it was accustomed to originally.

For instance the mater private could be moved to Hardwicke St, freeing up much needed space for the NCH. I’m sure some interesting proposal could be created for linking the mater site with Hardwick St with the maternity hospital and/or labs being house there while the rest in put on the current site?

Or the carpark could be moved to Hardwicke st, it would have to a bloody good looking car park tho!

@thebig C wrote:

Rather predictably, all of the attention focused on the Political side of this debacle, there was no light shone into the dark agenda ridden unelected recesses of An Bord Pleanala.

The debate, if you’d even call it that, has been dominated by the political angle, I think that’s true, with a few conspiracy theories thrown into the mix as befitts the state of paranoia that we’re in [present company excepted], but what it hasn’t been about is aesthetics, and it is a judgement about aesthetics that essentially killed the National Children’s Hospital.

It doesn’t matter what light you shine on Bord Pleanala, you’re still going to find a board that has no aesthetic training, a board that consists of one town planner, two civil engineers and a chemical engineer. I wouldn’t ask these people to judge a national children’s art competition.

So its dead?

@gunter wrote:

@thebig C wrote:

Rather predictably, all of the attention focused on the Political side of this debacle, there was no light shone into the dark agenda ridden unelected recesses of An Bord Pleanala.

The debate, if you’d even call it that, has been dominated by the political angle, I think that’s true, with a few conspiracy theories thrown into the mix as befitts the state of paranoia that we’re in [present company excepted], but what it hasn’t been about is aesthetics, and it is a judgement about aesthetics that essentially killed the National Children’s Hospital.

It doesn’t matter what light you shine on Bord Pleanala, you’re still going to find a board that has no aesthetic training, a board that consists of one town planner, two civil engineers and a chemical engineer. I wouldn’t ask these people to judge a national children’s art competition.

Wow, I genuinely had no idea that the Board was relatively speaking so under qualified. Thats my essential problem, there was actually a very good reason to establish ABP. Elected politicians with hidden agendas were making bad decisions. However, to replace them with unelected, unaccountable pen pushers with their own clear hidden agendas is perhaps the worst solution.

I firmly believe all projects and buildings should be judged on the totality of their effects, not just on extremely narrow height/aestetic grounds. ABP clearly share a certain milieu with the most extreme elements of An Taisce and are alomst willfully obtuse regarding the threat from highrise buildings to the exclusion of all other factors.

Its important to remember that while the Board at present comprises 4 officers including a very experienced planner, the vast majority of staff in ABP, ie the inspectors are all qualified and very experienced planners. Thats the whole point of the organisation, that you have a cohort of planners separate from local authorities (ie local agendas) and central government (ie national agendas) who can give an unbiased and objective view of development within the confines of the law – that is Irish planning and development law and European law. I know that the law is a very subjective concept in this tinpot democracy of ours…very important until it needs to be ignored or dismissed.

As a planner BigC I find your tone to be quite offensive. This proposal has been considered under all its various aspects by different groups; planning and environmental concerns are just one element, albeit a very important element and I would warrant that proper planning was not taken seriously until the decision of the Board came out. I certainly know from pre-planning discussions I had with the architects that the “think about the children” defence was considered enough to justify whatever needed to be built here.

I would argue that the ABP process has been one of the more transparent aspects of this whole process. The views of everyone were aired at a public oral hearing. The submissions of everyone in relation to the project are available to view from the planning file. The decision is transparent and certainly free of Bertie Ahern’s grubby hands, unlike the original decision to locate here by all accounts.

Below is an extract from Dublin City Council’s submission to ABP, as quoted in the inspector’s report:

‘Scheme is impressive for the way it has reconciled the many challenges of a large and complex brief and a defined inner urban site producing a design of substantial architectural and urban design quality with a high degree of legibility and integrity;

Key issue is the appearance and impact of the building’s form on Dublin’s skyline and on its historic setting;

I’ve read the City Council’s submission and, I have to say, I think they got it about right. They had concerns about aspects of the design which it is clear they would have sought modifications to – via a request for additional information – had the application been made to them in the first instance, and they wanted someone to compensate them for the loss of on-street parking revenue, but in general they appear to have felt that the aesthetic challenge of the bulk/scale/mass was close to finding its design resolution.

The inspector’s report doesn’t record who in Dublin City Council was the author of their impressive submission, but I’m guessing it wasn’t the guy responsible for putting down slopy lawns on Smithfield, or the guy with the tarmac fetish on Fade Street.

ABP weighed up this project and, without offering an alternative, they cancelled it as if they were cancelling a supermarket or a housing development. In this case multiple medical expert committees have judged that this site is optimal for patient outcomes, anything less is at the cost of public health. Something is wrong with ABP’s mandate that they have chosen to preserve their idea of the aesthetic purity of a tawdry Dublin district at the expense of children’s survival rates. Clearly ABP have no mandate to balance the aesthetic against the functional gain to the city.

The buildings that currently surround St George’s Church are abominable indictments of previous planning decisions. Low rise, depressing socially segregated ghetto blocks, cars strewn in front. pastiche georgian meets brutal 60s redbrick cuboid poverty grids meets noughties low cost apartments. This is shitsville and a new hospital will not make it worse. Even if its shiny corners can be seen over the rooftops.

Nearly every building in this area is either in contravention of planning law or is in essence a crime against nature, a structure that screams “kill me”.

Tall buildings do impose on the surroundings and are only appropriate in a city where they serve an important civic function like for example a goddamn national hospital.

I have to say I totally agreed with the decision as the building simply does not fit on the selected site. Far too many compromises and operational strategies are required to make it work and that should not occur in a new modern building, nor is any future expansion catered for.

It’s not about a struggle between developing in the suburbs or strengthening the city but getting a modern, well designed, flexible and high quality facility in the most appropriate location. If compromises have to be made somewhere it should be in the location, not in the building.

The scheme did not comply with the dublin city development plan, with the Dublin city height strategy or with the mount joy/phibsboro local area plan. Aside from that it would have had a massive visual impact on O’Connell street and the historic Georgian core. The primary public transport scheme on which it was based (metro north) is not going ahead at the moment & the inspector had doubts over the validity of the traffic study.

We’ve had the country ruined by ignoring properly prepared spatial plans and disregarding the proper planning of the country – so I’m happy that it hasn’t been granted for political reasons – unlike the decision to proceed with this site.

It may be the wrong way to thing, but I always assess public schemes by comparing them with how the same development by a private developer would be received – & there is no way on earth that a scheme even 50% this ones size would be granted permission – and rightly so.

Emotive language notwithstanding – in planning terms I believe it was the correct decision

I couldn’t agree more. By any standard, this development breached countless statutory planning provisions. The fact that nobody could be bothered to engage meaningful planning input during the process, in some form of bizarre don’t ask, don’t tell ritual, does not excuse any blind granting of permission for the project.

@gunter wrote:

I’ve read the City Council’s submission and, I have to say, I think they got it about right. They had concerns about aspects of the design which it is clear they would have sought modifications to – via a request for additional information – had the application been made to them in the first instance, and they wanted someone to compensate them for the loss of on-street parking revenue, but in general they appear to have felt that the aesthetic challenge of the bulk/scale/mass was close to finding its design resolution.

The inspector’s report doesn’t record who in Dublin City Council was the author of their impressive submission, but I’m guessing it wasn’t the guy responsible for putting down slopy lawns on Smithfield, or the guy with the tarmac fetish on Fade Street.

I couldn’t disagree more. The City Council submission is a complete fudge – as with the DOE’s – adopting the usual mindless anodyne corporate position, tossing positives against negatives like apples and oranges and arriving with a pineapple on its head. Literally, in this instance. No matter what this proposal was, DCC would have granted permission. I have no question in my mind on that. The pressure to get this passed on a number of fronts was enormous and there was no way management were going to say no to this. Even for the Board to make the decision they did was a very ambitious move – even if the very concept of an ‘ambitious’ decision by a statutory board reviewing statutory instruments being preposterous. A highly regarded former member of the Board has observed that the indirect pressure on ABP with this decision was colossal, and is firmly of the belief that it will have repercussions for how it operates in the future, which is profoundly regrettable in this day and age.

Simply put, the government put all its eggs in one basket with a preposterous ‘review panel’ late last year, costing over €200,000 of ‘consultants’ time, without one ounce of planning expertise. This is widely agreed to be the nub of the issue; they can no longer blame the previous government for this location choice, and must now clean up a mess which they single-handedly created – one which first year planning students, free of charge, could happily have informed them about before ever lodging a single planning file.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

ABP weighed up this project and, without offering an alternative, they cancelled it as if they were cancelling a supermarket or a housing development. In this case multiple medical expert committees have judged that this site is optimal for patient outcomes, anything less is at the cost of public health. Something is wrong with ABP’s mandate that they have chosen to preserve their idea of the aesthetic purity of a tawdry Dublin district at the expense of children’s survival rates. Clearly ABP have no mandate to balance the aesthetic against the functional gain to the city.

The buildings that currently surround St George’s Church are abominable indictments of previous planning decisions. Low rise, depressing socially segregated ghetto blocks, cars strewn in front. pastiche georgian meets brutal 60s redbrick cuboid poverty grids meets noughties low cost apartments. This is shitsville and a new hospital will not make it worse. Even if its shiny corners can be seen over the rooftops.

Frank, you are justifying bad planning with bad planning. Also, to couch this decision as an ‘aesthetic’ argument is simplistic and ill-informed. Read the 130-page plus report before drawing conclusions.

I support the choice of the Mater site for all the reasons that other commentators seem to think it unsuitable:

The building [that we’re going to put 640m euro into] will be visible from many vantage points in the city.

Getting there [and parking] via private car is likely to take longer than travelling on public transport.

I don’t buy that the scheme impacts negatively on O’Connell Street, or the north Georgian core, I think the impact is more likely to be positive, assuming the proposed dramatic step-up in scale is carried off with conviction and not dumbed down now and emasculated in the impending review process.

Lest there be any misunderstanding here, none of this would apply to a speculative office block of the same scale in the same location. It is the particular combination of a unique, one-off, public child-care function with the design response to both that and the considerable design challenge presented by the confined urban context that I believe deserves much more credit than it has been getting from people who should know better.

I should also say that I don’t doubt the integrity of Bord Pleanala and I do acknowledge that we’ve had good reason to be grateful to them on numerous occasions in the past when the City Council and other local authority planning departments lost the plot more often than not, seemingly dazzled by all the bright lights of the building boom.

I understand the reasons for the Board’s decision and Graham’s support for that decision, but slapping a refusal on this proposal does not, in my opinion, do justice to the quality of the scheme proposed, or the importance of the undertaking.

Bord Pleanala had other options and in the circumstances they should have exercised those options, especially if they were uncertain of their own expertise to make the critical aesthetic judgements required of them in this particular case.

I agree with Gunter.

@GrahamH wrote:

Frank, you are justifying bad planning with bad planning. Also, to couch this decision as an ‘aesthetic’ argument is simplistic and ill-informed. Read the 130-page plus report before drawing conclusions.

The board direction is 2 pages long. http://www.pleanala.ie/news/PA0024/SPA0024.pdf
the board chose to disagree with 2 of the inspector’s reasons for rejection: lack of parking and contravention of LAP, but to uphold the other two reasons for rejection, both of which were aesthetic.

in the board’s own succinct words, the sole reason is visual:

it is considered that the proposed development, by reason of its height, scale, form and mass, located on this elevated site, would result in a dominant, visually incongruous structure and would have a profound negative impact on the appearance and visual amenity of the city skyline. The proposed development would contravene policy SC18 of the Dublin City Development Plan, 2011-2017, which seeks to protect and enhance the skyline of the inner city and to ensure that all proposals for mid-rise and taller buildings make a positive contribution to the urban character of the city.
Furthermore, the development as proposed, notwithstanding the quality of the design, would be inconsistent with and adversely affect the existing scale and character of the historic city and the established character of the local area and would seriously detract from the setting and character of protected structures, streetscapes and areas of conservation value, and in particular, the vistas of O’Connell Street and North Great George’s Street.
Having regard to the site masterplan for the Mater Campus submitted with this application, it is also considered that the proposed development as configured, would constitute overdevelopment of the site.

…enhance the skyline…
…adversely affect the existing scale and character of the historic city…
…overdevelopment of the site…

These concepts are arbitrary.

ABP weighed up this project and, without offering an alternative, they cancelled it as if they were cancelling a supermarket or a housing development.

I think you will find it was the application itself that failed to provide alternatives as part of the EIS.

We all know the area around the mater is in desperate need of renewal and I would like to see the hospital in the city as it could be a great incentive for renewal of the area. However, that won’t be achieved by the current proposal.

Some outside the box thinking is required. Frank points to Hardwicke st which I mentioned before that, surely the building could be split in two. The carpark and possibly labs or technical departments such as HR, IT, filing etc could be put onto Hardwicke St (with the flats knocked to the benefit of the residents) and the actual essential medical units using the mater site. The carpark alone would free up four floors. A tunnel could then link both sites, or perhaps a well designed walkway over ground.

@gunter wrote:

……. none of this would apply to a speculative office block of the same scale in the same location. It is the particular combination of a unique, one-off, public child-care function with the design response to both that and the considerable design challenge presented by the confined urban context that I believe deserves much more credit than it has been getting from people who should know better.

Leaving aside the architectural critique, the basic argument that is being presented by many is that the building should have been granted permission and all the relevant plans ignored because it is ‘worthy’.

I would be very much against that as it takes the legitimacy of the process by which these development plans were created and throws it aside. I believe that once we do that with one project there will be many other ‘unique, one-off’ situations and we can just forget about the planning system. Yes it was abused in the past, but that doesn’t mean it has to continue in the future.

As for being worthy – what if it was a cancer hospital rather than a childrens one? How about a private hospital? A public body proposing the building for their occupation? A private company creating thousands of jobs in the north inner city? Where would we draw the line once we’ve stepped over it?

Very good point. But that’s not the Irish way – here we like to moan that we need proper planning but we are quite prepared to dispense with it when it suits us.

Incidently I would also be against the solution being mooted of reducing the buildings size and transferring some functions to other hospitals. If the space is needed then its needed. And if such a height building is acceptable then why not at St James?

Major teaching hospital, Luas already in place, close to Heustons mainline and commuter rail,, people arriving at Connolly/busaras have no need to make a change at O’Connell St. (whenever bxd or metro built), accessible to the dart if interconnector constructed (about same chance as metro north at this point), and closer to the M50 for the car lovers.

I must see how this alternative scored in the EIS.

@corkblow-in wrote:

Leaving aside the architectural critique, the basic argument that is being presented by many is that the building should have been granted permission and all the relevant plans ignored because it is ‘worthy’.

I haven’t heard that argument presented by any one.

‘Leaving aside the architectural critique’ makes the discussion meaningless.

This is a question of whether the proposed building is an appropriate architectural response to a challenging site and a worthy brief. In determining that it isn’t, on specific scale and aesthetic grounds, An Bord Pleanala have painted themselves into a corner that it won’t be easy to get out of.

@corkblow-in wrote:

As for being worthy – what if it was a cancer hospital rather than a childrens one? How about a private hospital? A public body proposing the building for their occupation? A private company creating thousands of jobs in the north inner city? Where would we draw the line once we’ve stepped over it?

Where do you draw the line? Why is this such a difficult concept to grasp? If it’s a public building of ambitious design . . . . that’s on one side of the line, if it’s a speculative building of stock design . . . . that’s on the other side of the line.

The basic argument is not that the building should be somehow excused from complying with ordinary development standards because its function is deemed ‘worthy’, the basic argument is that, as a public building of ambitious architectural intention, it should absolutely not be constrained by standards that are set to control ordinary development.

You’d have had to rewrite the whole history of urbanism if public buildings had been forbidden from rising above ordinary buildings. That we even have to remind ourselves of this, demonstrates how far we’ve allowed our understanding of urbanism to become diluted and contaminated by sub-urban values.

Despite the glaring discrepancies in the presentations to ABP from the RPA and Irish Rail, respectively, about the metro and DART underground projects – for example, the RPA believed that a number of locations in the city would be suitable for an underground interchange, while Irish Rail, after years of discussion with the RPA, were able to find only one – ABP found themselves able to approve both projects.

The total amount of outlay on the metro and DART projects was to be a number of billion.

ABP made a point of stating, in their approval of the DART underground project, that it was a “national transport policy objective” that this line be built through St. Stephen’s Green. Previously, it had only ever been presented as the “Heuston-Docklands” line.

(News to many people, of course, but apparently it was based on the drawings of the now defunct Dublin Transportation Office and the whims of the former minister, Martin Cullen). In such a way is national policy formulated, apparently).

There has, over the years, been plenty of discussion about the best location for the National Children’s Hospital, and if ever a location was part of “the National Health Policy Objective”, the Mater Hospital was it. After all the reports, etc., this was the one.

And now it has been rejected.

I don’t wish to get into the debate about the Mater Hospital proposal, as I don’t know enough to make useful commentary, but I think there is an obvious discrepancy.

With the metro and DART underground projects, ABP introduces a reason why these projects need to be built through a specific location. With the Children’s Hospital, a specific location has been identified, but ABP don’t approve of it.

In a nutshell, from afar (and as a Dubliner), I can’t understand Irish planning.

@gunter wrote:

The basic argument is not that the building should be somehow excused from complying with ordinary development standards because its function is deemed ‘worthy’, the basic argument is that, as a public building of ambitious architectural intention, it should absolutely not be constrained by standards that are set to control ordinary development.

But that’s the point – anything but ordinary development standards were applied to the planning of this project in order to accommodate it. The Local Area Plan made express provision for a large national paediatric hospital at this location of a scale far in excess of what would normally be permitted for commercial and indeed civic building at this location. In addition, it set out clear parameters on height, massing, layout and integration with the surrounding area, as all proper planning facilitates. Otherwise, the future architects working with this brief were given a free hand to execute the development within this guidance, as should be the case for a project of this importance. No constraints were set out by way of aesthetics other than the building should be of architectural excellence.

However, the development as proposed, in almost every facet of the above, categorically ignored the plan, and therefore it was rejected. Plain and simple. In spite of the obvious desire to see architectural ambition emerge with a civic building of this kind, I have no problem whatever with this project being rejected given that it failed to meet the provisions of a tailor-made LAP – one that was drawn up by leading planners, architects, conservation architects, consulting engineers, a multi-disciplinary environmental consultancy and the planning authority itself, and one that supported the establishment of a major civic building at this location.

I admire the project architects for their handling of the challenging clinical and operational brief on what is a highly constrained site, but the result, from an architectural perspective, is still akin to the Clarence Hotel proposal – a signature building shoehorned into a site where it shouldn’t be in the first place, negatively impacting its environment and in the process depriving the city of a decent civic statement elsewhere.

Let it be absolutely clear: the ABP decision has nothing got to do with Irish planning and its processes. The fault of this rejection lies entirely at the feet of government and the HSE, i.e. the client. The question, time and again, must come back to the central issue – who in the HSE supplied the guidance to the consultants of the LAP on what was required for a national paediatric facility, and in turn, who in the HSE was advising government on the scale of the project and if it could be accommodated on the Mater site? In particular, who is the properties manager or head architect in the HSE and where were they when all of this was happening two or three years ago?

For once, it is not the planners or the architects who messed up on this one. The fault is entirely the client’s, where the €37 million partially expended down the drain is their little problem. The fact that the client is effectively us makes it a bitter pill to swallow, but hardly the first time we have encountered government incompetency.

@StephenC wrote:

Its important to remember that while the Board at present comprises 4 officers including a very experienced planner, the vast majority of staff in ABP, ie the inspectors are all qualified and very experienced planners. Thats the whole point of the organisation, that you have a cohort of planners separate from local authorities (ie local agendas) and central government (ie national agendas) who can give an unbiased and objective view of development within the confines of the law – that is Irish planning and development law and European law. I know that the law is a very subjective concept in this tinpot democracy of ours…very important until it needs to be ignored or dismissed.

As a planner BigC I find your tone to be quite offensive. This proposal has been considered under all its various aspects by different groups; planning and environmental concerns are just one element, albeit a very important element and I would warrant that proper planning was not taken seriously until the decision of the Board came out. I certainly know from pre-planning discussions I had with the architects that the “think about the children” defence was considered enough to justify whatever needed to be built here.

I would argue that the ABP process has been one of the more transparent aspects of this whole process. The views of everyone were aired at a public oral hearing. The submissions of everyone in relation to the project are available to view from the planning file. The decision is transparent and certainly free of Bertie Ahern’s grubby hands, unlike the original decision to locate here by all accounts.

Hey Stephen

I know you are a quality poster and as such I an sure you try to do a very professional job in your position as a planner. I meant no personal disrespect to you but I will not shy from my valid critique of ABP.

I am rather glad you brought up the issue of Law, because in a previous deleted draft of my offending post I had drawn a parallel between planners and the Legal Profession. Personally, I feel its rather apt. Both groups are more or less self regulating, and both have the ability to shape most aspects of their sphere of influence regardless of National policy. For example, Politicians make laws but lawers shape laws. So, through precedent and judgements a Law can end up being diametrically different then when it was first enacted. Needless to say, drawing attention to this fact is always met with the old chesnut about the letter of the law!

Likewise, planners can put their own interpretation on what are supposed to be National planning objectives and Local area plans. ABP, are particularly influential in this area. For example, since at least the late 1990s it has been policy to allow increased densities of both commercial and residential development close to public transport nodes and designated town centres. Whilst this has taken place at some locations it has been noticably absent in others.

A case in point was the various highrise developments refused for Dun Laoghaire., despite the fact that it is a focal point for multiple types of public transport and is designated a County Town. Most developments were arbitrarily refused by ABP based on their opinion that the proposals constituted over development. There was of course the Save Our Seafront campaign which provided nominal populist support, but was in effect NIMBYism of the highest order. Likewise, a journey on the redline LUAS will reveal numerous derelict sites between Heuston and Jervis where ABP despite nominal stated policy have issued refusals based on height and proximity of “historic” buildings! This is to mention but two examples but you can see my point, despite….or in spite of local and national policy, ABP make decisions based on their opinion on what constitutes proper scale and planning. And that opinion is literally just an opinion when you consider that in many cases the said developments had already been processed through the Local Authorities own planning department, and had been passed.

So you see, to hark back to my original point, ABP can hide behind “proper planning” but more often they and they alone decide what proper planning is regardless of policy!

C

And no one even mentions the elephant in the sitting-room — even when he’s just shat all over the piano :crazy: . . . .

I’m talking about that firm of architects who knowingly tried to stonewall the planning guidelines and pushed this wildly unacceptable design throughout the past few years.

Of course, they were well-paid for spending loads of man-hours on the job so far.
And this present failure will not in any way mean their disengagement from this project.

Hundreds of small architect offices up and down the country who point out the folly of vain planning applications to their clients, and who walk away from inducements to proceed with them, have to live with the public’s image of architects based on carry-on like O’Connell Mahon’s.

@teak wrote:

I’m talking about that firm of architects who knowingly tried to stonewall the planning guidelines and pushed this wildly unacceptable design throughout the past few years.

. . . small architect offices up and down the country . . . . have to live with the public’s image of architects based on carry-on like O’Connell Mahon’s.

Sean Mahon of O’Connell Mahon / NBBJ Architects mounted a stout defence of this project, and their design of it, in this month’s RIAI Journal. Do you want to read it teak and tell us where they’re wrong?

@GrahamH wrote:

– anything but ordinary development standards were applied to the planning of this project in order to accommodate it. The Local Area Plan made express provision for a large national paediatric hospital at this location of a scale far in excess of what would normally be permitted for commercial and indeed civic building at this location. In addition, it set out clear parameters on height, massing, layout and integration with the surrounding area, as all proper planning facilitates.

LAPs are useful planning tools, much of the time, but you cannot design a building by ‘setting out parameters’.

Wren’s St. Paul’s would be an example of a vast public building that dominated the skyline of London when it was built . . . . on an elevated site.

After the rejection of his first great design for the re-building of the cathedral, for being too grandiose and novel in form, the committee in charge of the re-building set out clear parameters for Wren to work within in order to achive the result that they wanted, the result was the so-called ‘Warrant Design’ and although – or more likely because – it ticked all the boxes, the Warrant Design was an artless piece of crud, that Wren had to spend the next thirty years unpicking.

A national children’s hospital may not be a cathedral and O’Connell Mahon may not be Wren, but there are still lessons in this.

I’ve read the so called “stout defense” (more likeself aggrandizing publicity blurb) of the scheme in Architecture Ireland. It only proves to me that the designers are clearly very good at creating organizational diagrams and densely stacking layer upon layer of functions into a constricted site. There are some good ideas, particularly the green roof “Therapy Park” between the treatment zone and the wards or “sleepover zone” as it is called.

However by no means does this make for good architecture or urbanism or make any positive contribution to the cityscape. They have the nerve to claim that it would “become a positive public landmark building for the city” and to compare the proposal with the Four Courts, Custom House, BOI College Green, even the new Criminal Courts or the Aviva. It unfortunately smacks of utter delusion.

The proposal, thankfully scuppered by ABP, was ugly in the extreme, the equivalent of almost FIVE Belfast city hospitals lined up in a row (with even tacky yellow highlights in a clear “homage” to that early 1980s architectural delight). How anyone can justify or support the construction of such a monstrosity is beyond me, no matter how well its design may work practically or how suitable or unsuitable its location may be. Thank god someone has called a halt to this madness at long last.

I’m going to do a missarchi…

https://archiseek.com/2012/1977-central-bus-station-temple-bar-dublin/

Shades of an early extremely important strategic infrastructure.

Anyone who knows Belfast knows how dominant and ugly the City Hospital is on the skyline. The proposal for the National Childrens Hospital was just about the same height and almost 5 times wider. Something (very roughly) like this:

No amount of curves or shiny glass or brises soleil could possibly mitigate the terrible impact that the proposal would have had on Dublin.

Hospital expert group to report within 56 days
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0306/hospital.html

Dont they own to the centre of the earth might be a way to half of it underground…

@StephenC wrote:

Its important to remember that while the Board at present comprises 4 officers including a very experienced planner, the vast majority of staff in ABP, ie the inspectors are all qualified and very experienced planners. Thats the whole point of the organisation, that you have a cohort of planners separate from local authorities (ie local agendas) and central government (ie national agendas) who can give an unbiased and objective view of development within the confines of the law.

how many of the decisions of these qualified and experienced planners are overturned by the panel? without recourse, of course

The decisions in ABP are made by the Board..the inspector only undertakes the appeal assessment and makes a recommendation (and it should be noted that in a local authority the executive makes the decision while the planner recommends – in fact under the law the City/County Manager is the ultimate grantor of a permission).
I’m not sure on the statistics of how instances when the Board disagrees with the recommendation of its inspectors..possibly available in ABP’s Annual Report. I’m sure it is the exception rather than the rule.

Can anyone get the O’Connell Mahon “stout defence” paper from Architecture Ireland up online so that all can see it ?

Buying this AI journal would cost €10 — about the cost of 3 Paris Matches, which generally has better photography and reading.

@missarchi wrote:

Dont they own to the centre of the earth might be a way to half of it underground…

The Fritzl solution . . . for a children’s hospital . . . you sure about this?

Here’s a scan of the article teak, hope it’s legible.

@BTH wrote:

I’ve read the so called “stout defense” (more likeself aggrandizing publicity blurb) of the scheme in Architecture Ireland. It only proves to me that the designers are clearly very good at creating organizational diagrams and densely stacking layer upon layer of functions into a constricted site. There are some good ideas, particularly the green roof “Therapy Park” between the treatment zone and the wards or “sleepover zone” as it is called.

Quite a lot of ‘good ideas’ in it I think and some really clear internal planning, which is very refreshing. For an architect’s account – in this particular publication – I found the article remarkably free from both jargon and self-aggrandizement and they get points for not using the word ‘iconic’, but I guess if you see nothing good in this proposal, a statement explaining its design rational is not going to move you.

@BTH wrote:

However by no means does this [very good organizational diagrams and some good ideas] make for good architecture or urbanism or make any positive contribution to the cityscape.

Well it’s a start – and they follow through on that start with a pretty well thought out design strategy based on a hierarchy of elements that culminates in the distinctive curvilinear layer.

@BTH wrote:

They have the nerve to claim that it would “become a positive public landmark building for the city” . . . smacks of utter delusion.

They are proud of the design and they express the hope that it may become a positive public landmark building for the city, that is true. I don’t know for sure if they’re right, but to me, the scheme displays a level of skill and architectural judgement that exceeds the level prevailing in ABP at the moment, so I’d give them the benefit of the doubt.

I’m a bit surprised there hasn’t been more positive comment from the architectural community [if there is such a thing] and the usually reliable ‘Urbanism’ advocates have either stayed out of it completely, or gone over to the other side.

@BTH wrote:

The proposal, thankfully scuppered by ABP, was ugly in the extreme, the equivalent of almost FIVE Belfast city hospitals lined up in a row (with even tacky yellow highlights in a clear “homage” to that early 1980s architectural delight).

Unlike the proposed Children’s Hospital, the City Hospital in Belfast makes absolutely no pretence at elegance, but it is a distinctive landmark on the Belfast skyline which is not, in my opinion, inappropriate, given its function and, notwithstanding BTH’s scathing assessment, I suspect it’s a building that may be well on its way to becoming a List II protected structure in the not too distant future.

@BTH wrote:

How anyone can justify or support the construction of such a monstrosity is beyond me.

Clearly

Thanks for the scanned images, Gunter.
I expected a much longer and more professionally written paper.
But we can only review what we are given.

I attach the last 2 salient paragraphs below for the benefit of others who haven’t the AI journal issue at hand.

Urban Design And Impact On The City

The scale of development required to provide for the National Children’s Hospital on this site will have some impact on architectural heritage and conservation of the city. These impacts were reviewed and assessed in a wide-ranging 3-D study prepared to assess the impact across the entire city and to understand exactly from where, and to what extent, the building would be visible. The result of this study was that, in respect of the majority of the historic city, and indeed practically the entire south historic core, the building is not visible at all. In fact O’Connell Street stands out as one f the key areas from which the building is clearly viewed, together with many areas local to the site.
There amy be some who have reservations on these issues. Our view is that the national Children’s Hospital is a symbol of what we as a public value in our society and, in that sense, [sic] is entirely appropriate that it is visible from the main street in the city, as a public landmark, and a public acknowledgement of investment in our children’s health in the 21st century.

Our City

While the shape, structure and form of our city is primarily defined by the Georgian period, many of the finest landmarks from that period are larger public buildings such as the Four Courts or the Custom House and the Old Parliament at the Bank of Ireland on College Green. When one thinks about such landmark buildings in Dublin of the 20th century, one thinks of structures such as Liberty Hall, the Bank of Ireland on Baggot Street or the Pidgeon House at Poolbeg. It was, however, for the most part a city in decline as the suburbs expanded rapidly and population shrank within the city. More recently the addition of buildings such as the Criminal Courts, The Spire and the Aviva Stadium have challenged us to view our city as a live and growing city. These recent additions have coincided with a systematic and planned public policy to regenerate the core of the city, the urban centre, into a more dense, vibrant and sustainable core; with greater numbers living and working in the centre; supported by a more developed public transport and infrastructure network; and through a planning policy that allows for more focused landmarks to provide for defined developments within designated areas of the city.
The new children’s hospital is one such development. It represents a challenge but also an opportunity to create something unique not just for health and well-being of the children of the state but also as a major pieceof public infrastructure for the city and the country. Such a building must be of the highest quality. In this case, the overall design has been thought through and developed in rigorous detail, the impacts have been considered and understood from the outset of the design and the overall form massing strategy has been designed precisely to ensure that it will become a positive public landmark building for the city in the 21st century.

Look, as an architect’s solution to a state imposed brief, I would not say that it was a bad effort.
And, in a human way, I reckon most people would relate strongly to the situation that O’Connell Mahon found themselves in with this job. There they are, the foremost architects of medical care facilities in the country, with decades of experience designing Ireland’s public care facilities. In comes the latest design tender from their super-major client. The site is small, congested and not the ideal location where a parent would want their seriously ill child to spend a difficult (perhaps, for some, even final) part of their life. Yet this is the very task that these architects are all about. In theory, they could pass it up. But, in practice, passing on this task would cause them to be washed up as far as further state work would be concerned. And if they do pass it up, for sure some other firm will be prepared to take on the job. Most likely a firm with far less skill and experience in this type of design.
So they take it and try to make the most of it.
Today this dilemma is no longer the preserve of the odd Duke of Albany or even those decent Northeasterners of Richard Yates’ post war stories : it’s the sort of dilemma faced by almost every person who takes pride in their work and who tries to include some social ethics into their profession. They can exercise their full professional standards only where these are unrestrained by the demands of their clients. Those who try to keep all their professional principles together can spend most of their time on unchallenging work.

To me the essential design of the NCH was dictated by the insistence of building on the Mater Hospital site. No one could have really made this a comprehensive children’s hospital with a 50 year lifespan and not tore into the Dublin city skyline.
Beyond this the role of the architect was simply — and quite hopelessly, as is evident between the lines of the paper’s awkward syntaxt — to try to ameliorate the worst aspects of the building’s scale : rounding the ward zone tower, maximising glazing, placing the therapy zone in the set-back between upper part and lower parts, maximising the footprint of the treatment zone as that would not impact adversely over existing skylines, etc.

This whole thing was to be about giving good healthcare to all the state’s children.
Yet throughout the process, individuals — politicians with agendas, civil servants with hobby horses, media people with biases, professional people with ambitions and citizens like all of us with no determination to insist on proper standards at work — have all put their own personal and family needs first.

I thnk that An Bórd Pleanála’s decision is for the best.
A cheaper, roomier site, more accessible by those from outside Dublin, ideally in a greenfield area, would allow far better positioning of all the important component parts of this hospital. Not least the therapy zones where seriously ill children could see some bit of beauty and wonder out the window of their infirmary as they try to recover.

@gunter wrote:

Quite a lot of ‘good ideas’ in it I think and some really clear internal planning, which is very refreshing. For an architect’s account – in this particular publication – I found the article remarkably free from both jargon and self-aggrandizement and they get points for not using the word ‘iconic’, but I guess if you see nothing good in this proposal, a statement explaining its design rational is not going to move you.

As I said there is plenty of skill demonstrated in the proposal, in terms of organization and layout and in managing to cram the functions of the hospital onto a site that is clearly too small for it. With the roof gardens it may even have been a reasonably pleasant environment for sick children to recuperate. Aside from that, is it so hard to accept that a good concept and organizational diagram doesn’t automatically mean that context and proportionality can be almost completely ignored in the way that this proposal manages to?

@gunter wrote:

They are proud of the design and they express the hope that it may become a positive public landmark building for the city, that is true. I don’t know for sure if they’re right, but to me, the scheme displays a level of skill and architectural judgement that exceeds the level prevailing in ABP at the moment, so I’d give them the benefit of the doubt.

Where is the architectural judgement in proposing a building that viewed from north or south would be over twice the height of Croke Park and considerably longer? The tallest building in Dublin by some distance being over twice as wide as it is high? It breaks all the rules of what a tall building should be (tall being a relative term in the context of Dublins cityscape) and for this reason alone it should have been ruled out as an option at sketch design stage. No amount of skill or detailed design or adding nice curvy cladding can disguise the utter wrongness of the massing.

@gunter wrote:

I’m a bit surprised there hasn’t been more positive comment from the architectural community [if there is such a thing] and the usually reliable ‘Urbanism’ advocates have either stayed out of it completely, or gone over to the other side.

I believe its because most realize that its very difficult to defend the indefensible.

@gunter wrote:

Unlike the proposed Children’s Hospital, the City Hospital in Belfast makes absolutely no pretence at elegance, but it is a distinctive landmark on the Belfast skyline which is not, in my opinion, inappropriate, given its function and, notwithstanding BTH’s scathing assessment, I suspect it’s a building that may be well on its way to becoming a List II protected structure in the not too distant future.

A number of things. So the proposed Childrens hospital makes a pretence at elegance? How can you possibly claim this when, as already mentioned, it breaks all the rules of building high, being much much wider than it is tall, creating a slab effect reminiscent of the worst of Soviet era “commieblocks”. For all the Belfast City Hospitals faults, at least it is a proper tower (albeit a stubby one). Does distinctiveness automatically equate with visual acceptability? And really, Belfast City Hospital being listed? I seriously doubt it.

How about consolidating the wards into a tower, 32 storeys high, similar in height to Guys Hospital in London. Probably ridiculous but what the hell, it can’t be worse than a 16 storey groundscraper.

Obviously this would be even more controversial but at least a proposal like this could in itself have been a true landmark with some elegance and a decent slenderness ratio. I’m in no way against building tall, I just feel that if we are going to build something so enormous it should have some grace, proportion and beauty. Unfortunately I feel that the proposal rejected by ABP was sorely lacking in those qualities.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.php?p=77512219&postcount=35

CPO Guinness? phibsplan… bulldoze docklands… Or redesign…

M50 for important hospital is a no no…

average…

Another suggestion for a location

[attachment=1:ong71hpl]562781_10150812593699453_254899924452_9695835_105567356_n.jpg[/attachment:ong71hpl]

[attachment=0:ong71hpl]485311_10150812594019453_254899924452_9695836_1418830132_n.jpg[/attachment:ong71hpl]

Nuns offer more space on Mater site for children’s hospital by offering footprint of adult hospital:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/new-childrens-hospital-mater-bid-back-on-after-nuns-offer-3074598.html

Harry Crosbie makes spirited pitch for sticking to Mater site:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0413/1224314681345.html

4 weeks to go for ‘Dolphin group’ to decide on location.

Mater now favourite location again.

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.

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…

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/breaking/2012/1106/breaking3.html

http://www.thejournal.ie/childrens-hospital-654196-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

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.

deleted

@thebig C wrote:

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.