Reply To: 32-floor building planned for Dublin

Blain,

There are two reasons why so called Hi-Rise buildings have not been designed for Dublin.

Fistly there has been no tradition of building them here, so the expertise has had to be drafted in. Architects on their home patch will generally do a better job.

Those that have been proposed have been particularly poor and often designed in the wrong places.

Can anybody tell me that Spencer Dock should have been built unaltered?

The fact is that buildings will get progressively taller, but this process will involve very well designed ‘Medium Rise’ Buildings first.

Each time the bar gets rasied the potential exists to raise it by another couple of storeys again.

There was an AD in the FT for AIG insurance showing the Manhatten skyline in 1907.

If I remember correctly the tallest building was about 15-20 stories. It (a) looked amazing for it’s time and (b) was followed by progressively taller buildings.

One thing we don’t want is sub standard Hi-Rise it would set a very dangerous precedent

The first significant medium rise or minor high rise building will need to be perfect.