Re: Re: Smithfield Wasteland

@StephenC wrote:

I think the Children’s Court is a problem here. Too much space to hang around in before/after hearings.
I also think the area needs more apartments and more of a family focus.
These large preipheral squares rarely work successfully in my opinion. It just too difficult to create enough activity outside city centre.

Smithfield isn’t as peripheral as you might think. The “legal quarter” is all around it, the Luas runs through it and the Guinness Brewery, Collins Barracks, the Phoenix Park and some great old suburbs like Phibsboro are right beside it.

The quays are at their most pleasant from the Four Courts up to Hueston. It’s a sedate part of town, to be sure. But sedate is good. Smithfield needs to be given a point and an immediate hinterland. It has precisely the same problem as O’Connell Street; it’s a crossroads to other points with very little to commend it on its own merits.