Block G Spencer Dock

@notjim wrote:

I thought the Zaha Hadid was so much better and I was also a fan of the competition winner, the real one.

The Z.H design is being considered for an adjoining site formerly Tedcastles

paul h: the point was about tall bldgs; Dublin city does have a skyline – try towers, spires, pinnacles, domes, chimneys, etc. Skyline has as much to do with topography as architecture – Dublin is flat. And most public bldgs were of a different scale to domestic bldgs; just have a look at illustrations of pre-modern cities – they very much had a skyline. The obsession of some architects with (very) tall buidings, which you must have to rate (with whom?), just baffles me. Many American and ‘developing’ cities do have very tall buildings – in the centre – but they also have an endless sprawl of formless suburbs. Where you have an endless sprawl of tall buildings (as in what you see of Chinese cities), there is equally ‘no’ skyline, because when you are in amongst it you are just dwarfed by it – fine and exhilarating in Manhattan, but elsewhere?

@wearnicehats wrote:

This site stopped being about critique a long time ago.

So what’s your critique of this?

To me, what makes this a particularly bad proposal is the total disregard for context.

We shouldn’t see this proposal in the context of the NCC hotel, or the Watchtower or the U2 building. These are genuine attemps at ‘Landmark’ buildings, located at points in the Docklands cityscape where puntuation would add depth and legibility to the urban form.

This Treasury proposal is not about ‘punctuating the skyline’, it’s the first act in the Spencer Dock / Liffey Island bulk-up. We need to see this building in the context of maybe twenty five similar blocks, all hovering just under the proposed new 20 storey height restriction, all jostling for attention and spilling out over the campshire like a random piece of Detroit that got mixed up with the jig-saw puzzle of Dublin.

Schemes like this and the whole DDDA revised Development Plan which spawned it, seem to misunderstand or disregard the essential character of Dublin, and the central role that the grand set-piece of the Liffey quays plays in maintaining that character. The biggest mistake that being made here is in under-valuing this asset. The coherence of the Liffey quays depends on maintaining a hierarchy of civic buildings, bridges, punctuation points and ordinary streetscapes.

With the National Conference Centre taking shape, (whatever may end up being the judgement on it’s tilted drum), we can see that this hierarchy is still capable of working for us in the 21st century. If we add into the mix a greater flexibility to add dramatic punctuation in the right place, then this great 300+ year old Quay model, that set Dublin on the road to being a significant European city, can be reinforced and the character of the city reinvigorated, not further damaged.

@notjim wrote:

Well I think the Watchtower is a classic ordinary decent residential tower, no big deal but, assuming the materials and finish are good, I will be happy to see it built.

I’m happy to agree with that.

reddy: thanks for illustrating my point, and I don’t have an aversion to all tall bldgs, just the assertion that they are the defining principle of ‘modern’ urban design.

@paul h wrote:

I would think that a skyline is formed directly from various tall(er) buildings
example: Dublin city has no skyline , whereas most large cities of planet earth (throw a dart at a map you’ll find one) have taller buildings and that is what gives ’em their skyline.

This building looks faceless, dull ,corporate, just like the rest of the docklands, the only difference is that its a little bit taller than its surroundings.
It’s only redeeming factors are that its height attempts to break up the monotony and it’s extra few floors give us more elbow room for our large businesses to operate in.

If it is so awful, which I don’t think it is, actually it’s probably the most pleasing to the eye buildings that has been proposed for Dublin in recent years, Would you enlighten us with what you would find acceptable?

it’s a little known fact that the miniature statue of liberty in Paris was not, as is popularly thought, dedicated by american parisiens grateful for the gift of the original statue. It was, in fact, made by Irish emigrants, arriving in New York, who presented it to the city as being “of a far more suitable scale for this prominent waterfront area” How it ended up in Paris is lost in the mists of time, rather like An Taisce

wearnicehats:

Entertaining as always, but what about a critique of the scheme?

Don’t make it too cryptic, some of us went to Bolton Street, you need to keep it simple.

some people seem to like office park architecture, as long as it’s tall office park architecture – this is dull

@gunter wrote:

It comes back to that question of whether we want to replace Dublin with something else, a different image, a different vision, or whether we actually love Dublin, despite all it’s faults, and we want to repair and reinvigorate it.

No not change but ‘add to’ or ‘grow’
You really think some taller buildings in the docklands will ‘replace Dublin’ or change its image??
What exactly is our image?
Dirty?
junkie/bum/wino filled?

Dublin is big enough and bold enough to soak up a couple of taller buildings down in her docklands
Chill out kid.

Looks kinda like the new Eircom building up at Heuston Station. Looks like that building out at Blanchardstown as well.

However regarding the image, look how bad the concrete pile is on the left. What a mess of cluttered horizontal lines and dull grey concrete!