Carlton Cinema Development

More like Coventry city centre meets portlaoise! if they can only think in shopping centre terms i think i’d prefer see some inoffensive pastiche please.

So I think it is agreed amongst pretty much everyone – and from all ends of the architecture and planning spectrum on this website – that this is categorically not what O’Connell Street and this new city quarter warrants or deserves in design terms. Therefore a systems failure has to be identified, either in our planning process or in the architectural profession, or both.

Developers and some architects have often been heard in recent years waxing on about overly-prescriptive planning laws, yet surely the outcome of the above is precisely the result of a lack of clout and clarity in planning policy? Or more pointedly, the erroneous interpretation of planning policy? Alternatively, one can argue that the relative ‘freedom’ offered by planners in this case was to enable architects to come up with imaginative and creative design solutions in accordance with best design practice. Architects, after all, know best when it comes to design – right? Why shouldn’t they be given the rudder on this one? Logic would dictate that they should.

The reality is that we see both professions culpable in this:

In spite of some worthy Additional Information modifications made by Dubln City Council, an effectively illegal interpretation of the O’Connell Street ACA under the 2000 Planning Act led to the initial grant for the scheme by DCC: -1 for planners.

The initial proposal was over-scaled, crudely integrated with its host environment and ignorant of existing building grain and street patterns: -1 to architects, and -1 to planners for granting it.

An Bord Pleanála then gets called in to clean up the mess as usual. They enforce planning policy and civic design character by decree – hardly the best method of producing creative design solutions: both +1 and -1 to the planning system.

Architects come back with a thoroughly dismal redesign that could not express in bricks and mortar the concept of a mean-spirited, begrudging sulk any more if it tried. The O’Connell Street frontage attempts little distinguished sense of urbanity or clarity of expression, never mind anything that approaches a civic-minded outlook for the first major intervention on the capital’s main throughfare in nearly a century: -1 to architects

An Bord Pleanála now reassesses, and grants permission on the basis of a raft of conditional redesign measures that attempt to address the refusal of the promoters to engage in a meaningful manner with the critical planning and design issues at stake. The result is a compromise that does nobody any favours, and where the energy that is expended in the whole arduous process would have been immeasurably better spent concentrated on a thoughtful and engaging urban design proposal – critically, had the guidance been there from the outset.

@GrahamH wrote:

So I think it is agreed amongst pretty much everyone – and from all ends of the architecture and planning spectrum on this website – that this is categorically not what O’Connell Street and this new city quarter warrants or deserves in design terms. Therefore a systems failure has to be identified, either in our planning process or in the architectural profession, or both.

Developers and some architects have often been heard in recent years waxing on about overly-prescriptive planning laws, yet surely the outcome of the above is precisely the result of a lack of clout and clarity in planning policy? Or more pointedly, the erroneous interpretation of planning policy? Alternatively, one can argue that the relative ‘freedom’ offered by planners in this case was to enable architects to come up with imaginative and creative design solutions in accordance with best design practice. Architects, after all, know best when it comes to design – right? Why shouldn’t they be given the rudder on this one? Logic would dictate that they should.

The reality is that we see both professions culpable in this:

In spite of some worthy Additional Information modifications made by Dubln City Council, an effectively illegal interpretation of the O’Connell Street ACA under the 2000 Planning Act led to the initial grant for the scheme by DCC: -1 for planners.

The initial proposal was over-scaled, crudely integrated with its host environment and ignorant of existing building grain and street patterns: -1 to architects, and -1 to planners for granting it.

An Bord Pleanála then gets called in to clean up the mess as usual. They enforce planning policy and civic design character by decree – hardly the best method of producing creative design solutions: both +1 and -1 to the planning system.

Architects come back with a thoroughly dismal redesign that could not express in bricks and mortar the concept of a mean-spirited, begrudging sulk any more if it tried. The O’Connell Street frontage attempts little distinguished sense of urbanity or clarity of expression, never mind anything that approaches a civic-minded outlook for the first major intervention on the capital’s main throughfare in nearly a century: -1 to architects

An Bord Pleanála now reassesses, and grants permission on the basis of a raft of conditional redesign measures that attempt to address the refusal of the promoters to engage in a meaningful manner with the critical planning and design issues at stake. The result is a compromise that does nobody any favours, and where the energy that is expended in the whole arduous process would have been immeasurably better spent concentrated on a thoughtful and engaging urban design proposal – critically, had the guidance been there from the outset.

Well this is hardly only being identified now. It’s a common motif with big projects – something ambitious but crude is rejected, but then something less crude and infinitely more bland is accepted, thus making most stuff built in Dublin bland.

These are some of the problems:
-There is inconsistency in deciding what is appropriate for Dublin’s streetscapes. An Bord Pleanala and DCC are not on the same page, and the latter do not even adhere to their own guidelines.
-Dublin City Council seem content to grant permission to crude projects if they’re exciting enough.
-An Bord Pleanala gets the final say, and it’s more concerned with maintaining the blandness of Dublin, than with ensuring innovative and exciting architecture.

The system doesn’t work. Nobody is ensuring the architectural quality of the buildings granted permission. An Bord Pleanala operates like a damage limitation team, trying desperately to hold on to the limited heritage left in Dublin, rather than creating an innovative fusion of old and new. In my view, the guidelines about building in areas like O’Connell St. need to be less restrictive, both for ABP and DCC, and the counterbalance needs to be that the whole process is overseen by some sort of architectural quality board, which will have a coherent and forward-thinking vision for Dublin. It is, after all, the capital.

@GrahamH wrote:

. . . .Architects come back with a thoroughly dismal redesign that could not express in bricks and mortar the concept of a mean-spirited, begrudging sulk any more if it tried.

It does certainly look like that.

Sometimes you do get so fed up and frustrated with Planners that you do mentally say: ok if you don’t want architecture and you want crap, I’ll give you crap. Architecture is a creative process after all and when you can’t get people to share your vision, hissy-fits are almost inevitable.

As I’ve said many times before ‘in-fill’ is a very difficult architectural challenge and one that, in my experience, the schools often avoid confronting in the training programmes.

It has to be said that the guys who designed this scheme did come up with a considerable amount of originality . . . . on two occassions. That’s enormously to their credit. It’s easy to chuckle at the bad bits and scoff at aspects of the design that we don’t agree with [of which there were many], but there was a lot of architecture in those first two versions, which we probably didn’t acknowledge as much as we should have.

Agreed that Bord Pleanala will need to be at the top of their game to conjure up anything like a satisfactory outcome out of this.

@rumpelstiltskin wrote:

These are some of the problems:
-There is inconsistency in deciding what is appropriate for Dublin’s streetscapes. An Bord Pleanala and DCC are not on the same page, and the latter do not even adhere to their own guidelines.
-Dublin City Council seem content to grant permission to crude projects if they’re exciting enough.
-An Bord Pleanala gets the final say, and it’s more concerned with maintaining the blandness of Dublin, than with ensuring innovative and exciting architecture.

The system doesn’t work. Nobody is ensuring the architectural quality of the buildings granted permission. An Bord Pleanala operates like a damage limitation team, trying desperately to hold on to the limited heritage left in Dublin, rather than creating an innovative fusion of old and new. In my view, the guidelines about building in areas like O’Connell St. need to be less restrictive, both for ABP and DCC, and the counterbalance needs to be that the whole process is overseen by some sort of architectural quality board, which will have a coherent and forward-thinking vision for Dublin. It is, after all, the capital.

rumpel has some good points there which might be lost with the page break.

@JoePublic wrote:

I don’t see why they changed the carlton facade proposal from the second incarnation, as still seen (for the time being) on http://www.dublincentral.ie. I know setbacks are none too popular on archiseek, but its gotta be better than that boxy shite

To answer my own question, it’s because of this condition from ABP:

12. Redesign the buildings to each side of the entrance from O’Connell Street to the new street to provide a more composed treatment, generally using a limited and traditional palette of materials, paying appropriate respect to the relocated Carlton facade. The height of the Carlton/new department store may be of a scale to reflect its increased significance

They were asked for shite so they gave shite. What a dumb condition.

Really really dreadful! I could go into more detail regarding its awfulness but I just can’t be bothered.

This whole process whereby developers prevaricate and Planning Authorities impose spurious “visual” conditions remind me of two previous blights on Dublins built fabric.

Firstly, The ILAC centre. The developers swept away a charming warren of streets only to get cold feet with the economy wobbling in the late 1970s. Their original urban scaled plans were dropped and we ended up with a single storey outer suburban strip mall plonked beside our capitals main street.

Secondly, after permitting and indeed participating in the wanton destruction of Georgian Dublin, the council insisted that all new buildings be in “Georgian style” pastiche crap! Short of a complete reconstruction a la what happened in Europe post WWII, they could have made the best of a bad situation and encouraged architects to experiment with modern architecture. But instead, architects were straight-jacketed to build only in redbrick, with uniform windows.

Both of these examples seem apt with the Carlton site. Nice to see we have learned from history!!

C

@thebig C wrote:

Really really dreadful! I could go into more detail regarding its awfulness but I just can’t be bothered.

This whole process whereby developers prevaricate and Planning Authorities impose spurious “visual” conditions remind me of two previous blights on Dublins built fabric.

Firstly, The ILAC centre. The developers swept away a charming warren of streets only to get cold feet with the economy wobbling in the late 1970s. Their original urban scaled plans were dropped and we ended up with a single storey outer suburban strip mall plonked beside our capitals main street.

Secondly, after permitting and indeed participating in the wanton destruction of Georgian Dublin, the council insisted that all new buildings be in “Georgian style” pastiche crap! Short of a complete reconstruction a la what happened in Europe post WWII, they could have made the best of a bad situation and encouraged architects to experiment with modern architecture. But instead, architects were straight-jacketed to build only in redbrick, with uniform windows.

Both of these examples seem apt with the Carlton site. Nice to see we have learned from history!!

C

The new proposal includes for streets namely Moore Lane and most of Henry Place being completely demolished and rebuilt in paving with ultraviolet light strips!! histrical street pattern retained as per request of ABP? DCC and ABP have destroyed enough of Dublin the public should see the demolition plan with this submission, 90% of the block is being demolished

+1

. . . . as they say in these parts

http://www.pleanala.ie/casenum/232347.htm

granted PP yesterday. Hopefuly get time to read the conditions later.

Why was the Royal Dublin hotel knocked before planning for this was granted? Are they not part of the same scheme? I hope something progresses because one giant hole on the street is bad enough but a second is worse.