City Quay?

An entrant that better not win

Oh come now! What with Georges Qy, Tara St etc… this wouldn’t be THAT out of place if shaved down a tad.

I don’t like the design of that building.
But on a broader level, is this not just going to lead to yet another ‘taller than average’ cluster that is so regretted regarding the Hawkins area? Obviously the architecture of the buildings here is a big issue, but I find their height more offensive.
So we’ll have Liberty Hall, Tara St, George’s Quay and now this ganging up on the Custom House.
Anywhere else free where we can chuck in another?

I’m just concerned that when true tall buildings go up, their impact will be diluted by squat mid-risers like these – a point you agreed with before d d dallas. Also such strutures are detrimental to the general low-rise nature of the city – they blur the lines.
It seems that far from the Docklands opening up new opportunities for taller buildings further away from the city core, the opposite appears to be the case, with proposals creeping in towards the city – although admittedly this proposal is on the very boundary of what I’d consider to be the city.

@Andrew Duffy wrote:

Whilst the George’s Quay and Tara St. Station buildings fit that description, I don’t think a modern 28 storey apartment building does. I also doubt if Dublin land prices will ever reach the levels required to make significantly taller buildings viable.

Is it all Resi?

It looks to me like 7 storeys of commercial and 21 storeys of Apartments, architecturally I like it, particularly the view from the IFSC, it is an interesting form.

Regarding the Custom House, my own fear is that the vista is already destroyed and the only real quality that remains is the view from Georges Quay looking towards the IFSC, which really is such a pity as it was arguably once the finest building in this City.

Personally with this one I’d like to see 12 storeys Commercial (11&1) and about the same again in apartments which would be close enough the height sought at present, in terms of design quality it is certainly adequate.

My own fear is that this site would be developed in a Georges Dock fashion

The site is border-line I think, I’d find a tall building here much more acceptable were it not for the existance of George’s Quay and the proposed bulk of Tara St (in itself is a great piece of architecture), which combined will radically alter the nature of what I consider the historic city centre.

I know how po-faced it sounds and people may say such thinking is anti-progress etc, but I think there is an imaginary line drawn at the Matt Talbot that should be respected in height terms. I still can’t believe Tara St got permission – if the station wasn’t there to sweeten the development on density/access grounds, one maybe sure planners would have balked at a building of such a scale here. I very much doubt such a building would have been allowed in its mirror location across on Eden Quay (ignoring Liberty Hall & Custom House).

The prosposed building could be a positive contribution, if not a landmark building were it not for the presence of existing mid-risers – it could act as a gateway the Docklands.

While I’m a big fan of higher buildings for Dublin, I’ve a certain amount of sympathy for the previous position. Ideally I would have liked to have seen a distinct and contiguous area of tall buildings while maintaining the character of the existing urban areas of Dublin. East of the Matt Talbot bridge would have been ideal for such development but unfortunately through lack of imagination, the DDDA have largely bestowed us with low rise, low density unimaginative suburban office park type development. The opportunity there has been squandered, so now Dublin is effectively forced to allow tall buildings in infill sites in order to increase the density in the city centre. I don’t really like this pattern of development; London has gone for a similar approach with out-of-place looking tall buildings dotted seemingly at random around a largely low rise city scape. I much prefer how it’s done in Paris for example with it’s high rise quarters.