Cork Street Ghetto

@burge_eye wrote:

Anyone been up Cork Street in Dub lately? I’ve rarely seen such a blanket demolition job with apartments lashing up everywhere. Think I’ll open a coffee shop.

http://www.lisney.com/subnav.aspx?tabid=3&tabindex=2&inc=commProperty&ID=1141

There ya go 🙂

What a wonderfully poetic name for a street…. the Coombe Relief Road. Nice

To be fair they started demolishing stuff way back in the 50s for the Coombe by-pass thats why The Donnelly Centre (Sausage Factory) was set so far back but it took an eon to buy up all the necessary properties consequently there was a heap of dereliction all the way along this route (designed to serve the new outer suburbs of Crumlin/Drimnagh – that’ll tell you how old this plan was) good to see it starting to turn into a street at last

The Coombe Relief Road has an actual name – it’s on the new edition of the OS map. I can’t remember it.

… it’s St. Luke’s Avenue.

Reckon Burg_Eye could take a shot at applying for the Republics first Hash Cafe a la Amsterdamn…..It would be a winner alright methinks….A C Boles rules !!!! 😎

All four corners of the Ardee Street / Coombe Relief Road crossroads are currently having new development. Two of the corners are complete (the northeast and southwest), one is under construction (the northwest), and the last one (the southeast) has just had local authority planning approval.

This building (above and below) is one of the two completed corners (northeast). I actually like it. It’s broken up well and creates a bit of visual interest. It’s not going to win any awards, but something has to fill these large development sites in the city.

It incorporates refurbishment of a couple of Georgian-house stragglers on Ardee Street, which you can see below. Although the new building is two stories taller than these Georgians, it is ok in this instance because you are moving from a narrow street onto a very broad street, and the new building maintains the rhythm of the older buildings.

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I’ve seen the plans for the two corners not yet completed and, to a greater or lesser extent, they achieve a reasonable standard of urban regeneration development. The real problem is this thing (above and below), on the southwest corner. It is a BLOATED MONSTROUS LUMP OF DEVELOPER RUBBISH. Is stuff like this not coming before senior planners in the council, you have to ask?

Just look at the way it ignorantly hangs its seven stories right in front of the fine 3-storey Georgian brewer’s house on Ardee Street. No effort at all to integrate…

Pre-treated copper really has become the new polished granite hasn’t it? A nice material, but really, what a cliche…

All this development is quite astonishing, and some of it unfortunately for the wrong reasons. Fully agreed about that latter yoke – truly hideous. To borrow an F Mc Dism it is yet another barracks-like scheme.
Busy busy busy, it’s just like one of many childish multi-coloured schemes that went up in Britan 15 years ago now, but with the obligatory ‘contemporary’ addition of ‘natural’ materials of timber and crappy limestone cladding to appease the planners and imbue the development with a supposed fashionable allure.

And yet again, the use of prefab window panels in 2005, yet alone in a residential development is nothing short of astounding!
It is truly awful, flat blank facades with top-hung casements sticking their ugly heads out – is there anything more disgusting in apartment design?

The first scheme is nice alright – it addresses the street by proudly facing outwards, rather than just built to contain x amount of units internally. And the ground floor provides a well-proportioned and finished base for the building as a whole.

The whole charm of this area stems from the Georgian remnants all about the place – used to love passing through this area (before the M50 opened :() and seeing glimpses of Georgian doorways in the midst of railed off sites and billboards, or a sash or two or a length of railing in front of a breeze blocked-up door – all suggesting what once was.
Every effort should be made to integrate in a sympathetic fashion the older houses of the area into new development, which is why it’s such a pity about the above monster facing that brown-stocked Georgian.
One of the advantages of all the derelict sites was that you could appreciate the remaining houses, especially the one above, which you used to be able to approach in full view for quite a distance. It’s still somewhat possible even with that yoke across the road, but the contrast is as cruel as it is ugly.

Don’t worry the inevitable SPAR shops will finish the developments off nicely!?! 🙂

Yes, the copper with raised seams is so often dragged out for a bit of “visual interest” – but, as with so many things, all depends on how it’s used. The deBlacam & Meagher mews on Waterloo Lane, D4 is a great example of its use.

Better give the designers of the above building (with copper section) a mention – Lafferty Design.

Coombe area:
Although it had already lost a lot of its older fabric, the area was still reeking with character and history before the road went through & all the apartments went up. I took photos around the area in 2000, and the change in its appearance even since then is remarkable.

Every effort should be made to integrate in a sympathetic fashion the older houses of the area into new development, which is why it’s such a pity about the above monster facing that brown-stocked Georgian.

As part of the planned development at the southeast corner – where the brown-stocked Georgian is – an interesting glass and stone link will resolve the problem of the butchered gable of the Georgian, and connect to more buildings fronting the relief road. The link is built to parapet height of the Georgian…a bit of care has been taken…But that 7-storey yoke has really done its worst 🙁 .

While i do like a bit of variety in design to break up a steetscape, the last time i walked up here i noticed an overwhelming lack of unity amongst all the new developments, totally disjointed and broken up, no flow to the street, just random buildings shouting out. That overhang is so unneccassary too!!!!, the whole set back top storey is so unsuitable for that building. One thing that really annoys me about the majority of new developments is the complete lack of character on the ground floor, usually just some kind of polished stone/marble and sheet glass… plain and simple, no personality or style, this is our street, why does it have to be so bland, shopfronts on the old style individual buildings usually have very individual styled fronts, now its one monotonous block of repeated bland shopfronts, where has the joy gone in architecture,? no flair, no personality, no room for adaptation, no fun is to be found on street level. Think Camden street, then think of how bland street level on this development will be.

Also in the second picture, wouldn’t the side leading into the georgians have fitted in much nicer without that silly piece of wood between the 2 windows, completely puts it at odds with the georgians when it could have so easily fitted in.

Pre-treated copper is all the rage in Dublin these days. Here’s another uninspiring flat on Barrow St.

Yes it is everywhere – and unfortunately for the material, as evident above it is being used as a token gesture to improve the ‘quality’ of thoroughly cheap developments. You can just imagine the earth-shattering intellectual discussions going on in certain practices – ‘Ah sure tack on a couple a sheets of that green stuff – all the young ones are into it nowadays’.

Coincidentally I had to go out to Crumlin village the other day and so walked from O’Connell Bridge all the way out (:eek: ) via the Coombe. The monster building looks even worse in real life when you see it lining the motorway-like road – it just dominates the area in the most horrible way, its main facade like a cliff face alongside the road.
What is so bizarre though is that the copper development a comparitive distance away from the Georgians are actually lower in height, and their massing significantly more graded, with something of an organic form compared to the shoebox (or chest freezer box more like) across the road.

This element of the facade treatment looks so much worse in real life – truly appalling:

The Ballymun towers are positively elegant compared with this.

The monster building looks even worse in real life

I wasn’t around when it went through planning. I was off working in another part of the country. I’d definitely have had a go at it if I was (fume!).

We’d better not scoff, though, too much at the use of copper. Architects are (often) under pressure from developers to get a big monster through, so they’re doing everything they can do to try’n break the thing up and make it look ‘attractive’…The answer to this problem is these ‘Framework Area Plans’ which the council have been producing lately. They contain objectives for specific sites that might be developed, saying what kind of a building is needed. The problem with the Coombe area was that there was no such Plan to guide these developments when they came in. So as Mob79 said, the new buildings are “totally disjointed and broken up, no flow to the street, just random buildings shouting out”.

Edit: Though that’s not to excuse the planner who passed the above 7-storey yoke; – he/she should be shot; as should the manager who signed the decision!

Yes – the brazen height of it is the worst element. There’s a lot more apartments going up too further down, a mix in quality.

I found it interesting that out of all development in the area, despite the negative associations St Theresa’s Gardens is one of the most attractive residential schemes you came come across in Dublin, made up of rows and rows of elegant wine-red blocks geometrically sited on green lawns flanking the canal – all marching into the distance.

I’ve passed this development for many years now and have always admired it, though admittedly never been inside – must go in some time.
What is striking is how exclusive and po-faced this scheme could be in the hands of a developer, even with the same architecture – ‘waterside setting’ ‘nestling on a mature site’ ‘manicured lawns and walks’ ‘tens minutes from the city centre’ etc etc.

The ranks of imposing chimneys are most impressive – I think they used to be brick but were renderded over when the de-steeling and PVC era swept in about 5-7 years ago 🙁
There’s an interesting skyline of little hump-backed plant rooms etc too – always wondered what these are…

Anyone have thoughts or info on this scheme?

@Graham Hickey wrote:

BBB: Bland Beyond Belief. It’s those prefab windows, they’re really the tasteless icing on the bland cake. 😡 ‘Ah sure stick some wooden uprights on the side of em it and they’ll look great’ – wouldn’t be suprised if they used wood-effect lino either.

@Graham Hickey wrote:

I found it interesting that out of all development in the area, despite the negative associations St Theresa’s Gardens is one of the most attractive residential schemes you came come across in Dublin, made up of rows and rows of elegant wine-red blocks geometrically sited on green lawns flanking the canal – all marching into the distance.

St Teresa’s Gardens is off Donore Avenue and not by the canal. Are you thinking of The Dolphin House flats in Dolphins Barn?

St Teresa’s Gardens

I’ve passed this development for many years now and have always admired it, though admittedly never been inside – must go in some time.
What is striking is how exclusive and po-faced this scheme could be in the hands of a developer, even with the same architecture – ‘waterside setting’ ‘nestling on a mature site’ ‘manicured lawns and walks’ ‘tens minutes from the city centre’ etc etc.

The buildings lived in by the poor become associated with their poverty in the mind of the public. Eventually people see some kind of causal relationship between the architecture and the poverty. At some point the building is knocked down by the city, and the residents rehoused in another style of building, in the hope this will cure their poverty. Rich people sometimes move into their abandoned poverty blocks which then gain associations with being chic. eg Yuppies living in Trellick tower, the many poorhouses and orphanages in London now converted to loft apartments etc.

I think Frank is right- you’re probably thinking of Dolphin House flats.
I used to live right beside St Teresa’s Gardens, and I wouldn’t recommend paying them a visit. When we had bikes nicked by the local kids or broken car wing-mirrors thrown through upstairs bedroom windows and gave chase to the culprits, they’d hide just inside the entrance to the complex and throw rocks at us from their stockpile. Yes, it was no casual rock fight- they actually had their ammo ready for the off. (Obviously, the usual proviso about most of the locals being decent, honest people applies here, the troublemakers being a small minority etc.)
I have some sympathy for them, given the then total lack of facilities in the area (a fine community centre opened about a year ago – by Henchion and Reuter? Can’t rightly remember – though it too has had more than a few windows smashed), and the number of kids hanging around was noticeably higher in summer when school was out. Also, it can’t be easy seeing your traditional working class area being taken over by trendy young couples with SUVs and designer babies, with your only option being to move 20 or 30 miles away from the area your family has lived in for generations.
Lastly: once, when two bikes (locked together) were nicked from our front garden but quickly recovered by us, a motorist mysteriously turned up as we were disentangling them and gave us the names of the thieves (he’d seen them around the corner). All a bit “Truman Show”, if you follow. I get the feeling that it’s not the Guards that are the first line of defence in some parts of town…

Eventually people see some kind of causal relationship between the architecture and the poverty. At some point the building is knocked down by the city, and the residents rehoused in another style of building, in the hope this will cure their poverty.

This is a very interesting point. However I’d go further. I feel that this is actually quite an insidious process because it gives the appearance that the authorities are doing something to combat the cycle of poverty and social exclusion. It seems obvious that spending lots of money, effort and resources on such projects should help but in fact, because it does nothing at all to allieviate social exclusion, I feel that it’s worse than doing nothing. When you think about it, some of the cycles are obvious:

1. From early 20th century Georgian tennements to custom built “modern” flats.
2. From flats to semi-d suburbia.
3. From semi-d suburbia to La Corbusier style modernist.
4. And back to custom built “modern” flats (now called apartments).

I’m thinking about Ballymun here. And this is one reason I have misgivings about the current “regeneration” of Ballymun.

So you shift these people around spending vast amounts of money without every really doing anything. Even well meaning people who anguish about social exclusion are generally too short sighted to see this greater pattern, I think. Instead all you hear about is the mistakes of the previous iteration; there was a series on RTE last year I think were sociologists, planners and politicians were happy to critique the relocation of people in the seventies to bleak out-of-town suburban semi-detached housing estates without any realisation that the style of residences and even the general environment is, if not completely irrelevent, a very minor factor; the middle classes seem to be capable of living in semi-ds, apartments, terraced victorians, etc. without their social order collapsing. This idea won’t appeal obviously to archictects and/or planners who have convinced themselves that they can solve this difficult problem using THEIR tools.

A point well made. Indeed I found it interesting how the new seven story yoke going up pictured above is located right next to 1960s (Fitzgerald?) blocks. Were these new apartments not going up, the common perception would be that ‘the flats’ are the problem, or their design. In fact the 60s blocks have greater appeal that the newly constructed box.

It’s always the architecture and the nature of development (usually high-rise) that is criticised, when in fact greater issues are at work. Of course a decrepit environment and bleak structures can contribute to social exclusion and problems, but it is generally maintenance more than anything that’s at fault.
It is frustrating that not even one of the iconic towers of Ballymun is being preserved – what not? It seems there are a great many people who want to stay living in one/some of them. Why not internally refit one or two of them instead of building yet more happy-clappy multicoloured two-storey houses?

In much of the early colour footage from 1969 of the newly-built development, the towers really do look quite elegant – indeed the architecture of the crisp pre-cast panels has always appealed to me; the scheme is much better than some of the stuff thrown up in the UK 10 years previously. Again it seems to be a case of ‘cleansing’ the area, as if the architecture is the sole issue. The fact that not even one of the buildings is being retained amongst the sunnny new development says it all I think.

Whatever about the 8 storey blocks, the towers are quite iconic at this stage. To sweep every scrap of Ballymun’s past is a shame I think; if nothing else one could stand as a reminder of a mistake not to be made again – and not necessarily architectural.

You’re right Frank about it being Dolphin House Flats – not least as there’s always ‘Dolphin House’ banners hanging about the place 😮 (always thought this referred to just one block or ‘house’).

Here’s a picture from another site:

You can see the elegant formation and the nature of the setting – a lovely place from the outside at least, don’t know what the courtyards are like.

“a BLOATED MONSTROUS LUMP OF DEVELOPER RUBBISH”. – Devin, Meeoooow!
“Fully agreed about that latter yoke – truly hideous” – G Hickey

Dito. I reeeally loike de corner balconies; a perfect lesson in how to protect the apartment interiors from nasty natural light :p

Ardee Court looks alright – although there too the balconies on the left seem also designed to keep out light :confused:

It is frustrating that not even one of the iconic towers of Ballymun is being preserved – what not?

I agree absolutely – it’s quite sad. In ten years time or so people will be looking at old photos of the Ballymum towers with something akin to nostalgia or at least curiousity. Having said that, can you imagine the headlines: “An Taisce calls for the retention of Ballymun towers” – it’d be great fodder for the shrilly indignant media commentators.

I saw a program recently on the BBC where during one segment they interviewed some people who lived in high rise pretty brutalist social towers somewhere in England (excuse the vagueness) but they were extremely proud of their “flats” and even admired them aesthetically. One of them had built up a library on the history of the buildings, the architects involved, construction photographs, etc. I love it when popular simplistic dogmatism (i.e. high rise social housing is a disaster) is punctured – the world is a more complex and interesting place.

Wasn’t that Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower on the BBC tall buildings programme?

Brief description here, showing that its history wasn’t rosy from the word go (i.e. it did have many of the problems associated with high rise social housing for a while), but agreed in principle, jimg.

@jimg wrote:

It is frustrating that not even one of the iconic towers of Ballymun is being preserved – what not?

I agree absolutely – it’s quite sad. In ten years time or so people will be looking at old photos of the Ballymum towers with something akin to nostalgia or at least curiousity. Having said that, can you imagine the headlines: “An Taisce calls for the retention of Ballymun towers” – it’d be great fodder for the shrilly indignant media commentators.

I don’t think so. If you knew Ballymun Flats, they were hated on every front: the people who lived in them hated them (history of suicides, thrashed communal spaces), the people in the wider area hated them (obviously) and they were a maintenance headache for the council (temperature control problems).

The slender metal light switches built into the door frames of all interior doors is a striking little feature – I presume these are protected as part of the Grade II listing…

One example that often comes to mind when modernist architecture or high-rise is singled out as the cause of social ills is the 12 storey Ardoyne House in Ballsbridge built in the 1960s.
If it was in Ballymun it’d be knocked in the morning, yet despite if being ‘high-rise’ and distinctively crude in design, it is one of the most supposedly exclusive addresses in the capital.

It comes across as more than just a little bizarre that those two 10ish storey ‘gateway’ buildings are going up in Ballymun as residential accommodation, while about 10 15 storey towers are coming down.
Is it another case of new and shiny coming to the rescue?

Ballymun was equally new and shiny in 1969.

Was there some kind of serious structural problem withthe Ballymun towers? Something about experimental use of large sheets of precast concrete that then cracked?

DEVELOPMENT INCORPORATING BREWER’S HOUSE (‘THE BREWERY BLOCK’)

A link posted elsewhere on the forum recently (http://www.udi.ie/osud/00005/contents.html) gives information about the development mentioned earlier in the thread at the southeast corner of Ardee Street and the Coombe bypass (by Sheehan & Barry Architects) incorporating the Georgian Brewer’s house, No. 10 Ardee Street (which is one of the finest old houses in the Liberties) and encompassing a whole block (Ardee Street, Coombe Bypass, Newmarket & Brabazon Row): http://www.udi.ie/osud/00005/page%2028.html – Just looking at the images, you can see that it is a carefully-considered development. The traditional fine grain is maintained around the Georgian house and its associated buildings, and the higher buildings are established away from these, at the eastern end of the bypass frontage. A green space is provided in the courtyard.

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THE 7-STOREY MONSTER (NO OFFICIAL NAME GIVEN IN PDF)

There is also information about the seven-storey monster (also covered on the previous page in this thread): http://www.udi.ie/osud/00005/page%2017.html – KMD Architecture are the designers.

Just as the Georgian wallpaper of the Zoe apartment schemes and other mediocre tax-driven renewal schemes are now seen as mistakes of the ‘90s, I think this building and a number of others in the city centre (the enormous bulky development at the corner of Capel Street and Mary’s Abbey would be another) are going to be seen as the mistakes of the ‘00s, where the trend was to squeeze as much as possible onto the site and cynically disguise the bulk with “contemporary” features and finishes.

I can see what happened here: they went for seven stories over the whole bypass frontage to ‘insure’ themselves, thinking they would probably lose a floor or two in planning – especially at the Ardee Street end where it interfaces with the protected Georgian House – but would still get a big building. But the idiot Dublin City Council planner granted the whole thing exactly as presented!! The care taken by the above-mentioned Sheehan & Barry development has been rendered almost meaningless by this monster!

If anyone thinks I am being OTT, go over there and have a look for yourself (or if you’re not in Dublin, see it next time you’re here). As Graham said, it looks even worse in real life (than in the pictures) and dominates the whole area in a horrible way. This is the last time I’m talking about this building because I’m so annoyed about it. My last word is: shame on you KMD for proposing and getting passed what will be a permanent blot in the area, one which had a special character and needed a careful response. The architect has a responsibility to the city and not just to push through the biggest possible development for the client.

Agreed about the Sheehan & Barry scheme. I wonder if the difference is in their familiarity with conservation work and thus appreciation for historic buildings and urban fabric? The practice was responsible in the recent past for, among others, the renovation of Newman House on St Stephen’s Green and Stackallan House in Meath (and the slightly more controversial refurb of University Lodge in UCD, the President’s house- controversial because Hugh Brady decided to spend over 1 million euros doing it up at a time when the college library budgets were being slashed, journal subscriptions terminated etc. I’m not faulting S&B- they had a budget and worked with it. But don’t let me get started on President Brady and his ‘vision’…:mad: ).
Nice also to see Newmarket finally getting some tlc- it’s been a warehouse and document storage wasteland, not to mention a joyriders’ paradise, for too long now. Though I suppose if residents move in it will spell the end of 3am frisbee sessions after carousing in Grey’s pub…:(

You do realise there was a fatal shooting there not too long ago, ctesiphon?! 😮

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http://www.irish-architecture.com/news/2006/000061.html

Just on this ‘SoHo’ thing, there was a recent ‘Times architecture page devoted to all the new development in the Coombe area, which I found to be surprisingly approving in tone.

There is some good, appropriate new development alright, especially at the upper (Dolphin’s Barn) end of the new road. The 12-storey building by FKL Architects (above) looks brilliant – I am sure they are thrilled with it. It shows you how good a mid-tall building can be in the right place.

But the area around the Ardee Street crossroads at the lower end is a complete write-off in terms of the relationship of the new buildings with each other, and, more particularly, the marriage of the new buildings with the old – and needless to say the older buildings have come off worse. Protected Structures have been overwhelmed and dominated by huge new buildings in direct proximity to them. The former industrial brewing and malting character of the area has been all but wiped out by this aggressive new development. The argument of Dublin City Council planner Kieran Rose (as quoted in the piece) that the scale is needed to “contain” the new street is seriously deficient when applied to the sensitive Ardee Street area.

The Department of the Environment issued guidelines to planning authorities a couple of years ago, giving detailed advice on the considerations that need to be made when assessing proposals for new development affecting the curtilage and setting of Protected Structures, but it is doubtful these guidelines were so much as glanced at by Mr. Rose & Co. when processing plans for the Ardee Street part of the Coombe bypass.

I don’t know what the situation was with regard to 3rd party involvement, if any (I wasn’t around myself when most of it went through planning), but I’m pretty sure that the worst of these schemes would not have had such an easy time from An Bord Pleanala, had they been sent there.

If there is an upside to this, Ardee Street will stand as an example of how not to develop a historic corner of the city.

The HKR building at the northwest corner of the crossroads is gone even higher than before. Here it is with its original 6-storey design printed on the banner. But they’ve since gone back for one more storey (doubtless when they saw how monstrously big the KMD 7-storey one across the road was). This extra storey is under construction at the moment behind the scaffolding.

Designing a 6-storey composition then arbitrarily adding one more storey on top because the building across the road is gone up to that does not make good urban design!!
(Having said that, the internal areas and courtyards of the HKR scheme don’t look too bad.)

The new height of it now makes Ardee Court (foreground, discussed earlier) – which is quite a substantial development – look undersized. You can be sure the Ardee Court developers are pulling their hair out now wishing they’d tried to get one or two more floors than they did! Another 4 or 5 apartments maybe? All that missed lolly! 😡
What a mess!
(The Georgian houses on the extreme left and right were once huge in relation to most buildings in the area.)

Where having a number of different architects working on the redevelopment of an area should be a virtue – as for example at the West End of Temple Bar – here, it has just resulted in a retarded, uncoordinated mess.

This one right at the very bottom of the bypass is fine; it’s not bullying any historic buildings.

And what of the last undeveloped (southeast) corner of the Ardee Street crossroads? The approved scheme is a sensitive, appropriately-scaled one, and would have been a model for all the new development in the Ardee Street area. But will they be back for bigger heights now that most everything else around is gone so big? – It won’t surprise me.

look at the amount of green space around the Dolphins barn high density and todays high density?
Glad we not repeating, nah mulitplying old mistakes…. :rolleyes:

@Devin wrote:

You do realise there was a fatal shooting there not too long ago, ctesiphon?! 😮

I have witnesses who can place me 8 miles away at the time.