Corner of King & Church Streets

I presume you are referring to the Grafton Architects apartment development for Zoes. You are quite right as to the design, bloody awful would be my assessment!!.

As for the development being stalled, I’m not certain, works seem to be proceeding at the rear on Bow Lane however there is also a compliance issue as the interior layouts have apparently considerably altered from those for which planning permission was granted and the penthouse / parapet level does not appear to reflect the development for which planning was granted either.

Coincidentally, this development was the result of a competition organised by Dublin Corporation for a site partly owned by themselves and partly owned by Zoes. What is really interesting here is that the site originally accommodated two very decent 1750’s townhouses which the competition participants were informed by the Corporation should be demolished (no recourse to working with the existing fabric.

Lastly, the Corporation owned lands appear to have been sold to Zoes without recourse to public tender ,not exactly the most transparent of procedures.

I think he meant the other side of the street – the one with the silly rotunda. There’s no accounting for taste, but I think the Grafton Architects scheme is one of the best apartment schemes in years.

Yep thats by zoe developments alright, The red brick is cheap looking, but I think the shutters are cool (I belive that zoes wanted to throw up their usual stuff, but the corpo insisted on an architect being hired…well done corpo).

Rory W

PS I think that they have ground to a halt due to the fact that they cant decide what to do with the ground floor (mind you there is still a crane at Charlotte Quay and that has been basically finished for at least a year and a half – aqnybody know why its still there?).

Taste does’nt even begin to enter into it. I had a ‘discussion’ (ok I barracked him) with one of the architects at the AAI awards re: the excessive height. His response was tha tthe rest of the city could be regarded as three storeys too low!!.

Its a pretty bombastic scheme, too tall, too harsh, too invasive. Whatever happened to urbanism and context??? Does anybody remember those concepts from college (thats for the architects out there).

Yeah, well friends of mine who live beside it think its excellent.

I don’ think it warrants so much criticism: there are worthier targets. The use of timber is ok, better than the de Blacam and Mara(?) apartments in Temple Bar, where their us of timber is obsessively mannered, and messes up the whole scale. Re. the height: why not? If we want density, then we’ve to go upwards, and its hardly all that overbearing. We’ve all seen far far worse.

The use of timber at Church St is rubbish, it’s there as a small decorative feature, almost an afterthought. “Hey, lets use timber shutters” “Cool man, that would be great, that’s the design work finished so, let’s go and have a gin and tonic”

In no way is it better than the timber work of de Blacam & Meagher whose standard of buildings is excellent. Look at the Copper Alley apartments, look at the corner of Castle Street. Excellent buildings all.

The Church St building is overscaled, mishapen, completely unattractive and should never have been build.

I wish people would use spellchecks…..
Why not discuss some other issues such as the way in which the apartments were grouped together and their relation to the street….you don’t often get that degree of planning in schemes that size.

Excuse me, all this talk of gin and tonics – this apartment building was the winning scheme in an open architectural competition – not a casual afterthought as you imply. I’m sure it took a lot of work by the architect to get a developer like Zoe to produce a scheme of this quality. And it took a leap of imagination for the corpo to run the competition in the first place.

I have just downed my Gin & Tonic, with rod in one hand and sandwiches in the other i will leave you lot to argue it out, Iv’e Gone Fishing!

Owen is right about the procurement method being forward of the Corpo. Re. the comment on the quality of the Copper Alley apartments: I really do disagree. The massive sliding doors to the tiniest living spaces were a particularly dumb and perverse feature.

I see they are currently working on this building again. Has the problem being sorted? or is it illegal development?