Dublin Public Realm Strategy

I think it’s a case of heads down thumbs up to the “teachers” yes miss…

– connect the nots with a k and full stops
– ëb and flow or movement and motion with water. on street stream that is gravity feed with rainwater 300mm deep/wide
– unusual green spaces
– a masterplan with one master and lots of teachers
– re create on
– transport without the baar

@StephenC wrote:

Now that the new Dublin City Development Plan has been adopted (it comes into force in a couple of weeks), the City Council can hopefully start making progress on the promised Public Realm Strategy for the city. Some of the ideas in the Strategy have already been shared and the draft is expected early in the new year.

So I thought it might be a good time to ask what posters would like to see in the Strategy? What themes should the Strategy follow and what ideas would you like to see incorporated? Perhaps comments could go towards making an Archiseek submission.

I hate jargon, but I do like the term Public Realm, it has a nice connotation of ownership about it – . . . . . this is what belongs to us, it’s about the part of the city that we own. Londis might own the lease, but their cheap aluminium windows and double size sign are in our ‘public realm’.

I think even the Corpo realize we’re on a learning curve with ‘Public Realm’, we need to educate ourselves, we need to look at just how far we’ve slipped behind accepted international standards. All that urban decay and dereliction in the 70s and 80s probably damaged our psyche, left us thinking that any aul streetscape that doesn’t have half a dozen gaps filled with corrugated iron hoardings and tarmac patched pavement is a good streetscape.

If we are on a learning curve about quality in the public realm, the best way to learn, as always, is by example, and the best way to bring people from point A [where we’re at now] to point B [where we’d like to be] is by showing leadership.

Improving the public realm is probably one of those aspirations that everyone instinctively wants to get behind, so surely the solution is to knock the heads together, City Council, City Centre Business Association, Civic Trust etc. etc., pick a grotty piece of city centre streetscape and use it as a pilot study to show people just how the public realm can be transformed relatively quickly just with the application of a bit of good advice and a few careful interventions.

I might have been a bit harsh on the ‘Academy of Urbanism Awards’ thing on another thread, because I think it’s too easy to give urban awards to cities like Freiburg, with all their natural attributes and sublime architectural heritage, but focussing the discussion on the public realm of places like Freiburg would go along way to illustrating what standards we need to be aiming for.

I agree – Publicrealm is very important 😀

New board not so easy to navigate – maybe in time?

@StephenC wrote:

An interesting article in today’s Irish Times interviewing Paul Kelly, Managing Director of Brown Thomas provides some food for thought. In relation to Dublin as a visitor destination, he says:

People want to come to places that are clean, places that are safe and places that are fun and entertaining. The city needs to do that in a bigger and better way… We do what we can within out four walls [BTs]. But there’s a lot of dirt and filth, badly maintained streets, badly maintained pavements, badly maintained street furniture.

I agree with this peoples wanted to stay on clean places and seat on clean street furniture’s. I guess in order to do that there should be peoples designated to clean those street furniture’s so everyone may see it clean. In that order others may be glad to stay there and have more pleasant time doing their work in the street furniture.

My TV shows

Dublin definitely needs a public realm strategy. I love this city, I think it’s great and it’s got a lot going for it. However Dublin could be so much better with a City Council which actually cared and had a far greater sense of vision. One thing we need is a proper code for shop-fronts so that they blend in with, respect and enhance their contexts. This code must be ruthlessly enforced with severe penalties for breaches of the code. We also need a cull of all the poles which clutter our streets. There are hundreds of redundant poles out there which need to be eliminated. Council workers and those contracted to work on their behalf on roadworks need to be sent on a course on how to pave streets properly. The amount of streets ruined by careless and arbitrary tarmacking are countless and it would improve the urban fabric to have these addressed. We also need to look at redeveloping key districts of the city so as to improve the public realm. Creating pedestrianised squares in places like College Green would make the city much more liveable and attractive. We also need to put design at the heart of what we do and create. Everything should be thought of in aesthetic as well as practical terms. Doing these things would make Dublin truly a fair city.

In case anyone isn’t aware of it, there is a detailed report from the Dublin Civic Trust called “Defining Dublin’s Historic Core.”

http://www.dublincivictrust.ie/_webgears/_filescontent/Defining-Dublins-Historic-Core.pdf

A good news story from Dublin Docklands

[url]Grand Canal Theatre http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/1228/1224286356938.html%5B/url%5D

Actually I think Docklands offers a very interesting view on how the public realm can work to build coherence in an area as well as having a more disharmonious influence. Take a walk around Docklands, north and south, and keep your eyes pealed. South of the river the area comes across very well. A limited palette of high quality paving materials consistently applied, wide pavements, formal use of trees and planting, some key spaces of a high quality (the theatre plaza and Chimney Park) and a limited but consistent number of lighting standard styles. There are some minor blips – the half job on Macken Street and the clutter of older lamps and poles on Pearse Street (4 years after the public domain works were completed). Road signage appears to have been kept to a minimum. Overall the new streets have a very clean and consistent appearance, if a little sterile. The quay area onto the dock is well designed and pleasant and the Martha Schwartz plaza adds colour and animation.

Now over to the northside: this area is generally more established and populated than the south side but much of the development happened in the 1990s and early 2000s so it has had time to mature. Luas is the big new thing here, bringing with it a wirescape but a generally well designed streetscape. One of my bugs here through is the lighting. All those repro lights look so out of place in this shiny new city quarter. There are an increasing number of other styles being added as well…mainly by Luas, and the whole effect is to decrease the overall coherence of streetscapes. It would be much better to go all modern in my view. Consider the junction of Mayor Street and Amiens Street/Memorial Road – I counted 6 lamp styles at this junction and the lighting and signage hasnt really been rationalised very well.

Further down towards the Point coherence is lost completely. One thing I noticed about this area in October, during Open House weekend, was the various paving and lighting styles added to new developments without any reference to each other. There is also a lack of overall vision to allow various developments link in with each other via good quality open spaces and well designed new routes. In my view there is a real lack of planning down here. The downturn has obviously had a hand in this. Huge sites remain undeveloped and now derelict, the Point Village scheme hasn’t take off as it should and the main “square” is a tarmac surface. Its very bleak down here…I pity those people who splashed out on apartments. What a turn off to city living they must be having. Which brings me to another article in todays Times:

[url]Inner City Living http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1228/1224286362190.html%5B/url%5D

One of my big bugs are those large ugly solid bollards which keep appearing about the city. This is by far the worst spot. A DCC team spent the summer up and down Talbot Street repairing broken paving and generally tidying up. Couldnt resist and extra dollup of bollards though.

What are the function of these bollards? Are they meant to discourage on-street parking? If so, effective wardening would combat this problem and raise a bit of revenue for the cash-strapped council in the process.

The Dublin Civic Trust document is excellent, it definitely is good reading on this issue. It looks like some of GrahamH’s personal archive of photos was used in it too! What would be great is if the Dublin Civic Trust gave drawings and images of what could be done to improve the public realm. Perhaps the self-same GrahamH would post up images of what the Civic Trust would like to do with specific spaces in the city.

What do you think of this:

Proposed new “casual trading” locations around the City

DCC are planning to go to public tender to gauge public interest in getting involved in new “casual trading” locations around the city.

Full list of locations are below – the level of interest and price that city entrepreneurs are willing to pay will determine the future…

Proposed Location Products for sale Days of Trading Hours of trading
Amiens Street at entrance to IFSC Tea/coffee/light hot & cold food snacks Mon-Sun 7.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Heuston Station – north east of Luas stop Tea/coffee/light hot & cold food snacks Mon-Sun 7.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Mountjoy Square at south west corner Tea/coffee/light hot & cold food snacks Mon-Sun 7.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Irish Life Centre Abbey St Tea/coffee/light hot & cold food snacks Mon-Sun 7.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Island opp BOI College Green Tea/coffee/light hot & cold food snacks Mon-Sun 7.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Sandymount Promenade Tea/coffee/light hot & cold food snacks Mon-Sun 7.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Clontarf Promenade Tea/coffee/light hot & cold food snacks Mon-Sun 7.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Corner Conyngham Rd & Infirmary Road jnct. Tea/coffee/light hot & cold food snacks Mon-Sun 7.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Location Products for sale Days of Trading Hours of trading
Dawson Street Night time hot/cold food & non-alcoholic drinks Thurs-Sun 11.00 p.m. – 4.00 a.m.
Fleet St opposite Price’s Lane Night time hot/cold food & non-alcoholic drinks Thurs-Sun 11.00 p.m. – 4.00 a.m.
Harcourt St. Night time hot/cold food & non-alcoholic drinks Thurs-Sun 11.00 p.m. – 4.00 a.m.
Fade St. Night time hot/cold food & non-alcoholic drinks Thurs-Sun 11.00 p.m. – 4.00 a.m.
Island opp. BOI College Green Night time hot/cold food & non-alcoholic drinks Thurs-Sun 11.00 p.m. – 4.00 a.m.
Junction Fownes Street and Central Bank Night time hot/cold food & non-alcoholic drinks Thurs-Sun 11.00 p.m. – 4.00 a.m.
Barnardo Square Portrait Artist Mon-Sun 9.00 a.m. – 9.00 p.m.
St Patrick’s Park Portrait Artist Mon-Sun 9.00 a.m. – 9.00 p.m.
College Green (Junction of Fownes Street and Central Bank) Portrait Artist Mon-Sun 9.00 a.m. – 9.00 p.m.
Boardwalk – Art during the Summer (Jun-Aug) Artist’s own original work Sat-Sun 9..00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Coppinger Row Irish food produce / Crafts Thurs-Fri 9..00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Moore Street Variety of products: e.g. flowers, fruit, vegetables, jewellery, etc Sunday 9..00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Option of Sunday trading at other locations where existing designated pitches currently trade Mon-Sat varies with location Sunday 9.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Merchant’s Arch Books and / or paintings Sat-Sun 9.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Newmarket Square Bric a brac Sunday 9.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Ranelagh Triangle Jewellery / Foodstuffs / Crafts Sat-Sun 9.00 a.m. – 6.30 p.m.
Junction South Great George’s St. / Dame Lane Flowers Mon-Sun 9.00 a.m. – 6.30 p.m.
O’Connell St. (south side of Spire) Flowers Mon-Sun 9.00 a.m. 6.30 p.m.
Top of Grafton Street FlowersJewellery Mon-Sun 9.00 a.m. 6.30 p.m.
Finglas Village Market Variety of products: e.g. flowers, fruit, vegetables, jewellery etc. Sat-Sun 9.00am – 6.00 p.m.

interesting news. cant imagine too many being successful in this weather anyway. what about a design competition to design publicly owned, remove-able kiosks? could solve the weather problem and become an interesting feature of the city, rather than haphazard stalls with napkins blowing away in the wind. I know we have a pretty poor recent history of kiosks in the city but i’d love to see more of the likes of the coffee angel vans and the kiosk at smithfield luas station.

one thing re. moore street location. is that street not chok-a-block with stalls over the weekend, or is it just saturdays?

where can one find further info on this? couldnt see anything on dublincity.ie after a quick browse.

This is now out to public consultation in case you missed it…

http://www.dublincity.ie/Planning/Pages/Planning.aspx

And if you are a Twit, the Greens are looking for your comments to inform their submission. #DublinPetHates

@gunter in 2010 wrote:

surely the solution is to knock the heads together … pick a grotty piece of city centre streetscape and use it as a pilot study to show people just how the public realm can be transformed relatively quickly just with the application of a bit of good advice and a few careful interventions.

…and the result is… Fade Street. Remarks on a postcard please. The general consensus I’ve had so far has been varying degrees of comparison with its RTÉ Two equivalent.

cue soft dulcet sensuous TV voice….

Fade Street, Dublin
celebrating black tarmac

Any pics of the Fade Street resurfacing?

Looking a wee bit different than the architect’s drawing seen at the recent Historic Paving Seminar at DCC… A very disappointing scheme in my view.

Just wait until you see whats planned for Clarendon Street!

Is that the final finish? Tarmac?

Yup
The artists impressions suggested a tan coloured surface but Sierra felt black was more practical.
The yellow spray paint washed away after a year or so.

It looks temporary. On the upside it means that when the utilities come along and dig it up (which they will, and probably before long), they in theory should be able to patch it neatly

Surely there’s a resin fixed coating to be added yet?

Even at that, it would still look pretty crap…can’t believe thats the final finish.

Jeremy Clarkson hasn’t branched out into urban design has he?

You wouldn’t usually think – formula one, pit-lane, aesthetic – when it comes to the public realm improvement and partial pedestrianization of a three hundred year old street.

If I was Joseph Fade, I would immediately begin haunting the individual responsible for this until he hands in a request to be transferred back down to Drainage Division, where he belongs.

Jaw drops! Worryingly I have seen a spate of public realm ‘improvements’ with tarmacadam footpaths popping up around the place of late. :sick:

Saw that Fade Street ‘improvement’ scheme when I was back in Dublin for xmas. Would be grateful for any updates on whether or not this is the finished scheme or whether it is temporary. That tarmac finish was looking recession-tastic :crazy:

Gone are the days I used to come home each year to see a new city block or landmark building on the horizon. This year was more about the calmness of the city and the empty shopfronts.

Even if . . . tarmac is the new Granite . . . which it fecking isn’t, how do you excuse the ever so random concrete block seating? That is, assuming these blocks are intended to be seats and not some fiendish devise to take out the visually impaired.

Have we so completely lost the art of making street furniture that public seating is now reduced to a half meter cube of concrete? . . . with two placement settings; square, and, just a bit twisted.

I notice that streetlighting is now being added (the modern catalogue style) so perhaps this remains a work in progress. It is feasible that a resin coat is to be added once the weather improves (clutching at straws here) to give a final finish. The architects sketch which I saw for the street had a beige surface, suggesting this is the final intended finish. Strangely though the sketch never showed all the clutter…bike stands, bollards, the cubes, etc.

Back to the Public Realm Strategy….the public consultation period closed for this on Wed and below are a couple of submissions made by Dublin Civic Trust and the Green Party. The Green Party submission has some good ideas and borrows from previous reports of the quality of the city centre including Dublinspirations (2004) by An Taisce and Defining Dublin’s Historic Core (2010) by Dublin Civic Trust. They also used Twitter to engage public ideas – v novel.

DCT submission http://www.dublincivictrust.ie/news-entry.php?title=trust-submission-on-draft-public-realm-strategy&post=1326880527

Green Party submission http://issuu.com/greenpartyireland/docs/dublin_public_realm_strategy__submission

Back to the real public realm….no movement since Nov on the lighting scheme on College Green.

If true it’s quite surprising… There is timing and then there is timing.
Who ever keeps editing wiki for college green is trapped in the past.

I don’t think that was a lighting scheme… It was something else.

If anything comes of this I would be quite shocked…

@gunter wrote:

Thanks for the pics, gunter. I had a look at the botch job myself recently.

What a disappointment.

This scheme enforces the carriageway for cars by cluttering either side of the street with unnecessary furniture to keep pedestrians penned in. In fact, the street is now even more cluttered than it was before.

– Cube-shaped parking bollards passed off as seats. Why can’t we have benches and chairs like any normal city?
– Absolutely massive tree containers that enforce the barrier between the footpath and roadway.
– Those repulsive bin standards from DCC.
– Unsightly “no parking” poles along the street. Get rid of them. There has to be a better way of communicating this information.
– Tarmaced footpaths. How hideously cheap, tacky and downright insulting.
– The road surface is exactly that, a road surface. It’s supposed to be attractive to pedestrians first and foremost.

Oh dear. This does not bode well for DCC’s Public Realm Strategy.

I am not at all surprised. I’d be kidding myself if I thought DCC would ever have the required talent or aesthetic to pull this off.

I expect Clarendon Row and William Street will get the same dreadful treatment: Designed primarily for cars with miscellaneous municipal junk between the roadway and narrow footpath, all topped off with the cheapest tarmac available from DCC’s Roads & Traffic Department.

Disheartened yet again,
Morlan

Anyone know if the submissions are being published?

I took an utterly depressing walk this morning from Fairview into the city centre…utterly utterly depressing.

I see the resin coat has arrived…its an obvious improvement on bare tar, but ultimately not good enough for a city centre urban street scape…

Thank god for that…

These look smart

A lot of the dodgy concrete blocks removed, sleeker bollards but in. Looks better – even if it the usual random choice of street furniture.

The wooden boxes are nice – wouldnt mind them out around the house, but those bollards look flimsy. It’s not bollards we need but enforced tow-away no parking zones, especially for the white van brigade.

Well bollards are my pet hate and this business of choosing random designs at different locations around the city also bugs me. However they seem to be viewed as a requirement on all streets and I am really not sure where that idea comes from.

These bollards at least cause less clutter than the concrete blocks originally installed.

Listened to various speakers talk about reducing street clutter at the Thomas Street Study yesterday and of course now included in new City Development Plan and Public Realm Strategy but it does seem to take a while to filter through the ranks to design teams and installation. Traffic signs here could have been tackled differently.

The whole point of Fade Street was to try out simple and cost effective solutions to public realm improvement.

If the aim of the project is a ‘simple and cost effective solution’ that improves a street, then by that standard it can be viewed as a qualified success.
I suppose the question is how long until the plants are festooned with cigarette butts and glasses, and all the bollards are at 45 degrees, having been hit by the aforementioned white vans.
The biggest issue in Dublin has always been maintenance but if this project shows how a very small budget can go quite far, then it has succeeded.

Vast improvement, Stephen, but pig’s lipstick comes to mind.

It doesn’t change the fact that DCC have designated this street as a main roadway for vehicles. Pedestrians come last as always.

Haven’t they learnt anything from our European neighbours? You can still have a fully pedestrianised street with feithicil access by the use of simple markings.

How simple was that? Remove the daft poles and use one surface for the street. Now we have an attractive pedestrian street that can still be used by cars.

Christ above. It really isn’t that difficult. I dread to think what the eejits in DCC have in store for the rest of the Grafton Street area.

Not bad in the end i suppose, if a little loud. Hornbeam with box hedging work very well, nice compact street trees.

I have found the concrete blocks previously mooted for the street…around the corner on Clarendon Street blocking up a parking bay.

Frank McDonald derides Irish attitudes to public realm works in the Irish Times http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/magazine/2012/0421/1224314944651.html …and longs for France.

And today works begin on Palace Street to create a more appropriate pedestrian entrance to Dublin Castle. The works are due for completion in July. The details are here http://www.dublincity.ie/swiftlg/apas/run/WPHAPPDETAIL.DisplayUrl?theApnID=2598/11&backURL=%3Ca%20href=wphappcriteria.display?paSearchKey=1692346%3ESearch%20Criteria%3C/a%3E%20%3E%20%3Ca%20href=’wphappsearchres.displayResultsURLResultID=2094028%26StartIndex=11%26SortOrder=APNID:asc%26DispResultsAs=WPHAPPSEARCHRES%26BackURL=%3Ca%20href=wphappcriteria.display?paSearchKey=1692346%3ESearch%20Criteria%3C/a%3E’%3ESearch%20Results%3C/a%3E …minus details of the amendments made during the Part VIII process. One of the first elements to fall foul of DCC Roads was the staggered pedestrian crossing over Dame Street. This crossing would have formed part of the pavement differentiation used to denote the course of the River Poddle.

We shall see how the works progress but I am not particularly happy about the design put forward. A simple scheme of cobbles and Wicklow granite with historic standards would have sufficed. This contemporary scheme just adds to the mishmash around the environs of the Castle in my view.

The works were proposed by DCC Heritage Office (not City Architects) and funded by the NTA.

Pottered down to Palace Street today to see a mini-design disaster unfold. Works are progressing on a public realm scheme for the street which includes retaining what remains of the Wicklow granite in situ and paving the rest of the area in shiny new granite with an odd limestone section, meant to suggest the River Poddle. Designs above – comment on the scheme at this stage: pointless.

Anyhow, in time honoured fashion, sections of new kerbstones are being laid today which dont match the original kerbstones in either look or even width. The effect is dreadful. Totally at odds with what one would expect for a prestigious scheme such as this. The myth that there must be stacks of granite kerbs and slabs in some warehouse somewhere, given that DCC and contractors have spent the last 20 years systematically digging it up, remains just that…a myth.

The site is strewn with broken fragments of paving slabs of Wicklow granite…all carefully numbered to be sure, but its hard to imagine what it is intended to do with them. Set into mortar in a jigsaw effect?

Best of all is the new public lighting scheme…large columns (or one at least) such as those found on the quays. Totally over scaled and stuck up right against No. 2 where it will no doubt provide motorway-level luminescence into the bedrooms of the Sick & Indigent Roomkeepers House. Its appears the DCC Lighting Dept odds and end bin has been raided yet again for this prestigious location.

Its worth a look.

The

Interesting article on the growing privatisation of public space in the UK (and London specifically) http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/s2Zc6FRpIX5hFvcBze9WCLA/view.m?id=15&gid=uk/2012/jun/11/granary-square-privately-owned-public-space&cat=most-read

The comment about London life that you can either work, shop or spend time in a restaurant is quite telling. I have just spent the past few days wandering about looking for some free space to work…not even wanting to use wifi. Few and far between. With libraries under attack here due to funding cuts its more and more obviously how much common social spaces are needed in big urban centres.

Yes, it never fails to amaze how the same mistakes are made over and over and over again, no matter how many glossy documents, public workshops, public consultations, design statements, development plan policy objectives and an overarching crippling waste of taxpayers’ money is thrown at something as primitive as decent, common sense public realm design. What is going on over on Palace Street at the minute is a disgrace and an insult to citizens and everyone who gives up their time and knowledge to Dublin City Council to try and improve standards.

Firstly, the entrance to Dublin Castle is being treated like the construction site of a ghost estate in a field in Roscommon. Is this type of presentation acceptable in the ceremonial heart of any other European capital?

What an embarrassment.

No decent hoarding, no visualisations, no apology, and no public information about what is happening. The various signs hanging off the tatty railings are in themselves a late innovation, arriving a fortnight after site works began.

Secondly, the design itself. What is proposed is a chaotic jumbled mix of design concepts and materials, with the River Poddle demarcated in a jagged path of limestone through the roadway. This in itself will not actually accord with where the Poddle culvert is running underneath, never mind the indignity of such a crass concept for such a prestigious location. This will be flanked on either side by new Leinster granite, in turn flanked by re-laid narrow antique granite pavements. These in turn will be flanked by concrete paving out on Dame Street and the imported white granite used on Barnardo Square. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

The site at present.

Jaw-droppingly, after the past five years of head-banging against a granite wall, STILL a complete balls is being made of the antique granite paving here – one of the most critically important paved locations in the entire city. It beggars belief what is going on. Look at this mess. The historic granite paving sweeping around from the Castle gate to Barnardo Square is being relaid ‘sympathetically’, and yet a modern granite kerb is being reinstated alongside it! Yes, this premier ‘flagship’ antique pavement veers from wide historic granite kerbing outside the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers, into narrow modern kerbing flanking Robocop, and then back out again into wide kerbing on Dame Street! Someone please shoot these people.

Not only that, look at the ridiculous junction created, with postage stamp infill.

As the pavement approaches Dame Street, it widens back out again into regular historic kerbing.

This, the busiest entrance into the ceremonial Dublin Castle complex…

Also, as can be seen above and below, this is the type of world class jointing being executed around a shore cover. A thick band of cement. You wouldn’t accept this on your suburban patio. Who the heck is in charge of this?

Then we come to the jointing itself. What should be buttery, delicate lines of lime mortar are crude wide crevices apparently filled with cement.

As for the artistic design treatment of the signature curved sweep as it joins with the existing granite pavement on Dame Street…

Truly shocking stuff.

What should be a gracious fan equating to this…

Is this.

What an outrage.

Then we come to the public lighting. At the very minimum, one would expect pedestrian scale historic standards with high quality copper or bronze heads addressing the entrance gates to Dublin Castle, acknowledging the ceremony of the location and the intimacy of this small enclave. But no – instead we get a giant, gawd-awful skinny reproduction Scotch standard with slotted-on decorative hoops designed in the 1990s to line arterial routes into the city. This truly beggars belief – you’d think this were a joke, were it not for real sitting there in front of you being paid for with our money.

A farce.

The gimmicky jaggedy line emerging at the Palace Street gate composed of flimsy modern kerbs – an insult to this gracious historic enclave.

If there is a solitary saving grace in this disaster zone, it is the reappearance of new Leinster granite on Dublin streets, probably for the first time in over a decade. It is a beautiful material, with all of the coarse granular qualities and warm rusty tones we are so familiar with.

A joy to behold, unlike the rest of the works being undertaken here in the name of public realm ‘design’ and historic paving ‘conservation’. One truly despairs about the lack of change in this city.

An utter disgrace. This scheme was conceived and led by the Heritage Officer of the Council at Part VIII stage and is being supervised by the City Architects division. There isnt even the excuse of blaming it on aesthetically challenged Roads engineers!

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

This might sound naive coming from an emigrant, but could the unbelievably shoddy workmanship have anything to do with the lack of skilled laborers in Ireland – a brain-drain symptom of the recession? Or is it just a lack of proper supervision due to a totally dysfunctional administration in DCC?

I recall a few years back, a landscape architect from Paris once said to me how amazingly impressed he was with the GPO plaza finishing – such pristine quality and careful attention to detail. Shouldn’t that project not have set a benchmark for the standard of future street improvement schemes in the city centre? How can the same local authority be so inconsistent?

@GrahamH wrote:

Then we come to the public lighting. At the very minimum, one would expect pedestrian scale historic standards with high quality copper or bronze heads addressing the entrance gates to Dublin Castle, acknowledging the ceremony of the location and the intimacy of this small enclave. But no – instead we get a giant, gawd-awful skinny reproduction Scotch standard with slotted-on decorative hoops designed in the 1990s to line arterial routes into the city. This truly beggars belief – you’d think this were a joke, were it not for real sitting there in front of you being paid for with our money.

Perhaps elegant lamp heads such as these are proposed for this prestigious location.

okay okay so I am being churlish…these were erected on Marlborough Street opposite the Abbey Theatre a couple of months back but are clearly temporary…aren’t they?

Something like this might be more suitable…

From the new promenade and town centre improvement scheme in Dun Laoghaire. They’re generic but quite attractive none the less. The style of lamp you find in many Spainish cities, where they tend to mix modern paving and public realm and smart heritage lamps with a high degree of success.

The Dun Laoghaire scheme is really impressive…and little commented on.

The lighting scheme extends along much of Marine Road, Crofton Road and Queens Road. It looks very smart…very continental.

The scheme is intended to complement the new promenade area on Queen Road.

Looks great…bright and colourful.

Some playful coloured lighting adds interest. These look great to me and would really suit somewhere like South King Street in the city centre.

The planting is very smart too. Lots of buxus hedging.

These generous tree pits line Marine Road and Crofton Road around County Hall.

So a month on from Graham’s post re Palace Street, how have things progressed.

A large part of the paving has been completed. As Graham noted the quality of stone is excellent, a warm buttery tone that exudes style. The scheme however appear to have deviated significantly from the original plans. Not least the limestone zigzag that was intended to replicate the course of the River Poddle. The limestone has been replaced by cobble setts..which make much more sense. The pattern looks silly to me though. Overly fussy. Its also broken into bands. Its all very bizzare. I have heard it referred to ‘The Lightening Strike’.

The view towards the Castle gate…now more or less complete

Uplighters have been set into pavement here to light the gate. One hope OPW will remove some of the add ons here…the silly sign and that redundant notice board. A pair of wall mounted lanterns, similar to those on the opposite side of the gate would also look well.

No resolution yet of the poor paving to the front of Chez Max…perhaps to be resolved at a later stage.

The centre section…with cobbled zigzag

Towards the mouth of the street a new kerbline has been created along Dame Street and this section is now under construction.

Hmm, all a bit of a mess up this end.

The original plans also proposed trees on the street. Not much sign of these though.

Plus that awful lighting column is still there.

http://www.academytiles.com.au/asp/individual_tile.asp?series=Clover&cat=Profiled%20Decor&sort=ProdID&prodIDCheck=78552&resultNum=1

Work is almost complete. The final fixtures (bollards, poles etc) are just going in.

The final product varies wildly from the original concept. The zig zag pattern is a bit meaningless to me.

The paving is very good quality but much of the detailed work lets it down.

This section looks a little hurried

And finally, surely savour the outdoor terrace before the inevitable application for screens and umbrellas, etc

The original proposal for the street by the City Council Heritage Office

I don’t know if this is a good thing but “The work done on the project was recorded so that it will be the basis for a manual on working with historic paving in Dublin City.”

Palace Street public realm

Three big white flagpoles plonked on the kerb edge to ‘finish off’ the street. You would despair…

Rather than bring the cobbles and sense of the older space into Dame street to draw people in they just seem to have created more of a boxed wall of separation IMO. Pretty much how they ruined the square beside City Hall as well, which is now just a dead space for bikes and ‘healers’.

The newly installed flag poles

and a post box. It might have been an idea here to install a Victoria post box..perhaps even the city’s oldest post box, if one is so desperately needed here.

The final paving is very well laid, although perhaps overkills has been employed in the case of the setts. The art of cobbling has died it seems

A bit of work here by OPW would be welcome

The gates were painted last year but I would suggest cleaning the stonework and repairing and repainting the gates. Removing the metal panels in the gateway, that black piece of board (whatever that’s about) and the crappy signage. The recent pavement works included a couple of sunken uplighters, although I havent seen them lit as yet. I think perhaps some imagination with the lighting of this entrance would be welcome.

I still hate the quayside lamp that was included in the scheme. Smaller cast iron lamps would look much classier.

2 regulatory signs, 3 flagpoles and a post box dumped right in the middle of it all.

What is it with the need for clutter in this city? I despair.

Surely its intuitive that you can’t drive up onto this new space? I know that both the residents of the Sick & Indigent house and Chez Maz made comments on the plans about vehicular access to their home/business, but surely everyone else now gets the message?

The Public Realm Strategy – Your City Your Space has now been adopted by Dublin City Council.

http://www.dublincity.ie/Planning/Documents/YDYVPublicRealmFinal.pdf

It will just gather dust and be forgotten about like the all the other failed Local Area Plans, Action Area Plans, Development Plans and This-Time-We-Mean-It Plans in the city.

Implementation, if any, will be painfully slow and disjointed, and of course will not be maintained.

The various projects contained within the Public Realm Strategy that we can apparently expect to see undertaken over the next 2 years:

Grafton Street Quarter Public Realm Plan (South East Area)
This is the regeneration project proposed for the Grafton Street Quarter. The status of the area
requires a high standard of design and integration with the historic fabric of the city. The design work when complete will guide the section of the Design Manual relevant to the Civic Spine and character areas of the city (part of Action 3).

Trinity to IMMA East-West Route (South Central Area, Traffic)
This project ties together a number of projects at various stages so as to maximise value to the city and improve this key route. Projects already under way include Castle [shouldn’t this read Palace?] Street public realm works, Thomas Street QBC, Fáilte Ireland public realm funding. There are potential partnerships with the Digital Hub and NCAD.

http://www.dubline.ie

Liffey Corridor Project (Planning)
A research project to apply innovative urban design and landscape design to the Liffey Quays. It is
intended that the outputs of this project will inform a proposed Local Area Plan.

Mountjoy Square Park and Environs Regeneration (Parks and Central Area Office)
Development of a plan to guide the long-term regeneration of Mountjoy Square Park that is sensitive to its Georgian background.

North East Inner City Quadrant (Central Area Office)
This project pilots design and management approaches to improve quality of everyday life and
to identify design opportunities that may reduce crime and anti-social behaviour in an inner urban
residential area. The area of Parnell Street between O’Connell Street and Gardiner Street should be the focus of a sustained examination and assessment – in conjunction with local businesses – with a view to producing a set of proposals to enhance and improve the public realm at this location.

Grangegorman – Connections with the City (Engineering)
A project to define the strategic connections necessary to integrate the Grangegorman
redevelopment into the surrounding districts and the city centre. It includes key public realm connections at Broadstone, Smithfield and Prussia Street as well as within the site.

Aungier Street Historic Street Regeneration Pilot (City Architects and the South East Area Office)
A pilot multi-disciplinary project to develop a conservation led approach to the regeneration of
Aungier Street, a C17th historic core street, thus improving the quality of experience for residents, visitors and businesses.

Public realm information management project (Roads, IS Section, Planning)
A Project to review and develop work processes and information systems to provide efficiency and effectiveness in utility opening and reinstatement works in the public realm. Develop a web consultation tool to better engage with the public.

Dereliction Project (Planning, City Architects)
This pilot project will focus on the route of the Luas red line, from O’Connell St to Collins Barracks which has high levels of dereliction, vacancy, buildings in need of maintenance and development sites. The Project will work in collaboration with stakeholders, owners, Area Management and all Departments of Dublin City Council setting standards of maintenance, lighting, cleanliness and appearance with a view to improving the overall public realm.

Design Manual for working with Historic Public Realm (Roads, Heritage Office)
The first step is the production of the Design Manual (Action 4), which will specify materials and
workmanship when carrying out works-in areas with historic street surfaces. This will build on the research in the 2009 Historic Street Surfaces study and develop it into a working manual.

Merrion Square Tearooms (Parks Dept)
Provision of Café/Tearooms, interpretive space and public toilets within the Park.

Street Charter Pilot Initiative (Planning Dept and South Central Area Office)
This pilot initiative will apply to Thomas Street Dublin 8. The key objective will be to collaborate with all interest groups in defining the role, vision for an area or street, gain a consensus on issues, and work pro-actively together to improve all aspects of the urban environment.

Zig zag cobbles seem to come from the same school of design as the london 2012 olympics logo, mindless and ugly.

I have been getting slightly hot and bothered under the collar today about….

Being installed today on Andrew Street. The matter was raised with Dublin City Council who have told me that they are investigating the reasons for the works. I also threw in Dublin City BID, Failte Ireland and Pivot Dublin for good measure. Failte Ireland were today hosting a conference discussing how to unlock further potential of tourism to Dublin.

Dublin is fast becoming a horror/comedy show

I’m sure DCC will come back to you with talk of how they’ve been concerned with pedestrian safety on Andrew St and these measures are to prevent cars from driving along the footpath.

Next up traffic lights at edge of the duck pond on Stephens Green and cast iron bollards up and down the length of the Spire

This is dreadful, such an eyesore and also makes the footpath narrower as the bollards are an obstruction to pedestrians especially with buggies. People are more likely to step on the road now that these bollards are in place.
With this, the latest intervention on Clarendon street and the drastic so called traffic calming measure at Dublin Castle one has to wonder seriously about the credibility of Dublin City Council to deliver quality streetscapes worthy of the elegant streets of Georgian Dublin.Its seems like DCC is one of the major contributors to the destruction and vandalism of Dublin along with the litterers and graffiti.Seriously heads should roll for some of the work that has been carried out in the city in recent years.Depressing.

@mcdanish wrote:

This is dreadful, such an eyesore and also makes the footpath narrower as the bollards are an obstruction to pedestrians especially with buggies. People are more likely to step on the road now that these bollards are in place.
With this, the latest intervention on Clarendon street and the drastic so called traffic calming measure at Dublin Castle one has to wonder seriously about the credibility of Dublin City Council to deliver quality streetscapes worthy of the elegant streets of Georgian Dublin.Its seems like DCC is one of the major contributors to the destruction and vandalism of Dublin along with the litterers and graffiti.Seriously heads should roll for some of the work that has been carried out in the city in recent years.Depressing.

+1. And the usual “incremental loss” of historic kerbs, exactly what the City Council’s ‘Historic Street Surfaces in Dublin’ report 2009 is trying to stop:

Google Maps show a complete line of historic kerbs along here:

https://maps.google.ie/maps?q=Saint+Andrew’s+Street,+Dublin&hl=en&ll=53.3432,-6.261958&spn=0.001182,0.0021&sll=53.3834,-8.21775&sspn=6.844493,17.20459&oq=andrew+street+dublin&t=h&hnear=St+Andrew’s+St,+Dublin,+County+Dublin&z=19&layer=c&cbll=53.343132,-6.261991&panoid=k1fiM1jK_haQXHeJ1oABcA&cbp=12,359.46,,0,16.31

Job carried out under Martin Jordan, Senior Executive Engineer (South Inner City), Roads Maintenance Department, Dublin City Council (martin.jordan@dublincity.ie)

exene1: I think the whole point of that study is that it found a lovely dusty corner of a shelf out of sigh and out of mind.

Most of the kerb stones were kept and retained in this instance. I have an email to Public Realm team about loss elsewhere that is waiting a reply. However retaining lovely historic features is pointless if this is the type of follow up.

I spent the weekend listening to a variety of people with varying degrees of interest in the built environment sharing their WTF reaction with me.

I note the bollards have a subsidiary function of facilitating the placement of sandwich boards.
(shakes head)

A clever montage of Good vs Bad images trying to get the message out as to what constitutes good design. From the chappies behind XXI Century Liffey

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.533813023338225.1073741826.454972471222281&type=1

Its subjective though…good design….isn’t it. I mean Martin obviously feels he came up with a good design solution to the problem on Andrew Street. And the unknown soldier who designed the Plinth for the Skint on Castle Street obviously feels that they made a good stab at balancing the needs of traffic, pedestrian safety and those of an architectural set-piece at Cork Hill.

Perhaps they should set up their own Facebook page.

@StephenC wrote:

@StephenC wrote:

Its subjective though…good design….isn’t it. I mean Martin obviously feels he came up with a good design solution to the problem on Andrew Street.

Hello Stephen. The Roads Maintenance gang seen in your photo above work under Mr. Martin Jordan, Sen. Exec. Engineer for the south inner city. Mr. Adrian Corrigan (adrian.corrigan@dublincity.ie) is his counterpart for the north inner city. So if the Roads Maintenance street gangs in the yellow jackets are replacing the listed historic kerbstones with chinese granite, it is their responsibility.

As for the bollards, cannot say if it comes from same dept.

Thanks… I thought the sarcasm dripping from my last post was obvious.

It is probably worthwhile to name the bright sparks doing this kind of stuff to our streets. The carbuncle on Castle Street was ‘designed’ in City Architects Division. Ali Grehan, the city architect, gave some worrying and bizarre comments in their defence in the Irish Times article previously posted.

The bollards were gone yesterday.

Well that is good news. They should never have even been considered. Im sure the cast iron bollards will replace them. This is a shame though…there is little enough room on these pavements as is. Its simply not necessary to have bollards on every single street, spaced 1m apart. Its hugely wasteful of public money and ultimately damaging to the aesthetics of the city (what little remains at this stage). There appears to be this pathological need to blight every streetscape in this city….whether through bollards, excess signage (or empty poles), mismatched furniture, mismatched materials, loss of historic materials. I cant understand it.

A New Design Manual for Urban Roads and Streets has just been released.

From Transport.ie:

New street design to benefit pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users

Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar has today launched a new design manual that will significantly alter our streetscapes in the future.

The new manual aims to end the practice of designing streets as traffic corridors, and instead focus on the needs of pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users.

The Design Manual for Urban Roads was overseen by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. It will outline practical design measures to encourage more sustainable travel patterns in urban areas. The Manual sets out design guidance and standards for constructing new and reconfiguring existing urban roads and streets in Ireland, incorporating good planning and design practice.

Speaking this morning, Minister Varadkar said: ‘If we want people to travel in a more sustainable way – by walking, cycling or using public transport – we need to make sure that the streetscape will persuade them to take the sustainable option’.

“There is a growing appreciation that streets are much more than a traffic corridor. They should be places where people want to live, and spend time. The key is to improve street design for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users, and to reduce the impact of vehicles on residential streets.

“At the same time, the Manual recognises the important role played by the car. It wants to achieve a better balance in how our urban roads and streets are designed and used. And it recognises that in some areas, cars play an important role because they re-assure pedestrians, particularly in more remote areas at night time.

“The Manual is also important for our tourism and heritage. It will support our historical street layouts, and encourage the development of new streets and plazas which are good for business and for tourism. Crucially, it should also help our focus on safety levels, particularly in the run-up to the United Nations Road Safety Week in May.”

PDF Document here:
http://www.transport.ie/uploads/documents/news/Design%20Manual%20for%20Urban%20Roads%20and%20Streets.pdf

Hope fully by now, all those pesky people agitating for quality public realm in the city have moved to London or Australia or Latvia or wherever else and we can get back to normal; to bog standard and medicore.

The Council are completing work on a section of Dame Street at the moment. It just stuck me (again) seeing the work how very little imagination was applied to this repaving work. Simply replacing concrete for concrete with no effort made to consider street lighting or the potential for some planting to even some widening. Its a real shame. The work on Ormond Quay is a similar situation…just replacing concrete flags as per the work on Aston and Wellington Quays last summer.

Surely the Dublin Public Realm Strategy was meant to change this kind of lowest common denominator approach; to bring some new ideas and fresh thinking to Dublin’s drab public realm. But who hears of this initiative any more. Whither now the Public Realm Team that was apparently set up to coordinate this type of work.

And take a walk down to Docklands, where quality public realm was at least developed as part of the building boom to bust down there. Look at the detail, All those inset uplighters and LED strips so beloved of expensive urban landscaping. Since no one is left to change the light bulbs and maintain the lighting (or pay the bill) they’re being removed and replaced with….pour concrete. No effort to replace the concrete or granite flags. Just dump in some concrete. Tree dies? Just fill in the base with some concrete…too expensive to buy a new tree.

Up on Earlsfort Terrace a section of the granite pavement in front of the National Concert Hall was recently relaid and the same poor practice was applied. Big strap cement pointing that almost causes the lovely granite to disappear.

And we still love those bare signage poles: Plant Poles Not Trees!

Dublin City Architects and the Vacant Sites Initiative in Dublin City Council are hosting a workshop to gather ideas and solutions to 600 vacant sites identified across the city centre.

City Limits: Inventive Uses for Urban Spaces
Wood Quay Venue
Thursday 13th February from 6pm