Fair Play to Starbucks

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    • #708263
      garethace
      Participant

      We have listened to the fanfare, absorbed the marketing sing song, but when it boils down to it the Irish ‘cannot yet do’ urban space. It requires a level of skill and sophistication that is apparently beyond our reach. The architectural schools do not seem capable of rising to the challenge of training designers either. We have nothing like a course to train young urban designers. One can observe the trend, of foreign business coming to Dublin and promptly showing us how it is done. Our own comfortable and highly paid executives, property consultants and developers are found to be napping at their wheels. Their eyes often wiped, by a more sophisticated, urban-savy kind of business brain.

      What the natives continue to dish out can best be described as ‘Amateur Hour’. The Italian quarter on the north side of the River Liffey springs to mind. Our attempts at being ‘continental’ have been pure uninterrupted puke. A lot of Irish people of self appointed importance waving their hands in the air, making a lot of noise and doing very little. Star Bucks cafe, recently opened on Dame Street in Dublin takes a small urban space with real potential. One which had been ignored by the planning and developer community here in Ireland for years. And using the bare minimum of effort have restored an urban space and suggested more possibilities. More re-interpretations of the space. That is, beyond taxi drivers using it as a dormitory. I could include a quote from The Art of War, which could do justice to the intervention by Star Bucks. But I think you have already gotten the point.

      Brian O’ Hanlon

    • #763764
      Morlan
      Participant

      Any pics?.

    • #763765
      garethace
      Participant

      I will get them don’t worry,

      Or anyone else feel free to post up a pic or two.

      But It just struck me this evening how obvious the point is – right in college green, where you just can’t ignore it. We need to pull up our socks,… big time.

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

    • #763766
      Morlan
      Participant

      I quite like the seating area outside Habitat with those anally pruned shrubs.

      Has anyone had a coffee sitting on College Gr. yet? Just wondering what the ‘buzz’ is like, bit of a busy spot with the traffic.

    • #763767
      Devin
      Participant

      Good point, Garethace. I can see that area being spontaneously colonised for ‘tables & chairs’ in the summertime, like the way other little spots around the city have; – the mouth of the laneway at the top of Sth. William Street between the pub and the café, and lately, the recessed space opposite The Bakery in Temple Bar west end.

      And Foster Place is already very continental, with the trees, setts and classical buildings. And it wouldn’t lose the sun after 2pm like the Italian Quarter does. Could be the start of something…

    • #763768
      TLM
      Participant

      Would be great if it set the ball rolling in that area alright. The large volume of traffic in the area is quite an obstacle though.

    • #763769
      Anonymous
      Participant

      how could you hear yourself think with all the traffic buzzing around? i like to go where it is quiet for a coffee. such a place would be off grafton street.

    • #763770
      Morlan
      Participant

      It wouldn’t be so bad if you were tucked away in Fosters Pl.

    • #763771
      jimg
      Participant

      If only they were able to make drinkable coffee.

    • #763772
      ctesiphon
      Participant

      I think you hit the nail on the head, garethace, when you said Foster Place was “a small urban space with real potential”- which is why it can’t be compared to, say, Quartier Bloom (or whatever it’s called), which was created from nothing. Also, I disagree about the quality of the latter- you mightn’t like it, but the bums-on-seats every time I pass through there would suggest it is one of the more successful recent attempts at designing an outdoor space from scratch.

      In Foster Place, the setts were in place, the trees were in place, the buildings were in place, even the planning application for change of use to cafe-restaurant was in place, all before Starbucks arrived, so I don’t think they are as deserving of praise as you seem to think. This is not to take away from the quality, but I’d think the quality is nothing to do with Starbucks and everything to do with the place itself, i.e. all the necessary constituents were present and all Starbucks had to do was start serving. So I disagree with your assertion that we “‘cannot yet do’ urban space”. It’s very clear to me that we already did it, though I’d agree that this is one of the few exceptions.

      Also, I was a fan of the street (as many others on this forum were) long before Starbucks opened your eyes to its greatness, and I do think that something of its former quality has been lost in such a transformation. I know we can’t have both a quiet oasis and a bustling coffee corner, but I mention this as an illustration that there is more than one way to enjoy an urban space.

      PS You say “We have nothing like a course to train young urban designers.” There is in fact a masters in Urban Design in UCD, not to mention a focus on UD in the UCD MRUP course. I can’t speak for other colleges, but even one example suffices here.

    • #763773
      adhoc
      Participant

      But we didn’t ‘do’ this urban space – the last significant thing to happen to Foster Place was the closing of the A.I.B.

      Treasury only sought a change of permission to cafe use in May of this year so that Starbucks could access this site – after having had restaurant permission for the site for 2 years previous to that – permission that no Irish entity availed of or sought a change to.

      There’s a venti difference between having an ability to do something and actually getting off your arse and doing it.

      Starbucks got Treasury off their posterior.

    • #763774
      ctesiphon
      Participant

      If by ‘do’ you mean package, privatise and commodify, then you’re spot on.

      But Foster Place was a place of urban distinction and beauty for me long before Starbucks – or Treasury, for that matter – came along. Parhaps Starbucks did galvanise Treasury, but that’s not to say that either party is responsible for the quality of the urban realm in this location.

    • #763775
      Morlan
      Participant

      @garethace wrote:

      I will get them don’t worry,

      Or anyone else feel free to post up a pic or two.

      But It just struck me this evening how obvious the point is – right in college green, where you just can’t ignore it. We need to pull up our socks,… big time.

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

      Not really that obvious IMO. That’s the beauty of Fosters. You could walk right past it without blinking an eye.

      So it this area controlled by the council or BOI? The rape by the tacsaí’s would suggest that it’s a council plot.

      Who resides in this building here?

      Ideally, this building would be a restaurant/bar, providing outdoorsy seating. Starbucks is on the corner and would probably want to keep all their seating close to their own premises.

      Wouldn’t that balcony there be a lovely place to have a meal? Of course, you’d have to clamber out them windows first!

      ps. If anyone’s been down Fosters on a Saturday night, you will see that the place is no more than a public toilet and spliff smoking area. Perhaps it should be closed of at night to prevent this sort of ASB.

    • #763776
      ctesiphon
      Participant

      I’m pretty sure that’s the former AIB building that adhoc refers to- it has a grand double-height hall with a coved, barrel-vaulted ceiling that would make a fine restaurant.
      Also, I’m pretty sure it’s DCC rather than BoI that is responsible here, as you guess. Despite appearances, it’s still a public street.
      Can’t say I agree that it should be closed off. More city centre public toilets would answer the call of nature, and partaking of a spliff (however illegal) I would hardly categorise as anti-social behaviour. It might go hand in hand with asb in some cases, but it’s neither a cause nor an example of it. Increased activity levels would prevent both of these from happening- I’ve thought that the AIB should be a hotel for some time now, which would be one answer.

    • #763777
      Morlan
      Participant

      Indeed indeed.

      If it were to be converted to a Restaraunt/Bar, there would be less of this carry on in Foster. The problem now is that Foster is a relativley dead area. A pretty-faced dead-end street in Dublin City. Too pretty for the skags, but dead enough for toilet duty and such.

      Starbucks won’t change this. Forster needs a mini action plan by the council. I’d say action plans right now are far down the list of things to be done.

      What we really need to know is who is in charge of the building above? Must go down there some day and read the bronze platter attached to the door. The owners of this building shall dictate the future of Foster.

      Unless the council budge in, which is unlikely, Foster will remain a dormont beauty for many years to come.

    • #763778
      ctesiphon
      Participant

      Howley Harrington’s revised Temple Bar plan included mention of Foster Place. As far as I remember, there was talk of opening it up to plug into the rest of TB, but just how this would be achieved is unclear to me. All of the buildings are of merit and part of the charm of FP is its enclosed nature- I’d be cautious about any measure that diluted this characteristic.

      The document might be available on the DCC website, or maybe on HH’s own site?

    • #763779
      Morlan
      Participant

      Ach, Temple Bar has nothing to do with FP. FP is in a league of its own.

      While O’Connell St is getting much attention these days, I guess we’ll have to wait until the College Gr./Westmorland rejuvenation plan gets going. To me, this will be far more exciting than O’C’s rejuvenation plan.

    • #763780
      hutton
      Participant

      @ctesiphon wrote:

      I think you hit the nail on the head, garethace, when you said Foster Place was “a small urban space with real potential”- which is why it can’t be compared to, say, Quartier Bloom (or whatever it’s called), which was created from nothing. Also, I disagree about the quality of the latter- you mightn’t like it, but the bums-on-seats every time I pass through there would suggest it is one of the more successful recent attempts at designing an outdoor space from scratch.

      In Foster Place, the setts were in place, the trees were in place, the buildings were in place, even the planning application for change of use to cafe-restaurant was in place, all before Starbucks arrived, so I don’t think they are as deserving of praise as you seem to think. .

      CTESiphon you are spot on – summed up my thoughts exactly, which I did not have the time to type in earlier.

      However just to open up a separate flank, what say about the idea that “Foster Place” be renamed “Grattan Place”? John Foster, after whom I believe the place was named was a miserable misadministrator, whose bigoted & sectarian views were repulsive, and who along with John Fitzgibbon and John Beresford helped mismanage the country during 1790s to a point where it was goaded into rebellion. It is an irony that Foster opposed the Act of Union in case it led to emancipation for persons other than members of the Established Church.

      Would it not be better that the names of Foster, Beresford and Fitzgibbon be simply left in the history books, marked along with their deeds, rather than having streets left named after them as if they were honourable sorts?

      So what about then, “Grattan Place” rather than “Foster Place”?

      😀

    • #763781
      ctesiphon
      Participant

      I’ve often thought that Foster Place had a certain ring to it, but I wasn’t aware of the activity of Mr Foster. Certainly changes things. Would that mean that Foster Avenue in Mount Merrion is also named after him?
      Having said that, I’m not often in favour of airbrushing history, though there might be a case here.

      It could always revert to the name it had before FP- Turnstile Alley? How’s that for prosaic? 🙂
      Or something to do with one of the architects involved on the Parliament/BoI? I don’t think Edward Lovett Pearce is commemorated anywhere in the city, which is a great shame.

    • #763782
      urbanisto
      Participant

      I think that Trinity College now own th former AIB Building mentioned above. In fact tey have taken over a couple of properties on this street (for the School of Nursing if Im not mistaken).
      The Howley Harrington Plan for Temple Bar did metion Foster Place and argued for an Arcade link through to Fleet Street from College Green though this might have been from the Westmoreland Street entrance. As you might be aware the actually Parliament Building is in fact a large screen hiding a collection of buildings behind it so a bit of configuration might allow greater movemnet through without necessarily compromising the BoI.

      As for a new use for Foster Place. Definately. Its criminally underused and is of poor value at the moment if nobody ever sees it. I would disagree with it being seen as quiet oasis in the city. I’d say few people go down there…even for a bit of peace. A qiuet oasis should be an escape from traffic…of wheich there is plenty on College Green. A framework plan for area is urgently needed to unlock its potential. You can already see the pressure that Habitat is having on the pavement outside as more people fight for a limited space. And plans are afoot to open a second store in the EBS premises beside Habitat.

    • #763783
      hutton
      Participant

      @ctesiphon wrote:

      It could always revert to the name it had before FP- Turnstile Alley? How’s that for prosaic? 🙂
      Or something to do with one of the architects involved on the Parliament/BoI? I don’t think Edward Lovett Pearce is commemorated anywhere in the city, which is a great shame.

      Turnstile Alley? Thats wonderful! But then again given the activities of Castlereagh and the 30800 pounds that was used as bribes to secure the Act of Union, perhaps “Turncoat Alley” might be even more appropriate 😀

      Ah but in all seriousness, I think you might be right about commorating Edward Lovett Pearce. Given the rate of exaltation that a certain US fast food/ beverage outlet is getting, I can just see how it would be particularly appropriate, with a little motto:

      “Pearce Place – I Lovett”

      😀 😀 😀

    • #763784
      murphaph
      Participant

      Great little thread about a great little street, a street which I must admit I have never even walked down and I’m born and bred in Dublin! I always assumed it was private, somehow belonging to the BoI. That ex AIB is a wonderful building, just crying out to be used. This little gem of a street should not be connected to TB. The fact it’s a cul de sac is part of its charm.

      The Wesrmoreland St/College Green redevelopment will be very interesting. I really hope Luas line A is chosen and private motor vehicles are excorcised from this axis, along with O’Connell St/Bridge. The whole area would make a magnificent pedestrian plaza with Foster Place being a little shaded haen in the summer and a cosy enclosed space in winter, imagine those trees outside the ex AIB building as a bar/restaurant all decorated in twinkly xmas lights, lovely.

    • #763785
      tommyt
      Participant

      It’s actually surprisingly quiet- even half way down Foster Pl. It is well worth a wander down, a little gem.One of the gaffs looks like it might be a private residence too! Have often wondered why BOI keep so many banking functions in operation from their entrance onto the place( I have picked up deliveries round there on numerous occasions), The Temple Bar plan alluded to above involved opening the enormous wooden door on the Westmoreland St. facade of the BOI and doing away with the bank’s rear offices and delivery yard as far as I can recall..

    • #763786
      asdasd
      Participant

      I drank outside on Fosters place yesterday. Coffee, I mean, from starbucks. Shagging cold it was, but the seats were mostly empty which will not be the case in Summer. It was dark and Fosters place and the BOI was gorgeous. Great urban experience.

      ( Unlike the interior of SB which is too bright and too crowded. And I am not a detractor of Starbucks, I liked it when I lived in the US).

      Fosters place would be a good place for a london style subway enterance.

    • #763787
      Devin
      Participant

      @asdasd wrote:

      Great urban experience.

      What, drinking & shagging?

    • #763788
      GrahamH
      Participant

      lol – wouldn’t be surprise me though as it seems to be rather hot and steamy in there at the minute, completely jammers the three occasions I’ve passed at different times of the past two days. No one seems to want to go outside – suppose it is November…

      It’s not as anything spectacular has been done here now – think this thread is getting everyone’s hopes up 🙂
      They have only chucked a couple of tables and chairs out onto a concrete pavement after all:

      Should be a delight to sit here during the summer in the dappled sun piercing through the plane trees, though you’d have to ask, why doesn’t the City Council install public seating here instead for the public to enjoy Foster Place, rather than preserve the area for the exclusive benefit of the customers of a retail outlet? If people want to bring their coffee out onto these seats then so be it?

      The real, secret reason 🙂 everyone likes Foster Place is because it feels like London, not Dublin. The architecture is very much so that of London, as is the intimate historic atmosphere that is very rare in Dublin today; suppose the Castle Upper Yard would be one of the few other areas that still has this.
      Imagine living in one of the two townhouses here – surely the most desirable residences in Dublin?!

      Both of them were up for sale a few weeks ago.

      The only problem with ‘developing’ or ‘expoiting this underutilised area’ is that this will spoil the very essence of the place – it is perfect as it is: quiet, secluded and largely unknown. Though the way Bank of Ireland dominate the space as if they own it with security cameras and delivery trucks needs to change alright. You always feel you shouldn’t be there, and are being watched…

    • #763789
      Morlan
      Participant

      @asdasd wrote:

      I drank outside on Fosters place yesterday. .

      How did you find the level of traffic? And those taxis, were they not a little annoying?

    • #763790
      asdasd
      Participant

      The taxis are a bit annoying, but not overwhelmingly so. The place to sit is where the girl in the read coat is sitting. Away from Dame street traffic.

    • #763791
      Morlan
      Participant

      Ah, some pics!

      It’s been a while since I was down Foster. I had it in my head the the Starbucks building was a quality corner structure.

      Now, the lower facade isn’t to bad. If only they’d used the same render on the upper floors, I think it would look much better.

      Not to dis your photos, Graham, but the place looks pretty cold and miserable, which it is.

      I’m going to take a trip down there myself tomorrow to see what the story is, shall return with pics.

    • #763792
      GrahamH
      Participant

      Well it’s going to be

      shagging cold

      and miserable tomorrow too, so it ain’t gonna look much better 🙂

      Always liked the corner building there, strangly decent and sympathetic to the BoI for what seems to be a 70s? building.

      Though compared with what used to be there – sob 🙁

    • #763793
      Morlan
      Participant

      Absolutely criminal. Lost in the 70s for whatever pathetic reason. 😡 ARGHH

    • #763794
      ctesiphon
      Participant

      @Morlan wrote:

      Now, the lower facade isn’t to bad. If only they’d used the same render on the upper floors, I think it would look much better.

      The ‘render’ on the ground floor is in fact stone, the same stone as was used in the BoI and channelled in the same manner.
      Agreed though that as a 70s ‘infill’ it’s one of the best in the city.

      I never knew that the pair in the corner was for sale recently. (Not that I’d have been in a position… 🙁 ) It’s been an ambition to call one of them home for a long time now. I wonder do they need a caretaker…?

    • #763795
      Rory W
      Participant

      I don’t think Foster Place should be linked into Temple Bar whatsoever – it’s a charming little street, why spoil it by linking it into our “British Stag Night containment unit”. Trtust me the malignancy of chain restaurants and theme bars would soon creep in.

      The old AIB would make a fantastic high end restaurant, but it wouldn’t take off if it was tarred with the Temple Bar brush

    • #763796
      Devin
      Participant

      Another plus for Foster’s Place as a public space is that it has a genuine historic stone sett surface (you can partly see it there in one of Graham’s photos) – the setts are tightly laid and comfortable to walk on, like you would find for example in a French city – whereas the sett surfaces in Temple Bar, which mostly date from the early ’90s, are not well laid and not very comfortable to walk on.

    • #763797
      GrahamH
      Participant

      Indeed – a fine solid surface that adds such charm to the place:

      The granite kerbs around the bases of the trees are a nice touch.

      Wonder if the tunnel to Daly’s Club still runs underneath…

    • #763798
      Devin
      Participant

      Yes, that’s nice. You can really see the quality there. It’s a gorgeous surface! The few genuine sett surfaces that survive around the city need to be jealously guarded!

      Temple Bar is a sham! Here is a typical FOUL stone sett surface in Temple Bar:

    • #763799
      Richards
      Participant

      Can any ulity company dig up Foster Place or does the laid surface have some kind of protection?

      I often see road works in Temple Bar but as the coblestones were so badly laid, often the contractor conducting the works does a better job in reinstating them. However the situation in Foster Place is completly different that Temple Bar.

    • #763800
      Alek Smart
      Participant

      Hey..!!! Where am I ……!
      Before anybody starts trying to prod DCC into action regarding Foster and Allen Place How about the Members of this Forum,well…the CONCERNED one`s at any rate,meeting up at Starbuck`s tooled up with Stanley Knives or Sharp Scissors.
      The reason for the Tools…….?
      After a suitably convened Emergency General Meeting the group would divide Commando Stylle (Draughty I know!) and set about Removing the Large Signs which remain tied to Lamp Standards and Poles throughout the City.
      These warn of O Connell St Being CLOSED between 1630 and 1900 or somesuch on SUNDAY the Twenty FECKIN Seventh of NOVEMBER !!!!
      Now anybody who was in Town on that day will probably want all memories of it repressed but some effort needs to be made to Get the City back on track.
      The Official DCC line,I fear,is to leave the Signs up (Facing AWAY from traffic) until the Gregorian Calendar once again aligns with Sunday being the 27th of November and the Chrisamas Lights needin to be lit an all…….!
      So c`mon who will be first up to the ockey on this one……..Owen Keegan and John Fitzgerald are reputed to have made a block booking for the Starbucks Al Fresco Tables so don`t get left behind boys n girls..!!!!! Snip Snip 😮

    • #763801
      Morlan
      Participant

      Maybe we could replace those sodium bulbs on O’C Bridge lamps too 😡

    • #763802
      Alek Smart
      Participant

      Great Idea…..More Bang for your buck….so to speak ?

    • #763803
      Paul Clerkin
      Keymaster

      Loved Foster Place

      That AIB which I think Trinity want to turn into an office for students to deal with the college, was my bank branch. Always picked my banks on grounds of architectural impression, and loved going down there to deposit chequees.

      I would like one of these please.too cstephion….
      http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/southcity/college_green/foster_place/houses_lge.html

    • #763804
      ctesiphon
      Participant

      @Paul Clerkin wrote:

      I would like one of these please.too cstephion….

      If I get lucky on the Lotto I’ll be opening one of them up as a B&B, with one room reserved for free stays for archiseek members.:)

      Devin et al-
      Agreed about the setts. Though not visible in any of the pics above, there are some lovely details such as the way the setts frame the utility hatches in the ground. The metal covers aren’t just randomly rammed in; the setts are arranged in very decorative ways. an attention to detail rarely seen in the city any more.

    • #763805
      GrahamH
      Participant

      Yes, was looking at these drains etc – do they therefore suggest the cobbles are not in their original state given these had to be installed?

      I hate those institutional florescent tubes underneath the porch of the AIB. Horrible things.

    • #763806
      Devin
      Participant

      It depends what ‘original’ means – it does seem that cobbles/setts have to have been in place for a considerable period of time to get that smooth look where they look like they are almost knitted together. There are actually a few patches on Foster Place (one outside Starbucks) which have been lifted and re-laid, and have that lumpy bumpy Temple Bar-sett look 🙁 .
      Those nicely laid areas around the drains were probably done a few decades ago at least.

      Richards,
      in my experience of the protection measures for Dublin’s historic street and paving materials, there wouldn’t be any conservation consultation process for utilities companies or anyone else requiring to dig up the street, even though Foster Place’s setts are listed for protection in the Development Plan. The street has probably just survived in a good state because there are few services running under it (because it’s just a short cul de sac).

    • #763807
      garethace
      Participant

      Howley Harrington’s revised Temple Bar plan included mention of Foster Place. As far as I remember, there was talk of opening it up to plug into the rest of TB, but just how this would be achieved is unclear to me. All of the buildings are of merit and part of the charm of FP is its enclosed nature- I’d be cautious about any measure that diluted this characteristic.

      Interesting observations there indeed, …plugging into Temple Bar, now there is a thought indeed. Long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away before the abomination of private greed that turned out to be Temple Bar, people imagined Temple Bar would be this pristine and other-worldly location, where people would not behave like people, but like some breed of cosmopolitan, urban-aware, sophisticated social animal. The truth turned out to be very different, and now we are all wiser, and understand what ‘plugging into Temple Bar’ would actually entail. I mean look at Grafton Street, black with people all day long. A real pity how Grafton Street was raped with people. If you were to link Foster’s Place with Temple Bar, no doubt, Foster’s Place would be raped too.

      This little gem of a street should not be connected to TB. The fact it’s a cul de sac is part of its charm.

      Similarly, well said. We should try to mention here, the behaviour around the Central Bank, and its use as some kind of teenage hang-out area. Usually, I associate that behaviour with a teenage pop concert or rock festival. But in front of the Central Bank, it appears you can have the same behaviour without any concert at all. Maybe we should think about teenagers, and their need to gather and be in one big open air space, in the way we design and build new parts of the city. It seems at a certain age, these young just need to get together and interact a whole pile, in ways, that cannot be accomodated through the use of nightclub, and other quite large interior spaces.

      No doubt at all, if Fosters Place became a linking space, it would become ‘owned’ by some other tribe or sub-culture. It would be like exchanging the taxi-drivers for some other monopoly of use. I cannot understand it, but the behaviour of teenagers screaming and shouting in front of Central Bank has escalated a lot since the hoarings went up around there. It is quite an interesting study in adolescent human behaviour. It wasn’t as bad when the skateboarders owned that space. I suspect strongly too, that the teenagers from the old O’Connell Street, have adopted Dame Street, in front of Central Bank, as their new abode.

      The Wesrmoreland St/College Green redevelopment will be very interesting. I really hope Luas line A is chosen and private motor vehicles are excorcised from this axis, along with O’Connell St/Bridge. The whole area would make a magnificent pedestrian plaza with Foster Place being a little shaded haen in the summer and a cosy enclosed space in winter, imagine those trees outside the ex AIB building as a bar/restaurant all decorated in twinkly xmas lights, lovely.

      I am all for keeping car access to Foster’s place. They manage to do it in many of the best European cities. But there seems to be something about ‘how’ the taxi driving occupation evolved in Dublin city, and similarly the bus transportation system evolved, that seems to be about dragging places down. Making them into the lowest common denominator – for some strange reason, people who drive vehicles around our cities seem to have pure contempt for their urban environment. You can see this similarly in suburban villages and areas, where if there is a video store or laundrette alongside a road, it is free-for-all for anyone in a mini-van with two kids to use the footpath as a parking lot. I understand the climate is bad, peoples’ lives are hectic and keeping kids in your sight is paramount. But something tells me there is more to peoples behaviour and lack of respect for urban places, when they are sitting behind the wheel of a n automobile.

      You can already see the pressure that Habitat is having on the pavement outside as more people fight for a limited space. And plans are afoot to open a second store in the EBS premises beside Habitat.

      The very worst these days, for my money, is the bottom of Grafton Street pedestrian route, with a busy bus route intersecting right over it going up to Suffolk Street. Using places like Dame Street and Suffolk Street, as bus stops, in the way we do, is not working very well. Just to complicate matters then,… and most of this was true of O’Connell Street in the bad old days,… was the taxi ranks getting ‘stuck’ in there aswell. In case, traffic plus pedestrians wasn’t hard enough to do,… you throw in bus stops and taxi ranks, and you really do have the chaos and mess that is, and has always been my experience of Dublin city center. I mean, at the bottom of Grafton Street, Fosters place, the middle of College Green and O’Connell Street in the olden days, were all taxi and bus parks, nothing else really. This is what you get when you form your whole ‘thinking’ around the internal combustion engine. If all you have is a hammer, then every problem becomes a nail.

      I don’t think Foster Place should be linked into Temple Bar whatsoever – it’s a charming little street, why spoil it by linking it into our “British Stag Night containment unit”. Trtust me the malignancy of chain restaurants and theme bars would soon creep in. The old AIB would make a fantastic high end restaurant, but it wouldn’t take off if it was tarred with the Temple Bar brush

      All very true, sad, but true. As I mention above, when we were all looking at the Temple Bar concept, when it was still just a concept in the mid 1990s, we were all still very, very naive. We considered that in Temple Bar, people would somehow behave better than you normally expect them to. That has not proven the case, and a lot of very trendy architects, who won awards in Temple Bar for their design – protested afterwards, about the facts, of how badly people can behave! As if people should behave better, just to preserve the dignity of the lovely ‘designed’ environment they are in. What I mean, is that in the early days of the Temple Bar framework stage, everyone looked at Temple Bar as some benign, inner urban development, which did not need any containment. People were suddenly, going to become so well behaved, they would naturally ‘respect’ their environment and surroundings. And all the Architects could build more Temple Bar areas, and win themselves more awards from the AAI.

      I was watching the movie ‘Doom’ last night, and found it funny, to notice the same issue there. The containment of creatures, with 24 chromosomes, who tried to break out of containment on Mars and come down to Earth via a space travelling machine. It would be a shame, if the 24 chromosome creatures in Temple Bar were to break through into Foster’s Place and infect everyone else with the same genetic mods. Nice point about the stone setts too btw. I will tell you, I give this one to the planning brains here. I didn’t see the potential destruction of Foster’s place, via linking it to Temple Bar etc, etc. I think the sensibilities of a planner, here, have proven to be more effective than those of an architect. In Temple Bar, the sensibilities of architects alone, were proven insufficient. This is a good place to mention, that Temple Bar, as an artistic and cultural quarter, (I know, don’t laugh) was an idea that came from cities like Paris in the 1980s. That ‘concept’ was championed by Charles Haughey, then Taoiseach.

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

    • #763808
      Alek Smart
      Participant

      Quoting Garethace…
      I am all for keeping car access to Foster’s place. They manage to do it in many of the best European cities. But there seems to be something about ‘how’ the taxi driving occupation evolved in Dublin city, and similarly the bus transportation system evolved, that seems to be about dragging places down. Making them into the lowest common denominator – for some strange reason, people who drive vehicles around our cities seem to have pure contempt for their urban environment. You can see this similarly in suburban villages and areas, where if there is a video store or laundrette alongside a road, it is free-for-all for anyone in a mini-van with two kids to use the footpath as a parking lot. I understand the climate is bad, peoples’ lives are hectic and keeping kids in your sight is paramount. But something tells me there is more to peoples behaviour and lack of respect for urban places, when they are sitting behind the wheel of a n automobile.
      Perhaps the best example of this is now to be found in the village of Ranelagh.
      Raneleagh is to me the epitomy of what a Dublin “Village” should be all about.
      Prior to the return of Rail Travel to the village it had managed to retain it`s Butcher,Baker,Candlestickmaker essence to which could be added Mororcycle Shop,Homebrewery,Landromat and resident Justice Minister :rolleyes:
      While the village had always in modernity struggled with its geographical position vis a vis the Motor car,it had nonetheless kept a vestige of a true Village athmosphere.
      The arrival of Luas brought with it a reinvigoration and an expansion of ranelagh`s potential to become a really impressive Human Centred working Dublin Village.
      However to progress that would have required some Interested and Focused input from the various bodies which form our Local and National Governing Elite.
      The lack of any cohesive welcoming plan for Luas has instead turned Ranelagh into something like a Paradise Lost .
      Here we have a cohesive social Village Structure complete with a strong resedential culture encompassing a huge social mix from Unemployed Local Authority tenants through transient provincials and multi-cultural non-nationals allthe way up to Ministers of an tOireachtas and ex Professional Footballers turned Radio Personalities.
      With the opening of the Luas Green line This huge broadband of Modern Dublin Society now had all of the ingredients for a really attractive model of Modern Urban Living FREE of the OPPRESSIVE REQUIREMENT TO BE CAR FOCUSED AT ALL TIMES.
      Well….thats what was so nearly within our grasp……and our Professional Planners threw it to the winds as they abjectly failed to take the new Ranelagh and Integrate it with its new Luas delivered salvation.
      The Village now had two LRT stations and Four Bus routes including the radial 18 route ALL of which should have been the focus,in Transport Terms,for mass movement into and out of the Village,with the private car being relegated to a much reduced role WITHIN the area from Charemont St Bridge to Marlborough Road on the East/West axis and Leeson Park to Mountpleasant Ave on the North/South axis.
      The area enclosed by that boundary,essentially the village would have benefited greatly from the halving of on-street car parking combined with the widening of the Kerbs in the Village itself and us of the former “Triangle” ( Now sitting there unused and mute testimony to a City Administration unable to deal with heaven sent micro opportunities,but full of desires for Multi-Billion madcap schemes).
      Presently a Bus Journey through Ranelagh is almost Biblical in essence as one attempts to thread ones camel through a needle whose eye is virtually blocked with cars,vans,trucks all abandoned on or close to every inch of vacant kerbspace.
      Instead of TRYING to move forward with a new and eminently achievable Public Transport centred vision what we have is Bus Atha Cliath REDUCING one of its main trunk routes the 48A and now looking at ways and means of rationalizing the other main through route the 11.
      Part of the rationale behind this it is thought comes from a Luas inspired downturn in Passenger Numbers,however I precieve that downturn as being more due to the lack of any structured Bus Priority measures along the South Side of the 11 route and even less on the poor old 18.
      This lack of infrastructural support has led to journey times which are completely unsustainable by any rational minded customer,most of whom go off and buy a moped,bicycle or car…immediately adding to the misery of the Real Ranelagh.
      As I read of Ministers Cullen and Calelley and their grand visions for the spending of €34 BILLION on magnificent underground Railway Stations worthy of the Imperial Tsar,yet see the same pair sitting on so much unfinished business within their own office administrations then I become afraid…really afraid of just what these lads are going to conjure up for us,especially as an Election is in the offing (Probably the very worst scenario to be Planning anything in socio-architectural terms).
      If the Ministers were to allocate me a budget of €1.5 Million I believe I could devise and impliment some small-scale trafic and Public Transport centred measures which would reduce the Number 11 south side journey time by approximately 5 mins per bus journey at peak and perhaps more off peak allowing for an increased frequency throughout the day and into the night (A Must for a truly useable Village scenario)
      Mind you my plan would greatly inconvience those who “Stick her up on the kerb” and nip in for a Paper-Single-Kebab-Pizza etc BUT we have to Make some choices here if the Village ethos is to be meaningfully retained and expanded….
      As Capn Picard might say….Make it So…!!!!! 🙂

    • #763809
      Morlan
      Participant

      [nazi]

      Mr. Smart. Would it be possible for you to put spaces between your paragraphs? I find it very difficult to read.

      Sorry for the gripe. I really want to read your comments but I find it a pain to do so. It’s not just that post, but a few of your previous posts too.

      [/nazi]

    • #763810
      garethace
      Participant

      The Village now had two LRT stations and Four Bus routes including the radial 18 route ALL of which should have been the focus,in Transport Terms,for mass movement into and out of the Village,with the private car being relegated to a much reduced role WITHIN the area from Charemont St Bridge to Marlborough Road on the East/West axis and Leeson Park to Mountpleasant Ave on the North/South axis.

      The area enclosed by that boundary,essentially the village would have benefited greatly from the halving of on-street car parking combined with the widening of the Kerbs in the Village itself and us of the former “Triangle” ( Now sitting there unused and mute testimony to a City Administration unable to deal with heaven sent micro opportunities,but full of desires for Multi-Billion madcap schemes).

      I am glad to hear someone at last, has managed to highlight the current state of Ranelagh village. Our apparent lack of capability as a nation to make anything out of these places. Ranelagh is something of a ‘clampers’ paradise. Clampers have taken to Ranelagh, in much the same way the taxi drivers invaded the urban space that was Fosters Place. The clampers strike me as ‘chicken and egg’ kind of guys. Becasue if people behaved and didn’t park illegally, then the clampers would be out of business. It is in the clamper’s best interest, to punish people in the short term, but have NO INCENTIVE to educate car users to behave better in the longer term, and to respect the urban environment. As far as the clampers are concerned, people parking badly, are heaven sent. Because the badly behaved car user in Dublin is their only source of revenue. 80 Euro for every offense, it is good work if you can get it.

      This is what worries me a lot about separate private and public bodies being set up, to deal with every aspect of the environment and its management. It seems we have ‘outsourced’ the job of caring for the environment in so many different ways – to so many different bodies and interests. You have a separate body set up now, just to deal with Road Safety, which has been granted all kinds of powers. Developers building in the city centre will tell you, 5-6 million Euro flows directly out of their site and into the pockets of Dublin city council. Just to pay for different fees, taxes, studies and reports. It has been allowed to get so bad, that developers are skeptical now about the profit margins remaining for development on city centre sites. I am disappointed and disheartened, to say the least, that Ranelagh village has become a clampers paradise – when it had the potential to become a transportation hub and centre, for the whole city. Our vision for how we develop our environment, is simply too small.

      As you have outlined in your post above – we seem good at taking those nasty ‘police’ kind of negative opportunities, but we fail to see the more positive opportunities. The nasty police kind of option requires us to set up some public service body, or outsource to some private company – and then the problem – is effectively taken out of our laps, it becomes someone elses. Pass the buck – that is what the Irish seem to be great at doing – as long as it doesn’t land in your lap, then you have done very well. Sometimes we see the opportunity in front of us, but we don’t want to take the initiative. This is why I mention the ‘developer’s dilemma’ – that of seeing a lot opportunites in Dublin to develop in a positive way, but knowing also, the fees and taxes the state will manage to extract from the site and the development. This is what gives an Irish developer, an incentive to by-pass Dublin altogether and go to Turkey or Beiruit or the middle of Africa!

      Instead of TRYING to move forward with a new and eminently achievable Public Transport centred vision what we have is Bus Atha Cliath REDUCING one of its main trunk routes the 48A and now looking at ways and means of rationalizing the other main through route the 11. Part of the rationale behind this it is thought comes from a Luas inspired downturn in Passenger Numbers,however I precieve that downturn as being more due to the lack of any structured Bus Priority measures along the South Side of the 11 route and even less on the poor old 18.

      I know from personal experience, if you are standing in Ranelagh at 8.30 on a weekend morning and trying to get anywhere on time, you can just forget it if you are waiting for a bus. Might as well phone work and say, I might make it by 10.30 – save a bun for me at the 11am coffee break.

      This lack of infrastructural support has led to journey times which are completely unsustainable by any rational minded customer,most of whom go off and buy a moped,bicycle or car…immediately adding to the misery of the Real Ranelagh.

      I agree, Ranelagh village’s situation is disgraceful – it is being allowed to slide downhill gradually. Blaming it on LUAS, is a convenient excuse used by transport departments not to look at the matter properly. The idea of passing the buck again, someone elses responsibility. There is an attitude that Ranelagh is only for a few tired and lazy students who leave their cosy beds at a quarter to nine and catch an 11B out to Belfield. If you go a 10 minute walk down the road to Donnybrook, the whole thing works because you have the width of street needed to accomodate a busy through bus service. It is interesting actually to compare the two.

      You can find something I observed here, Belfield Campus and Bus Service, about Belfield campus and the way in which bus routes have been organised to use Belfield as an unofficial bus depot. Because Belfield is just so large, as the quays along the Liffey are, or O’Connell St and West Moreland Street avenue is – you simply do not appreciate how MANY buses remain parked all day long in those places. Dublin Bus have always had a talent for spotting large open spaces all over the city, and using them as bus parks. Which really leads you to wonder, what are all of those people man-ing those vehicles actually being paid to do? ? ?

      But getting back to Ranelagh, one final observation I would like to make, is how coffee shops there in the morning do quite a good trade on ‘coffee-to-go’. I mean, you can place a car on a footpath there for 5, while you nip into a coffee shop and get your take-away. I do think planners should be aware of it. That coffee shops who target sites at corners and junctions, on busy routes, are really going to affect peoples’ behaviour in cars, so that people will park the car temporarily on footpaths etc – normally new Porsches – and use the coffee shop like a drive-through. This surely is the opposite to the way Ranelagh should be trying to go. Everyone I know says, they ‘like Ranelagh village’, but if they really did like Ranelagh village that much, they would see it has its problems and would be interested in trying to look more closely at the problems.

      If the Ministers were to allocate me a budget of €1.5 Million I believe I could devise and impliment some small-scale trafic and Public Transport centred measures which would reduce the Number 11 south side journey time by approximately 5 mins per bus journey at peak and perhaps more off peak allowing for an increased frequency throughout the day and into the night (A Must for a truly useable Village scenario)

      Not to mention the trouble with 11 buses getting through Drumcondra and city centre in the mornings. If you look at the 11B service from Grafton Street to Belfield, it is never affected as badly. The trouble for me, with the 11B service, is that is stops in Belfield and doesn’t continue going out further. This is my point really about Belfield and bus transport – when you have this large city campus the bus routes either side of it – decide to use the campus as a bus park. It is a nice and large, quiet place where you can hide many buses and have a good old snooze for yourself. If you stand at the East entrance to Belfield in the mornings you can count one bus every 10 seconds or so, turning straight into Belfield and parking there. If that isn’t a cozy option I don’t know what.

      We don’t seem to have the right eyeballs looking at our city and the way in which it functions – far too many toes you could thread upon, I assume. Far too many large egos and demi-gods. Too many separate public and private institutions which are worried about their own self-preservation. I mean, when you think about universities, and all of those buses travelling out to Belfield in the mornings with 4 students on board – you have to think of LUAS going through UCD, or going through DCU or the new DIT site at GrangeGorman. I hate to say it, but Tallaght Institute of Technology is probably one of those few campuses in Dublin now, which does have a proper, regular transportation system to service it. I don’t think buses are the correct way to think about servicing a University. Does anyone here know of university campuses that are serviced by a rail system, or light rail system?

      Mind you my plan would greatly inconvience those who “Stick her up on the kerb” and nip in for a Paper-Single-Kebab-Pizza etc BUT we have to Make some choices here if the Village ethos is to be meaningfully retained and expanded….

      Yeah, it would be a real shame if Ranelagh were to lose the Porsche driving yuppies stopping for take away at the village, while speeding out to Sandyford to work in Microsoft.

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

    • #763811
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Starbucks always finds the best place to locate all over the world so don’t feel bad. Locating a coffee shop at a busy traffic intersection is a no-brainer – Christopher Alexander 101 stuff.

      I would be kind to yourselves and not put out the charge of provincialism as an argument to convince others to do better urban design – the locals never respond to this charge and just dig in their heels and call “home” better. Just do great urban design, travel and experience the good places all over the world and make good arguments as to why one should build the City.

      P.S – What is a “Clamper”?

      Regards,

      Craig Purcell

    • #763812
      garethace
      Participant

      Any one of you urban savy planning types, want to try and define a ‘clamper’ for me? ? ? Or perhaps provide a link to their website?

      🙂

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

    • #763813
      Pepsi
      Participant

      Nice pictures of Starbucks Graham. I just hope those awnings can extend out that bit further otherwise one would get soaked if the weather took a sudden change. It could happen.

    • #763814
      ctesiphon
      Participant

      @Craig_Purcell wrote:

      P.S – What is a “Clamper”?

      Illegally parked cars are ‘clamped’ i.e. a sturdy wheel lock is put on one of the wheels preventing the owner from driving away. It costs 80 euros to have it removed.
      Clampers are the people who work for the clamping company (a private company with a contract with the City Council).

    • #763815
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Perhaps it is best just to drill down and place cars below grade and order up the cars like so many bag of chips from the automat.

      see attached photo

      Large fileds of asphalt at the ratio of 1.6 to 1 for parking lot to building area does seem to be urbanism’s biggest problem – all a clampers aside.

      1000 sf of retail shops need 5 parking spaces at an average of 325 sf per car (US standards of course)

      Restaurants need more parking at 2.6 to 1 and office users less at 1 to 1.

      As it takes two incomes to survive most residential units need two parking spaces per unit.

      This is of course a recipe for disaster…

      Let us hope China does not get rid of their bicycle lanes in favor of more automobile lanes.

      Regards,

      Craig Purcell

    • #763816
      Alek Smart
      Participant

      A thousand apologies Morlan for the lack of spaces in my output.
      The transition from Pen and Ink to Keyboard has not been an easy one and obviously the space bar was lost in space,so to speak.

      Point Taken however and memo to myself…

      MIND THE GAP !!! 😮

    • #763817
      garethace
      Participant

      1000 sf of retail shops need 5 parking spaces at an average of 325 sf per car (US standards of course)

      Can you combine spaces nearby the shop with reserved spaces around the corner, or how in a parking lot somewhere else. How does that work? How far away can the car be parked to maintain that average? I mean, in the US, don’t a lot of office workers and apartment dwellers keep their autos parked permanently in a garage, removed from the actual complex?

      200 sq. feet per car
      325 sq. feet per car
      384 sq. feet per car
      625 sq. feet per car
      1000 sq. feet per car

      I understand the logic of this sliding scale to obtain the various ratios. Yeah, 200 sq. feet per car is a lot. I imagine that in Dublin, given the small size of apartment dwellings now, and the wide availability of cars for personal use in denser parts of the city – residential use here in parts of Dublin, seems to equal or exceed that of retail use – in terms of car parking required. That is precisely what has happened in Ranelagh, the place is just stuff with automobiles, you can hardly see the street anymore with all of them. With its small narrow streets with high density terraced house living.

      Indeed, Ranelagh looks a bit like that image of the Volkswagen garage in Germany, except done horizontally rather than vertically. I must get some photos to post up here actually, it would be useful.

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

    • #763818
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      In America the rule of thumb for suburbanites (as opposed to urban dwellers) is they will walk 300′ to get to the front door of the shopping complex. If they have to walk further they will leave and come back later when it is less crowded. They will walk further during the holiday season.

      Paco Underhill’s “The Science of Shopping” and “The Call of the Mall” are both excellent resources for understanding the behaviour of the shopper from a cultural anthropolgy point of view.

      In the historic cores the parking ratios are less and everyone complains about the lack of parking. Usually some behemoth shopping center(s) is sitting close serving the core business of the community and providing lots of free parking.

      Historic Cores tend to go for tourism and have food, beverage, boutique retail and hospitality as their economic base.

      Starbucks likes to nest among these places on corners as well as at transit locations.

    • #763819
      garethace
      Participant

      Gee, is global culture really that predictable nowadays? It sounds as if you can describe a city such as Dublin from across the Atlantic, better than most people I know here can. The city as designed for automobiles. Wow. So close, to what Dublin is. Thanks to an inflated importance of the traffic engineer, and a lack of architects or other ‘spatial designers’ being involved in the debate. If there even was a debate. As a general point, and to make debate possible at all – I feel strongly that architects should be encouraged while in school to understand how code affects the environment we live in. Visa versa, I think that people educated in writting code for urban places, should have a basic appreciation how design can somehow make it all fit together. You do need the designer, otherwise it is pointless. There are certain things you cannot ‘code’ your way around. Otherwise, you are left with gaps, where things should join up. Take the following for instance,

      In the historic cores the parking ratios are less and everyone complains about the lack of parking. Usually some behemoth shopping center(s) is sitting close serving the core business of the community and providing lots of free parking.

      I think that is why projects like the LUAS, lightrail system here in Dublin have gained such a position of importance in the recent years – to somehow try and redress the imbalance created by the suburban betemoth shopping centre, and make city cores accessbile once more. As if the city core, is a place where all people should want to go. Dublin bus company failed to do anything much, after decades of campaigning, advertising and influence over the operation of the city. Today, Dublin bus has competition in the form of a new younger upstart, the Railway Procurement Ajency or RPA, for short. Which has become a very sexy and powerful institution in its own right, with its own attitude and way of doing things. The unfortunate thing about ‘competition’ between these too gorillas, is that wherever light rail stations are made, you can associate that with a tendency for Dublin bus to pull out of the area, and leave it all to the light rail. They are afraid of direct confrontation, and have become territorial with each other. Each one sticking to areas, where they can play up their own advantages. This seems the exact opposite to what you want. As pointed out by other posters here on the thread – you do need bus and rail systems interlocking with each one another, in loving, cooperative embraces. Rolling gently about in the dense undergrowth of urbanity, like two mating gorillas, as opposed to territorial competitors. To obtain the most efficient and best overall use from public investment in transportation. In a time of rising inflation, Ireland has a duty to cooperate when and where possible.

      It needs to be pointed out, that one function of LUAS and Dublin bus has been allowed to overshadow all others. Over zealous use of PR to wage war on both sides. The apparent ‘linking’ of shoppers to the various retail centres. This one function, has been ‘done to death’, especially around the holiday season, for ‘publicity’ reasons. The over-emphasis on that function, has prevented people from looking much deeper into the possibilities presented by transportation in our city, of allowing the debate to take place. Emphasising one particular ‘cool’ function of transportation above others. Going to high street at weekends, or this-centre-or-that, to spend your weeks earnings on ‘all new shit’. This is really a debasement of the concept of public transportation and the very people who want to use it. It displays a depressing Irish characteristic, of seeing everything from behind the wheel of an automobile. In Dublin city, we are bringing thousands of foreign workers in every year. We thank them for coming here, by giving them a pretty useless transportation system. Sometimes, with a loosy attitude towards service to boot. In Ireland, we are guilty of having blinkers to transportation. The car is for getting to work, while the LUAS or bus is a cool novelty item, for going to parties in the evening or going shopping at weekends. This is an over-simplification of the whole problem, I feel. What is lacking in Ireland now, is an organisation or individual with real insight, into how different modes of transport need to fit together.

      Yeah, the Dublin bus company has been around while. In later day, the bus service would have tried to fill a similar role to that of light rail now – trying to link up shoppers with their favourite high street. As a result of that narrow-ness of thinking, we have a series of bus-passges which are designed to carry people from the car-oriented suburb, into the high street. Like any project, transportation being no different – the important thing seems to be getting people to work and think as a team, rather than all pulling in all different ways. What we do have is governments who regularly use transportation to orchestrate large scale PR, on TV, on radio and in print. I began this thread to mention the behaviour of the taxi driving community in Foster Place, trying to establish their iron grip on that territory. I have discussed the personal automobile, the surburban shopping centre, Dublin bus and LUAS light rail system. I think you can agree, that urban transportation resembles a study into a gorilla behaviour in the jungle, the hard-fought battle for survival.

      Starbucks likes to nest among these places on corners as well as at transit locations.

      I also noticed something with ‘record’ stores – (gee, I still call them record stores, even though they are really CD stores nowadays) sometimes when in the city centres – the big HMV idea doesn’t work at all. I notice where they have stores on the main streets here – selling thousands of CDs and DVDs, the que at the counter is a mile long. Just walk down the road, and drop into a small store and you can usually get what you want, without the que. So it isn’t always handy to be big in the music retail game. I mean, if you are even inside the HMV store itself, and are waiting in a que, for ten minutes to get to a counter – that is just not fun to me. And being big, on main street, they are probably losing business as a result. Because they have to staff the place, just the same, on slow days. While on busy days, the existing staff aren’t able to cope with the sudden surge in customer volumes. That is why I think online, is probably suited to selling music – because digital network bandwidth is the only thing able to cope with surges and drops in customer demand.

      While I am on the topic, of all things global, I might as well mention construction too. Which appears to be going the way of prefabrication and about getting greater economy of scale, with more predictable quality/costs/timescales. The building industry here in Ireland was organised around a lot of separate trades for a long, long time. This makes projects hard to schedule and predict in terms of time and cost. You are seeing a lot of projects, re-designed to avoid, bottlenecks and time overruns. We will probably end up with a different Irish construction industry than before.

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

    • #763820
      garethace
      Participant

      Modern music store, looks like this I reckon,… any opinions?

      How can the store equivalent of this, even try to compete?

      City cores might be great for selling coffee in mugs, but cannot compete with cyberspace, as far as selling music goes.

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

    • #763821
      garethace
      Participant

      Pics I promised. I would just like to remind people, this corner or space, used always by the taxi drivers, ‘never even existed’ until lately, as far as most people who inhabit the city were concerned. That is some transformation to make, from nothing to something, just like that. Architects, always talk about leaving the site, ‘in better condition’ than what they found it in. I think, that has been achieved here, and also the possibility of other things are even suggested, just by this intervention. It probably will not receive an award, since it doesn’t come with any poetic description, trying to tell you how philosophic and deep it is – but heh, you can’t have everything.

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

    • #763822
      Rory W
      Participant

      From The Irish Times (21/12/05)

      Lad’s we’re too late 🙁

      Trinity College Dublin has sold two adjoining Georgian office buildings at 5 and 6 Foster Palce in Dublin 2 for around €3 million. The college owns a considerable number of adjoining properties. Ganly Walters handled the sale. The buildings are understood to have been bought by a Dublin property developer. The two buildings were sold exactly 10 years ago for just under €700,000.

    • #763823
      Anonymous
      Participant

      They sounded cheap unless they are falling down;

      They would make some town houses for those with an ego matched by a fat back pocket. I hope DCC see this potential in thier deliberations

    • #763824
      Andrew Duffy
      Participant

      I don’t think there are many with multiple millions to spend on a house that would buy one with no security, no front garden, a taxi rank outside the door, constant traffic and a stream of drunks and vomit outside every night of the week.

    • #763825
      Anonymous
      Participant

      You are right there aren’t many who would buy such a property but you only need two.

      In relation to the drawbacks you raise

      1> Security; not an issue given that they are landlocked to the rear and directly face the side of the BOI

      2> No front Garden; many properties with no front garden trade for large sums; and given the setting outside the front door one doesn’t really need one should point 3 be addressed

      3> Taxis; I agree this is a real issue not just for these properties but also for the streetscape as a whole; as was floated in multiple threads the College Green Taxi rank is dysfunctional and is just too small not to mention being relatively inaccessible being marrooned on a traffic Island.

      4> Constant traffic largely linked to the above excluding the odd cash truck going to the BOI and would be entirely relieved by moving the taxi rank to say the side of the Central Bank on Fownes St and winding it around thew block with a que on three sides of the bank including Anglesea St

      5> I’m not sure about this as the route is a cul de sac it doesn’t really attract anyone en route to anywhere; my own belief is when someone is drunk enough to vomit they will do it anywhere regardless of the size of the street or the number of other people.

      Thanks for pics Brian it appears Starbucks did a very tasteful job

    • #763826
      garethace
      Participant

      Thanks for pics Brian it appears Starbucks did a very tasteful job

      Not really, the main reason I posted up the thread at all, was to make a very straightforward point.

      This simple insertion of a cafe use into an existing structure highlights a lot of limitations in the way Architects approach their work. Unless the building is a ‘design jewel’ then it is not considered worthy of the awards process. That warps how architects view the world. This particular process of indoctrination begins in the architectural school and cripples potential. In the workplace, architects are consumed for a large part of their time, trying to make buildings with a bad concept, look ‘beautiful’. It is crucial to realise the built environment is made up of different stock. The most pleasing mix results from having ‘okay’ design from different eras, in close proximity to one another. My favourite places are places where you see buildings done at different periods – rather than all of the same pedigree. That is the trouble with a lot of ‘new areas’ now in Dublin. They look cool for 12 months and then you get jaded with them.

      The architectural awards remind me of the way dogs are judged in a dog show by their pedigree. The architects remind me of people who comb the dogs and feed them special meals and vitamins to make their skins shine. The dog has to peak for the dog-show, and after that will probably go into a decline and be forgotten about. It gives the attitude like, ‘stone cladding is so last year. Its all about timber now.’ A mongrel such as Starbucks cafe doesn’t qualify for the competition. It’s coat will probably never shine brightly enough to be considered for Krups. I think their should be a ‘mongrel’ architectural awards process to complement the pedigree architectural awards. In the real world, not every job can attain ‘best-of-breed’ status. That is a huge element of denial that has managed to built itself right into the core of what motivates a lot of good architects: to get mentioned in the awards ceremony. Unfortunately, it goes right as far back as the educational process opted for in the schools, where one student in particular is appointed as ‘the chosen one’. There really badly needs to be a counter-revolution to all of this imbalance, which the AAI organisation managed itself to exascerbate. It was undertaken with the best of intentions certainly, but it has back-fired.

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

    • #763827
      Rory W
      Participant

      @garethace wrote:

      A mongrel such as Starbucks cafe doesn’t qualify for the competition. It’s coat will probably never shine brightly enough to be considered for Krups.

      I’m assuming Crufts since Krups make blenders and food processors (unless you’re making a real dig at these architects!!)

    • #763828
      garethace
      Participant

      Yeah, thanks for that correction Rory. One of the useful aspects of the distributed forum format in my mind, is its ability to quickly snuff out those little errors. Thanks.

      Even though times are good, I am concerned about the kind of business model employed by young architects. The ’boutique’ firm can specialise in doing cool insertions into the built environment. I like jewel structures as much as the next guy. I have my doubts about building jewels, as a good business model for the profession of architecture. Architects are delighted when their buildings are published in magazines, in all their shimering photographic glory. But the jewel, is an over-specialisation on the part of architects. They have put themselves in a vulnerable position. Who are the first people always hit by the recession? You’ve guessed it, the Architects. Between the building boom periods the architectural profession suffers because of over-specialisation. Boutique firms hit the wall, and have no alternative skillset to support them. Since most of the architectural profession is organised squarely around the boutique, it is unstable at best and often volatile. The university professor’s seat is the only refuge for many in the lean periods. When the boom re-appears architects waste most of their valuable time re-building up to strength. That is a costly process and normally involves the importation of talent from abroad.

      You see a plethora of small architectural ’boutiques’ now appearing on the scene. They can rent the same kind of business premise you would find an internet cafe housed in. Normally some street tucked away, off of the high street. These youngsters are undoubtedly keen to try and harvest some of the wealth available. But the boutique has not got the size or the sophistication to mine the wealth and opportunities in the building industry effectively. Architects fall back upon the design ‘jewel structure’ and make a statement about ‘purity, light and form’, usually in some glossy magazine double-page spread. The Jewel provides a very necessary escape clause from reality. The jewel of sufficient pedigree, like the Glucksman Art Gallery, stands for everything that mainstream building design doesn’t. The whole negative psychology of the ‘jewel building’ is interwoven into the fabric of the architectural profession. The royal institute and the architectural awards process underpins it. You cannot expect payment in real money, except for loose change to buy a Porsche. You are paid in terms of ‘fellow-peer-recognition’ instead.

      The local authorities have the size of money-hoover required to suck up the payments for services and consultancy. Local authorities seem to extract money out of every nook and cranny. Finding opportunities for gain, where architects could only dream. If architecture is to become a serious contender in the game, you need the right kind of management. In short, you need more business brain power. In parts of the world, the building contractor is sophisticated enough to become the designer and complete a whole project. I believe architects should become involved in the mogrel work out there and move into the local authorities space. Really wrestle for it. It could afford architecture a more sustainable business model than building ‘jewels’. You need to grow and build your strength over the lean years aswell. The local authority has a killer business model compared with architecture. The local authority grew and expanded in size and sophistication throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Now they have the design teams, the expertise, suitably large offices and a virtual monopoly.

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

    • #763829
      garethace
      Participant

      This project by Pheripherique Architects in France exemplifies for me, the sometimes aggressive urban intervention one has to make, in order to re-interpret an urban space. I don’t know, maybe a Star bucks for the summertime, on squeeshy pink styrofoam furniture – you never know. Beat the dead atmosphere of Cows Lane etc, etc, any day, if one could find a suitable location. But lets face it, there are tonnes of spaces in this city and others crying out for some kind of deliberate use, even if only temporary.

      Brian O’ Hanlon.

    • #763830
      urbanisto
      Participant

      But does this space get used now that the pink furniture is in place. Its interesting but does it make a blind bit of difference. The qualities that make a space work…and encourage people to use it can be allusive

    • #763831
      Devin
      Participant

      This thread started off well, but went a bit off in the last page or so …… would be good to get back to the crucial city-centre issue of the splendid but wasting asset of Foster Place.

      In the end the Starbucks effect pondered at the start of the thread was fairly negligible and Foster Place pretty much continued on in a horrible state of wastefulness – dominated by taxis, fairly lifeless and prone to anti-social behaviour.

      As mentioned earlier, the 2004 Temple Bar Framework Plan resurrected the idea of opening it through to the streets behind, and it would be a good idea to get some life and movement through it because at the moment its main use – apart from taxis and parked cars – is a homeless shelter and a public toilet. The underneath of the House of Commons portico stinks of piss …. in fact the whole place does.

      If you can ignore the stench for a minute it’s nice to stand at the end and admire the architecture …. that is until the peace is shattered by a taxi accelerating up to the end, turning around and going off again.

      And its fabric has suffered at the hands of Dublin City Council. (As previously featured in the paving thread: ) Superb quality coursing and bonding to the antique stone paving (left), then suddenly – Bleurrgh! – everything is cut up , bastardised and smeared with cement at the triumphal-arch entrance to the former BoI arts centre (right).

      DCC’s Roads Maintenance Dept.’s practice of cement strap pointing looks even more ridiculous on these great circular granite tree protectors than it does on paving (left). Don’t ask what all the cement built up around the bottom is for – it looks graceful anyway! One of the golden granite tree protectors has been replaced in a thin nasty white reconstituted granite version (right).

      Yeah, Foster Place provides a nice quiet environment for them to get stuck into the historic street furniture; a few weeks damage and destruction at the expense of the taxpayer, and no pesky passers-by to see and report their shocking work.

      Is the rumour true that Trinity College now own all the buildings on the west side? What are they doing with them? They haven’t brought any life to the place – aside from leasing the corner building to Starbucks. Would it not be better for different property owners to have an interest here?

      Foster Place screams ‘I NEED A PLAN!’, because at the moment it’s going nowhere.

    • #763832
      Paul Clerkin
      Keymaster

      as far as i know, Trinity owns all of the west side of Foster Place

    • #763833
      Anonymous
      Participant

      Except the two townhouses near the end which were sold as an investment a year or two back by Savills I think.

    • #763834
      notjim
      Participant

      Even beyond the rule that universities should never sell property and should never ever sell contiguous property, TCD was insane to sell 5 and 6 Forster place. Given they have the AIB building they could have done something special here.

    • #763835
      notjim
      Participant

      Sorry reading more of the thread, to answer the question above TCD owns the AIB building, they used to own 5 and 6 as well, the two to the north of the AIB, but sold them last year. It also owns most of the second and third story of that block going west, they don’t own the ground floors, they did some sort of swop.

    • #763836
      Morlan
      Participant

      😮 That’s a fucking disgrace. How do they get away with it?

    • #763837
      GrahamH
      Participant

      12/9/2008

      Just rooting around Foster Place yesterday evening, it occured to me what a magnificent hotel the former Royal Bank would make.


      (Archiseek)

      Very much in the European tradition, it is of the perfect grand townhouse proportion, with ranks of gracious classical windows overlooking the leafy confines of Foster Place and the extravagant Coomons portico opposite. The banking hall which is conveniently off-centre would make for a spectacular lobby-cum-lounge, restaurant or bar, while the first floor appears to host some fine rooms with elaborate cornicing. It’s so easy to envisage the frontage newly restored, with potted plants, flags and window boxes and all the other manicured paraphernalia that comes with such premises. Such a low-medium intensity use would act as a welcome presence on the street and generate modest activity appropriate to the context.

      What plans do Trinity have for this bank, if any, now the nursing school has settled elsewhere? I don’t see how this building could be sensitively converted for educational purposes – even if possible it’s hardly the most appropriate use.

      It’s quite a substantial building, especially if the adjoining Francis Johnston townhouses were amalgamated into the premises (currently separately owned).

      There’s also potential for frontage onto Anglesea Street.

      Incidentally the townhouses feature a quirky detail with their doorcases, seemingly unique in the city, whereby the interior hall is narrower than the doorcase suggests, resulting in a ‘false’ fanlight 🙂

      Alas the right-hand house has spilled the beans by painting their overhang white.

    • #763838
      notjim
      Participant

      TCD has leased the ground floor of the bank to a bar operator, papers signed about two months ago, it will retain the upper floors. Originally it was planned to use the banking hall as a one-stop-shop for admin, I am sorry this admirable plan was abandoned. I continue to regard the sale of the two Foster Place houses as completely inexplicable.

    • #763839
      GrahamH
      Participant

      Absolutely. And the pair only netted a piddling €3 million.

      A one-stop shop for admin is desirable, notjim, but surely not at this of all locations, especially if plans for College Green ever come to pass which directly relate to uses on Foster Place.

      That’s interesting about the bar – a welcome development, but possibly not the more permanent use that would be preferable for this site, nor the hoards of smokers, ashtrays abd fabric railings that will inevitably clog the entrance. Hopefully it will market itself differently to The Bank on College Green too.

      I went in the Royal Bank buildings a few months ago having taken the wrong entrance into an adjoining office building, and the most bizarre scenario confronted me. A solitary man was seated at a desk in this cavernous unlit banking hall, with thin shafts of light penetrating various voids catching strewn papers and upturned furnishings, and an enormous and remarkably ugly Connemara marble fireplace looming behind him.

      *sinister voice* “Can I help you?”.

      *overawed voice* Can I live here too?

    • #763840
      notjim
      Participant

      @GrahamH wrote:

      A one-stop shop for admin is desirable, notjim, but surely not at this of all locations, especially if plans for College Green ever come to pass which directly relate to uses on Foster Place.

      It is desirable to me but yes, only for selfish reasons.

    • #763841
      Rory W
      Participant

      It would make a fantaastic restaurant rather than just another boozer in the style of ‘The Bank’ up the road

    • #763842
      GrahamH
      Participant

      Precisely. The banking counter would make a great feature in centre, acting as a bar serving the surrounding tables.

    • #763843
      adhoc
      Participant

      Passing the Celtic Note shop on Nassau Street today I noticed a waxwork/dummy of the late Joe Dolan in the window. At Joe’s feet lay a sign saying that the Waxworks Museum would be opening in Foster Place in February 2009.

      Does anyone know which building it will occupy?

    • #763844
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I saw this too. Perhaps the old Bank of Ireland Arts Centre building?

    • #763845
      GrahamH
      Participant

      Alas it is. Not so much the use, as the arrogant signage they have just erected. Are these guys having a laugh?!

      It looks ten times worse during the day, crassly mounted on the facade of Francis Johnston’s exquisitely refined Armoury Building. From what I can make out, this intervention to one of the most important historic buildings in the city doesn’t even have planning permission.

      The integrity of this immaculate, historically intact enclave is being eroded by the day, with the eye-poppingly inappropriate taxi rank recently granted permission for expansion by DCC. Words fail. Just some of the chaotic results can be seen above.

      As a taster of what we’re up against here, this was recently posted on a taxi driver’s blog: “Foster Place is just beside Trinity College. This rank is one of the oldest in the city of Dublin yet for some reason the powers that be are planning on closing it.

      If only.

    • #763846
      Paul Clerkin
      Keymaster

      That is bleedin’ awful….

    • #763847
      reddy
      Participant

      O god. How did they get away with that? Is the city council that busy that they just can’t cope with dealing with shockers like this?

      I’d kill to get my hands on the enforcement section in that place and give it a good shake up.

    • #763848
      Anonymous
      Participant

      Unbranded Starbucks stores attempt to
      come up with a new brew

      LONDON ‐ Will the coffee chain’s trial of unbranded shops bolster the core brand or backfire?

      At the end of this week, global coffee chain Starbucks will begin trials of an unbranded store in its US home‐town of Seattle. One of three such outlets planned, the first shop will be called 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea. An attempt to revert to Starbucks’ original positioning as a quirky, local coffeehouse, it will run poetry events and sell unbranded coffee as well as wine and beer.

      It is hard to think of another brand that has done anything similar. This has led to speculation as to whether it is a simple exercise in reconnecting with consumers. Alternatively, is it a fresh format which, if successful, will be rolled out elsewhere, or a reaction to critics who oppose globalisation? Perhaps the reasons for the launch are more complex than they first appear.

      A statement from Starbucks did not give much away, and says only that the new shops are a return to the way the company operated before its global expansion. As well as being unbranded, the fresh format will have ‘flexibility’ in the form of different opening hours from the regular Starbucks branches, and a licence to sell alcohol. If the activity is a way of reconnecting with lost customers, it is certainly needed. This year, the recession‐hit coffee chain closed more than 700 stores and cut thousands of jobs after a drop in sales.

      Question of motivation

      Nicola Mendelsohn, chairman and partner at ad agency Karmarama, which works with Starbucks’ archrival in the UK, Costa Coffee, is sceptical of the venture, and labels it as Starbucks’ ‘midlife crisis’.

      ‘Consumers are not stupid,’ she says. ‘They know Starbucks bought a lot of independent shops out of the market when it started its global operations. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.’ Size may have brought success to Starbucks, but it has also led to issues of brand depersonalisation. As Starbucks grew, it had to become more efficient. It introduced automated coffee machines, with the result that arguably its outlets became more like fast‐food restaurants than places customers could relax.

      Some experts therefore believe its unbranded stores initiative is not only logical, but necessary. David Hutchinson, sales and marketing director at Paramount Restaurants and a former global marketing director at Costa Coffee for more than four years, argues that Starbucks is experiencing what all successful brands do when they move from being a small, niche firm to a global entity.

      ‘It is a phenomenally successful company that started off as a local brand but grew incredibly quickly,’ he says. ‘The brand was originally loved and respected by everyone, but the corporate world decided it had become too big.’ Phillip Davies, managing director of business brands at branding agency Dragon Rouge, believes that Starbucks’ rebranding is a positive step. ‘The company is returning to the business model it always intended to have,’ he says. ‘It wants to regain a community personality and the image of the neighbourhood coffee shop.’

      However, Davies warns that the business might find it difficult to return to its roots. ‘It needs to focus on the inherent values of being local; it needs to employ local staff; it needs to be suitably different from Starbucks’ corporate image.’
      However, David Anderson, director of Cada Design Group, argues that most consumers don’t have issues with the brand. ‘I know I just passively accept Starbucks,’ he says, adding that consumers are looking for a home away from home, and ‘want it in an environment that isn’t so heavily corporate branded’.

      Anderson, who has worked on café concepts for brands including Pret A Manger and Caffè Italia, believes the motivation for Starbucks may have been that it had hit a developmental dead end. ‘In this sector, too many companies focus on product innovation,’ he says. ‘They think customers are brand loyal or product loyal, but they are not. It comes down to convenience and providing a space people want to be in.’

      This may well be true, but there is concern about whether Starbucks’ decision will further marginalise independent coffeehouses ‐ one reason why its popularity has dwindled. Nonetheless, if handled well, the unbranded stores could sharpen the core brand. The shops will allow Starbucks to trial fresh approaches to the business it might not want to try in branded outlets. Conversely, if handled badly, they may be more akin to an Irish‐themed pub that bears no relation to the real deal.

      From an architectural point of view this is good news; the new unbranded Starbucks on Conduit St London has the most minimalist signage I’ve seen yet; given that it is in a period stone faced terrace that was the ideal result.

    • #763849
      Devin
      Participant

      City Council finally observing their policy on listed granite?? …………. maybe the failure of the UNESCO bid ….

      2009. Some flags were removed out of the listed pavement on Foster Place for the usual services digging, and replaced in blacktop.

      2010. A year later nasty white granite is slipped back in.

      Close up. The white granite appeared to have been taken from another location already in use so it wouldn’t look too bright and contrasty.

      2011. A complaint suceeded in getting the original flags put back this time …. but strap pointed lol.

    • #763850
      aj
      Participant

      why did they not put the originals back in the first place … has DCC the money to waste laying footpaths three times?

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