Fair Play to Starbucks
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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
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.
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
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.
@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!!)
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.
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.
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
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.
Except the two townhouses near the end which were sold as an investment a year or two back by Savills I think.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
@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.
It would make a fantaastic restaurant rather than just another boozer in the style of ‘The Bank’ up the road
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