Kevin Roche

It was sad that his NCC never came to fruition. It would have looked great on the Dublin quayside beside Calatrava’s proposed bridge at Spencer Dock/Macken Street.
After all, the man is Irish too who did well for himself in the architecture world. It would have been good for him to have a piece of his work here in Ireland. Now that he is in the evening of his life it will not be the case.
He can join the gang like Wilde, Joyce, and Beckett, etc…. all Dubs too who fled the country to get on in life.

There was a place for interesting buildings in Dublin, but it got covered in a load of bland seven storey boxes.

I thought the proposed conference centre design was awful.
It was grossly out of scale with the city, and I don’t mean the ‘here we go again height debate’, it was massively overscaled in every manner with no human scale to it at all, nothing but a statement of arrogance.

Thank God this mammoth of a project, not to mention Spencer Dock as a whole wasn’t inflicted on this city.

High density does not equal vulgarity.

I liked the conference centre design, but the rest of spencer dock was dross

dont forget that the only building roches practice designed in the original proposal was the confrence certre. the rest was just a masterplan and the poorly finished, slaped together computer simulation put everyone off, most people believed what the plan showed was what would be built there. I feel that STWs current plan looks no better, even worse as it is a similar plan yet makes poor use (low density) of this prime city land. Roche repeatly stated during the original planning process that most of the rest of the buildings on spencer dock would be left to international design compitions so who knows , it probably would haved looked good.

Most of the buildings most certainly were not headed for international competition, indeed it was unlikely any of them were.

They were ‘global style, anywhere’ buildings of the lowest order, churned out for maximum floorspace to counter-act the loss making conference centre.
Indeed this is one of the reasons the scheme was rejected, as more and more office space was emerging in the form of second rate boxes to merely ‘contain’ 4 million or whatever metres of floor space.

What was originally envisaged as a high quality ‘city quater’ turned out in the end to be a 1990s version of a 1970s speculative development of monumental proportions.

The new design is even worse as far as I’m concerned, the only reason it’s not as controversial this time is because all those little boxes they build down there will be a lot less noticable than what was originally proposed. Is that really a good thing? – isn’t architecture about making a statement, not hiding things like this from view?

Now I’m not an architect and wouldn’t pretend to know a whole lot about the field, but being brutally honest – is there any point in being an ambitious architect in Dublin/Ireland when the vast majority of projects that get the go ahead here are bland, moribund rubbish? If New York had the same conservative views back when the Empire State or the Chrysler Building were being proposed they’d both be five stories with a set-back sixth and coated in red brick now. Same for most of the worlds other great modern buildings – sadly they just couldn’t happen in Ireland.

I agree

Yep, the only thing to get the Irish public to row in with their opinions on new development is the old “high”-rise chestnut.
Roche’s Spencer Dock wasn’t going to win any awards, but at least it was real, urban commercial architecture in a site more than a kilometre away from anything historical, like a scaled-down Canary Wharf.

The new plan is insipid, suburban-style shite that will spread as far as the eye can (or can’t) see along our docks, ruining probably our last chance to create a totally new district within the centre of Dublin.
But nobody cares because they’re low rise.

It has to be visually the worst urban rejeneration projects going on in the world today.
Well done to the DDDA and Peter Coyne for letting this be so. Who is he and the DDDA by the way ….a bunch of grey suited civil servants?

It’s totally bland, banal, mediocre……etc
and a f*****g crime to put it bluntly!

i know i mentioned this ion the cork related post, but it is so important that districts surrounding city centres are developed properly. these areas are the first and last thing a visitor to a city sees, i came in from dublin airport last week and its so depressing going past santry and all the rest. such a shame.

the lead up to dublin from the west isnt so bad. lots of open space and views to parks and trees. but coming into cork from any angle is a miserable experience. if spencer dock is intended as a new nodal point for transport it would indeed be a shame to show off even a little of what this countries architects are capable of

I didn’t even know of new proposals until a few days ago. Anyone any pictures? Can anyone even give a rough description of what’s planned – although I gather its nothing to be shouting from the rooftops about.

This development does not have to be high rise, ie roughly over 10 storeys.
30-40 housing units per acre (high density) is perfectly attainable without reaching for the clouds.
I’m not defending either side of the high-rise cause, but earlier posts are certainly hinting that Spencer Dock can only be a success if it goes high.

The Liffey needs tall buildings along its widest course around Spencer Dock, but this does not mean to go 20-30 storeys up as previously proposed in some parts of the first plans.

Well designed low-rise development, whilst not being squalid 5 storey blocks, is perfectly acceptable.

http://www.reflectingcity.com/8501a.htm

Here’s a link with some notable people’s opinions…..including Coyne.

Me I’d give Coyne the booth and employ someone with a bit of flair dynamism and vision. Hard to find someone like that around these shores I know.

Glad you pulled me up d d dallas, nice to know you’re paying attention – I mean that only if it is necessary to go high-rise for density purposes then the Docklands/Spencer Dock should be the only place where high-rise is allowed.

But thats only if necessary, high-rise is so often spouted as the answer to the city’s housing density problems, but high density can be achieved in modest buildings.
Ballymun, posessing the tallest housing in the country is low density (contibuted to by windswept wasteland)

I’m unsure where I stand – like a lot of people – on the high-rise issue in Dublin because we need to see images – hard evidence as to tall building’s impact on the city.
Certainly I’m strongly leaning towards the low-rise bandwagon, as I feel that Dublin, who’s historic fabric has been decimated in terms of having distinctive historic areas, must cling on to the last distinctive and unifying feature of the city – it’s low-rise character.

Why does the high-rise debate always have to be centred around the issue of density? Tall buildings (in the right location) are not just a necessary evil, they help create a skyline and a sense of place.
What about church spires – they’re tall just to make a statement, and without them Dublin would be pretty bland.
Thanks to economic stagnation in the 19th century and shunning high-rise in the 20th, we don’t have any grand modern architecture, and the city is the poorer for it.
But I suppose that’s for another thread!

One can equally turn your opening statement around Andrew and say – why does high-density always have to be centred on high-rise! (but I see where you’re coming from)

Tall buildings certainly can create a skyline, and a beautiful one at that, but a totally low-rise scape can do so equally. The difference between church spires and tall buildings is that the buildings tend to dominate, whilst spires act as architectural statements.
And of course church spires piercing a low-rise city creates an historic perspective which is on a whole different level to the standard ‘impact of tall buildings on just Merrion Square debate’.

Just because Spencer Dock is far away from the city centre dosn’t mean it dosn’t have a strong impact on the city at large.

I e-mailed Peter Coyne expressing my disappointment with the docks.
It was nice of the man to reply.

Here is his reply.

Dear Mr (GregF),

Thank you for your e-mail. I am sorry that you feel the way you do about the project.

The architecture has been largely provided by the various private sector developers with whom we have partnered and the results and rapid progress have been generally acclaimed together with the Campshire works. We have directly procured certain designs through the application of international design competitions, in particular Clarion Quay which won the RIAI Best Housing Project 2003 award. Under construction are the two mixed tenure residential schemes at Grand Canal Dock, both of which were procured by international design competition and we expect this year to be on site with the Custom House Quay footbridge similarly designed in competition. You will also be aware that we are currently operating an international design competition for the 60m tower at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay and we are continuing with these initiatives for other landmark structures.

Incidentally, the Kevin Roche design has not been given the boot, indeed we have issued two consents for variations on it and made our support for it clear to Government. The project at present lacks a sponsor but we remain supportive and hopeful.

If you wish to know more of the project from a design perspective, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Regards,

Peter Coyne

It has become a bit of a buzzword alright – or buzz-development as it were…