New Dublin airport control tower by STW

Would be the tallest building in Ireland!

I’m not sure the building needs to be that tall, at least from the point of view of its technical requirements.

With modern radar and tracking systems an ATC tower does not require a view beyond the airfield itself, all it needs is a view over the airfield to monitor the movement of aircraft whilst they are on the ground. I’m not sure one needs to be standing 85 metres above Dublin airport to see its entire expanse.

Also the design is quite bland and altogether uninspiring.

Surely if their intention is to enter into the “Phallic Face-Off” competition for the tallest building in Ireland they could come up with something a little more, perky?

http://www.tribune.ie/business/news/article/2009/aug/09/towering-ambitions-for-airport/
This explains more

Thanks for that jdivision.

Upon reading that report I had a look at the site location map, which also shows the location of the proposed new runway.
If you look at this map the argument for the height of the tower to accommodate the new runway doesn’t seem to hold true.
The new runway runs parallel to the current one, and the new control tower is pretty much smack in the middle of the two.
If the current control tower is sufficient for the current runway, then surely it would also be able to handle another runway, equidistant to the current one, on its opposite side?

I want to be convinced that there’s a need for the height of this tower, I really do, because we’ll all have to be looking at it, no matter where in Dublin (or surrounding counties) we are, for a very long time!

Am I wrong in thinking the new runway will be significantly longer to cater for the new Airbus? That might make a difference. In any event, the runway has been shelved for the time being:

http://www.tribune.ie/archive/article/2009/mar/15/daa-shelves-350m-dublin-airport-plans/

That could also be a reason.

They’re all valid reasons for building a new control tower, no doubt about that.
I just wonder if the height is necessary.
My instinct is that it is not. The technical side of my brain (limited as it is) is also supporting that instinct.

It could just be that when the DAA meet up with other airport authorities around the globe they want to be able to compare rods and not come up short.
Just a theory.

@jdivision wrote:

Am I wrong in thinking the new runway will be significantly longer to cater for the new Airbus? That might make a difference. In any event, the runway has been shelved for the time being:

http://www.tribune.ie/archive/article/2009/mar/15/daa-shelves-350m-dublin-airport-plans/

Are you refering to the Airbus A380? I doubt it will ever serve Dublin, way too big. The new runway is being built mainly to coincide with traffic increases (ie the current one will eventually reach operational capacity) but the current decline in traffic has led to the new runway being postponed until 2014.

Also, the current runway is too short for practical use by some modern long range aircraft, specifically the Boeing 777 and Airbus A340, hence the longer length will help attract long haul airlines from Asia is they ever want to serve Dublin. Also, Aer Lingus has the new Airbus A350 on order and this will probably require a longer runway if they are to use it on routes to Asia.

@archipig wrote:

Are you refering to the Airbus A380? I doubt it will ever serve Dublin, way too big. The new runway is being built mainly to coincide with traffic increases (ie the current one will eventually reach operational capacity) but the current decline in traffic has led to the new runway being postponed until 2014.

Also, the current runway is too short for practical use by some modern long range aircraft, specifically the Boeing 777 and Airbus A340, hence the longer length will help attract long haul airlines from Asia is they ever want to serve Dublin. Also, Aer Lingus has the new Airbus A350 on order and this will probably require a longer runway if they are to use it on routes to Asia.

Spot on. From memory Dublin runway is only about 2700m, whereas, the B777 needs approx 3100-3600 for takeoff at the weights required for long range routes. Likewise the a340 requires above 3000m. These are the 2 aircraft that most long haul carriers use noadays, certainly all of the Chinese/Japanese/Korean airlines that we would like to tempt here. The problem is not so much carrying passengers but lifting all the cargo (air mail etc) which is what actually makes alot of these routes possible. For example Aer Lingus were mulling Cape Town as a destination, which was within range of their a330 200, however the short runway at dublin merant they couldn’t take off at max weight rendering the route impossible…………of course there are still people of influence in Ireland who won’t let Dublin have a longer runway then Shannon!

As for concerns about the control tower, it does need the height to see the second runway as there may be new airport buildings obscuring part of the runway in years to come. Only in Ireland would people which about a control tower being too tall!

I note that STW have got another contract……if they are nothing else (and they aren’t) if not well connected…….

@thebig C wrote:

Spot on. From memory Dublin runway is only about 2700m, whereas, the B777 needs approx 3100-3600 for takeoff at the weights required for long range routes. Likewise the a340 requires above 3000m. These are the 2 aircraft that most long haul carriers use noadays, certainly all of the Chinese/Japanese/Korean airlines that we would like to tempt here. The problem is not so much carrying passengers but lifting all the cargo (air mail etc) which is what actually makes alot of these routes possible. For example Aer Lingus were mulling Cape Town as a destination, which was within range of their a330 200, however the short runway at dublin merant they couldn’t take off at max weight rendering the route impossible…………of course there are still people of influence in Ireland who won’t let Dublin have a longer runway then Shannon!

As for concerns about the control tower, it does need the height to see the second runway as there may be new airport buildings obscuring part of the runway in years to come. Only in Ireland would people which about a control tower being too tall!

I note that STW have got another contract……if they are nothing else (and they aren’t) if not well connected…….

Dude, don’t fall back on that ridiculous ‘only in Ireland’ rubbish. The current control tower is visible from parts of Dublin city centre, and it’s less than a third of the height of the proposed new tower. Alot of money has been spent recently demolishing another bunch of towers quite near the airport because, along with many many other things, they were an eyesore.

As for the Shannon vs. Dublin debate that you’ve brought up, perhaps there are people that would not like to see Dublin have as long a runway as Shannon, but there also seem to be people fundamentally opposed to giving Shannon the connectivity that it requires to be viable. Also, it doesn’t help that every half-town in the country feels that it has a fundamental right to an airport with connections to London and beyond. This country should only have three international airports. Everything else is a drain on resources.

@thebig C wrote:

As for concerns about the control tower, it does need the height to see the second runway as there may be new airport buildings obscuring part of the runway in years to come. Only in Ireland would people which about a control tower being too tall!

…

That makes sense. T3 whenever its built will obviously be immediatly west of the control tower.

@foremanjoe wrote:

I’m not sure the building needs to be that tall, at least from the point of view of its technical requirements.

With modern radar and tracking systems an ATC tower does not require a view beyond the airfield itself, all it needs is a view over the airfield to monitor the movement of aircraft whilst they are on the ground. I’m not sure one needs to be standing 85 metres above Dublin airport to see its entire expanse.

Also the design is quite bland and altogether uninspiring.

Surely if their intention is to enter into the “Phallic Face-Off” competition for the tallest building in Ireland they could come up with something a little more, perky?

I kind of like the design. It’s kind of minimalist and a little bit sci-fi. Anyway it’s just a functionalist object which nobody will pay attention to.

@rumpelstiltskin wrote:

I kind of like the design. It’s kind of minimalist and a little bit sci-fi. Anyway it’s just a functionalist object which nobody will pay attention to.

Ah come on rumpelstiltskin, wake up! 😀

The point I’ve been banging on about is that the tower is so tall that’ll it’ll be visible from all over Dublin and beyond, meaning that many people will have no other option than to pay attention to it.

As for the design debate, I thinks it’s a bit paradoxical to create a tower that is this tall and will stand out so much, and then make it minimalist?

Is it too much to ask for something a little more daring?

It’s going to be so hard to nickname this tower otherwise…

“the tower is so tall that’ll it’ll be visible from all over Dublin and beyond”
“The current control tower is visible from parts of Dublin city”

Ah come on now yourself… 86.9m is not that tall. The poolbeg chimneys are over 200m
And no, it is not at all “paradoxical” to make a tall object minimalist.
And from where exactly in the city is the current tower visible?

Though I agree the design is less than inspiring… on second look, its pretty hideous.

Ok I’m pushing it a bit with the visible from the city argument.
It can’t really be seen from street level in the inner city but it can be seen from some north facing upper floor windows. And it can be seen from the south of the city as the ground level rises.
I think it’s altogether possible that the new tower will be visible from street level in some spots.

Also, the airport really isn’t far from the city centre at all, and there is a considerable rise from the liffey to the airport, not enough to bring it close to the Poolbeg towers, but enough to make it a significant statement on the horizon.

True, the airport is not that far, but Ballymun, where there were 7x 42m towers of considerable bulk and still is a 60m chimney stack, is closer.
Sure, maybe from the gravity bar, or whatever it is called at Guinness, it may be visible, but I would never consider it a “significant statement”. There may be plenty of arguments against it, but visual impact on the city is not one of them.

“the tower is so tall that’ll it’ll be visible from all over Dublin and beyond”
“The current control tower is visible from parts of Dublin city”

Come off it!! For a number of years I lived within a few Km of Heathrow (control tower height 86.7M), and there is no hint of that on the skyline until you are on the approach roads to the airport, in a field beside the airport, or up a tall building on the outer West suburbs of Lon.

I really don’t understand this type of small minded thinking. Do you really think the DAA would waste that amount of money on a new control tower just for showmanship……:mad:

@foremanjoe wrote:

Dthere also seem to be people fundamentally opposed to giving Shannon the connectivity that it requires to be viable.

I dont really understand this argument. The ‘connections that it requires’? Shannon is not subsidized anymore, its been thrown into the real world. Connections that it ‘requires’ are decided by the markets now instead of politics. And if a market exists for a particular connection, airlines will be happy to serve it.

@Dec56 wrote:

Do you really think the DAA would waste that amount of money on a new control tower just for showmanship……:mad:

I do.

@foremanjoe wrote:

I’m not sure the building needs to be that tall, at least from the point of view of its technical requirements.

With modern radar and tracking systems an ATC tower does not require a view beyond the airfield itself, all it needs is a view over the airfield to monitor the movement of aircraft whilst they are on the ground. I’m not sure one needs to be standing 85 metres above Dublin airport to see its entire expanse.

Also the design is quite bland and altogether uninspiring.

Surely if their intention is to enter into the “Phallic Face-Off” competition for the tallest building in Ireland they could come up with something a little more, perky?

You have to marvel at the brilliance of your bog standard message board poster.
All he needs to do is have a quick think and the answer to everything is at his fingertips.

How could the IAA be so thick?
Using what I guess is the biggest number they know to specify the height of the control tower.
Yes,it is their job to study the issue but they can’t be bothered with all that fussing. A big number should do lads.

Clearly it’s just luck that the height designed by pure accident means they will see future lengthened runways over various buildings.

The same wally will be complaining that the DAA/IAA fail to think ahead.

That’s great lads, I’ve been denounced as a small-thinking, witch-burning, typically Oirish, bog-standard philistine wally.

I admire all of your blind faith in the DAA, or perhaps it’s in STW?

I’m sure anyone that has passed through Dublin airport regularly over the past 20 years or more would also question how well the DAA think things through and plans ahead. Or perhaps it takes that long to build an international airport, who am I to say?

And the connection for Shannon airport that I was referring to was simply a rail link, perhaps off the Limerick-Ennis line which runs a few miles away. Currently the only airport in the country with a rail link is Farranfore in Kerry!

That thing looks like an oversized olympic torch form the 80’s.

Truly awful.

it is pretty awful looking

here it is by the way… meh, it’s an airport control tower. What do you want? Does anyone have any links to more attractive airport control towers? any architectural gems around the world’s airports.

The argument re height is actually quite incredulous really. I mean it’s in the middle of a massive bloody airport miles from any houses etc. with as close to zero impact on anyone. I can’t see the ESB towers from Ringsend village or Sandymount village at street level. So how in the name of all that is holy will anyone be able to see this from O Connell Street. But jaysus some might be able to see it from north facing upper floors!!!! Dear God think of the children…..

quick check on google gives some of these good and bad examples:

edinburgh:
http://www.edinburgharchitecture.co.uk/jpgs/edinburgh_airport_control_tower_54.jpg

http://www.edinburgharchitecture.co.uk/edinburgh_airport.htm

sydney:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Sydney_Airport_Control_Tower.jpg

bangkok:
http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif

copenhagen:
http://www.earchitect.co.uk/copenhagen/jpgs/copenhagen_airport_control_tower_vla260808_1.jpg

hampshire:
http://m.gmgrd.co.uk/sbres/988.$plit/C_67_article_2042261_body_articleblock_0_bodyimage.jpg

guangzhou:
http://www.newsgd.com/specials/airportguide/constructionnpreparation/200407300023_17864.jpg

on the whole, designing interesting control towers seems to be beyond most architects.

and here is STW’s previous attempt at a control tower in ireland, the new cork airport control tower

i think it is tall enough to see all the airfield!

posted in error

St Anne’s Tower competition entry by these guys.

http://www.hhmck.com/

Its not an airport control tower, but as far as phallic objects go, it’s quiet attractive….

@foremanjoe wrote:

That’s great lads, I’ve been denounced as a small-thinking, witch-burning, typically Oirish, bog-standard philistine wally.

I admire all of your blind faith in the DAA, or perhaps it’s in STW?

I’m sure anyone that has passed through Dublin airport regularly over the past 20 years or more would also question how well the DAA think things through and plans ahead. Or perhaps it takes that long to build an international airport, who am I to say?

And the connection for Shannon airport that I was referring to was simply a rail link, perhaps off the Limerick-Ennis line which runs a few miles away. Currently the only airport in the country with a rail link is Farranfore in Kerry!

you forgot cannibal

They can look good. The Stansted one looks good I think – the green glass with the grey concrete.

The only airport control tower in the world i would mention is Vienna International, it’s 109metres tall by the way…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CtrlTwrVIA.JPG

I do hope they leave the little one standing as a kind of ironic abstraction of the big Mary little Mary shrines you find in villages down the country. Is their relative position enough to have them represent big Mary little Mary or would other decoration be required? Certainly no other decoration is required for this building, along with its context, to express the idea “airport control tower”, which makes is kind of perfect to my thinking.

I know little Mary isn’t really Mary but I can’t remember who she is since I don’t dig with that foot.

Keen, the Vienna tower is worth mentioning in what context? I hope you were being ironic. Hideous.

Seriously now lads. Big tall things look like dicks. “Hwhehehwhwh”. The obsession with making “phallic” references is unreal. Maybe once or twice, but its boring now, even if a more polite word for cock is used.

:confused:

@foremanjoe wrote:

Ah come on rumpelstiltskin, wake up! 😀

The point I’ve been banging on about is that the tower is so tall that’ll it’ll be visible from all over Dublin and beyond, meaning that many people will have no other option than to pay attention to it.

As for the design debate, I thinks it’s a bit paradoxical to create a tower that is this tall and will stand out so much, and then make it minimalist?

Is it too much to ask for something a little more daring?

It’s going to be so hard to nickname this tower otherwise…

Jesus christ man its not that tall! I mean you cant even see liberty hall from some parts of Dublin city how the hell do you think were gonna see this??

And its not as if its more office blocks and unneeded, its actualy got a function like tall masts and the like. And tbh i find it extremely bland, but if it does the job, who really cares? who the hell are we trying to impressive? i doubt tourists are gonna turn and run back home from the site of it 😀

Alright, alright, so it’s not that tall. I may have exaggerated to express my point. I respectfully withdraw those arguments, even if little respect was shown towards me for expressing my opinion.

I stick by my original opinions on the bland and uninspiring nature of the structure though.
I can’t understand the argument that it’s simply a ‘functionalist’ building and it shouldn’t matter how it’s designed because of this.

I mean isn’t every building by its very essence functionalist?
A canopy for a Paris Metro station entrance, that’s a pretty functionalist brief right?
Put-a-cover-over-the-steps-to-the-underground.
But they’re beautiful, aren’t they? They didn’t have to be, but someone decided they could be.

Everything that we build as human beings has the potential to be unique and beautiful, I feel that to deny this potential is to deny our very humanity.

@rob mc wrote:

And tbh i find it extremely bland, but if it does the job, who really cares? 😀

So whats the point in building anything imaginative ?
Every building has its “job”.
A bland design should not have anything to do with the function of any structure.
Especially one of this scale.

Granted, I don’t care what goes on inside the place as long as the plane I’m in doesn’t come a sudden end. But I and millions of others every year will be subjected to the sight of it. Surely something more attractive than an oversized iron curtain watchtower is preferable.

And given its location at the busiest point of entry (and departure) on this island, I believe there is an opportunity for a new control tower to give visitors a positive first impression upon arrival. And indeed, a positive last glance of Irish architecture on departure.

IMO the proposed building does neither.

@Global Citizen wrote:

So whats the point in building anything imaginative ?
Every building has its “job”.
A bland design should not have anything to do with the function of any structure.
Especially one of this scale.

Granted, I don’t care what goes on inside the place as long as the plane I’m in doesn’t come a sudden end. But I and millions of others every year will be subjected to the sight of it. Surely something more attractive than an oversized iron curtain watchtower is preferable.

And given its location at the busiest point of entry (and departure) on this island, I believe there is an opportunity for a new control tower to give visitors a positive first impression upon arrival. And indeed, a positive last glance of Irish architecture on departure.

IMO the proposed building does neither.

I agree with you totaly its a very unattractive piece of architecture. And maybe i should have explained myself better, i didnt mean that all buildings should be built thinking of functionality and that the look of the building didnt matter i just meant it in this particular case, it being a watchtower an all. Maybe its just what iv come to expect in Ireland, and im not big on the whole “only in Ireland” cliche but that might just be it. Me expectations seem to be slipping every year.

All valid, but I think the problem with this proposal is not lack of design, its aesthetic is not simply a compolation of the necessary parts; those tapered louvres were, to someone’s mind, aesthetically pleasing, the green glass, cool. This is one which “design” should have left well enough alone. Utter rubbish.

A control tower by the very definition of its form is something that demands sculptural treatment. This proposal is just a functional control tower with some design stuck on.

While the control tower being proposed does look a bit… cyclopean, it’s the current tower that looks pretty dinky in the photo. The wonder is that they waited though the entire Celtic Tiger to get this built when Bertie could’ve stumped up the dough with a money drugged leer at the millennium.

Anyone gonna object to the height?……..ie An Taisce, the locals, the local crows, etc…

BTW that Edinburgh airport tower looks rather cool and sexy …..leaves poor old STW design in the “Design a basic airport tower” department.

Careful Gregf, witchburners aren’ much appreciated roun’ these parts.
Best be on your way…

@GregF wrote:

Anyone gonna object to the height?……..ie An Taisce, the locals, the local crows, etc…

Just a matter of time really, that will probably stall it for a few months.

The Witch Burners Guild has become entirely ceremonial.

Hence the continued survival of Patricia McKenna.

Another lesson in architectural drivel from Scott Tallon Walker. What happened to them?

The water tower at Sillogue has to be worth a mention, designed by Michael Lynas while at Michael Collins & Associates.

Simple, Elegant, Intriguing.
I love it, and its only a water tower.

© Darren Purcell

Veeery nice.

Drogheda’s one is quite similar, though I’ve never seen it up close.

Not familiar with the Drogheda one myself Graham … I think its the seamless outline of the silogue tower and its symmetry that makes it, the setting sun has great fun with it.

Am I right in thinking that the control box visible today atop Fitzgerald’s old terminal was an add on, with the sleek original visible below appropriately capping his masterpiece ??

@Peter Fitz wrote:

The water tower at Sillogue has to be worth a mention, designed by Michael Lynas while at Michael Collins & Associates.

Simple, Elegant, Intriguing.
I love it, and its only a water tower.

Lovely, I agree; but not a useful analogy, the form, the catenary curve, is pertinent to the purpose, containing water, or is my physics not as good as it should be.

I think what notjim means, Peter, is that the shape of the tower is by its nature is sculptural. It doesn’t directly compare with the STW control tower insofar as the water tower wasn’t so consciously designed.

Still, the devil is in the detail, which Sillogue handles with considerable skill. And of course water towers are a constant source of curiosity, making even the most utilitarian of towers appear intriguing.

A beautiful 1970s tower by Simo Lumme in Finland.

The forces are different; water pushed at right angles to the surface, air controller push down towards the floor and only exert pressure on the walls in moments of extreme stress and god willing there will be few. What, for the water tower is logical for the control tower is sculptural.

what about this beauty?

@GrahamH wrote:

I think what notjim means, Peter, is that the shape of the tower is by its nature is sculptural. It doesn’t directly compare with the STW control tower insofar as the water tower wasn’t so consciously designed.

Ah yes, point taken gentlemen ]
What, for the water tower is logical for the control tower is sculptural.
[/QUOTE]

But the basic outline, ‘the envelope’ to be all farty about it, which clearly in the case of the water tower is dictated by function, and not just some sort of architectural skin, could be just that in the case of an atc, with obvious necessity for an internal supporting structure. We need not have just a box, on a pole.

@alonso wrote:

what about this beauty?

my second favourite alonso 🙂

@DOC wrote:

Would be the tallest building in Ireland!

st johns cathedral in Limerick is 94m high so it wouldnt be the tallest

@GrahamH wrote:

I think what notjim means, Peter, is that the shape of the tower is by its nature is sculptural. It doesn’t directly compare with the STW control tower insofar as the water tower wasn’t so consciously designed.
]

and insofar as STW didn’t waste any time on design at all……..

could be worse though

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfgangstaudt/277492986/

It’s not a control tower. Its a viewing platform…..

Unless they want to Control The Army Air Corps Runways with that tower it doesn’t need to be that tall.

Build one have the size in the middle of the Runways and you’ll never have a problem seeing anything. Wait isn’t the current one already FAR away from the terminal’s as it is, surrounded by the Apron’s and so on?

There’s no need to be at the terminal.

Being out in the open give’s far better views of aproache’s and the ground around them.

@D-A-V-E wrote:

st johns cathedral in Limerick is 94m high so it wouldnt be the tallest

Tallest building I said…not spire! There are lots of structures (spires, masts, chimneys, etc.) in Ireland taller than the propsoed control tower but it would the tallest building.

God, does the height of it even matter? What a tedious discussion; try having an argument about design.

@DOC wrote:

Tallest building I said…not spire! There are lots of structures (spires, masts, chimneys, etc.) in Ireland taller than the propsoed control tower but it would the tallest building.

Anybody know why this building (unlike the considerably smaller proposed Crowne Plaza) doesn’t seem to present a problem for the Met Eirann radar? Is it just related to the considerably smaller cross section?

As I understand it the Crowne Plaza can’t be built above 3 stories until the the radar has been raised ~ 13m (or a new one built if the height can’t be increased, either option at the expense of the developers). Just wondering why it isn’t a problem for this building.