O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects win RIAI Gold

Maggie…I like some French architecture and also the new Cork County Council offices but all in all I dont like any Irish architects or major recent public work that I can think of. I think it has something to do with Irish architects being very unoriginal in their thought and design,they follow fashion and achitectural flavours,whether its Calatrava or Pei or Libenskind. Whatever is heralded in the architectural world is basically re-formulated by Irish architects and presented to an ignorant public as something original. Maybe its because being a relatively closed shop in Ireland ie.UCD student architects are totally corrupted , the same school of thought is hammered into the same crop of architects produced every year. Some kind of incestuous corruption of their thought process occurs, you only have to look at how many of them get shacked up. This theory is some ways is proven by the sterotypical and similar reactions of PeterFitzpatrick and ThomandPark to my earlier comments, neither have choses to address any particular issue I raised about ODT instead took a kind of uniform professional offence to it all.
Is the term ‘Celebrated Works’ supposed to mean something PeterF… FrankWright has alot of celbrated works too most if not all of which are falling down,the only thing keeping them up is rich patronage.
I took the ceiling off my 100 year old cottage today, the timbers are immacualte, the lime mortar and slate show no signs of any water damage, yet ODT cant design a roof or facade that doesnt leak…end of story… oh hang on my mistake the purpose is not to design functional living working spaces its to be celebrated!

PeterF. … everything I said went way over your head… back to 1st year for you…. God is in the details and all that…. suffice to say you havent addressed any point I made , you merely took exception to the manner in which I made it… and thats whats sterotypical, among other things..

I didnt make a simple dismissal of their work I pointed out some glaring defects in it, (I merely mentioned a handful, believe me there are dozens more). Outside of any merit derived from breaking new design ground buildings also have a practical purpose to perform especially for the people who use and look at them. If a building fails as a functional entity then I find it hard to justify it no matter how revelutionary the design is.

Dont talk about interpretation of the site ether, I know for a fact that ODT waned to demolish the existing Quaker building that was there. How interpretive is that. None of their award winning buildings sit well in their environment. Most structures of that size will have inherent qualitys and appeals simply because of their sheer size, the skill and talent lies in architecting the appropriate solution, something ODT fail to do, they simply drop
a brick from outerspace on a site.

I believe ODT take their influence from simple craftsmen, they look at the very basics of what joiners, masons, tradespeople do, basic forms of what these people will construct day to day, they spruce it up with some verbage and then present it as some fantastical interpretation. You just have to look at the buildings to see this.

Big deal they got an RIAI award, that doesnt prove anything and says more about their peers than about ODT, as the greeks said you can judge a society by its heroes , maybe the same can be applied to RIAI. Next thing you know you will want us to ‘celebrate’ an architect who designs flyovers for motorways with a seat on Aosdana… oh shit they just did that.

M

Thomand Park…
ODT have wasted alot of taxpayers money and also destroyed a number of beautiful sites…
but to answer your question they aint ever done anything to me…

Your response falls into the same bracket as previous respondents… stereotypical…

Im still waiting for someone to respond to any of the actual issues I raised regarding ODT buildings,
their design, detail , and the fact they leak…
so far all Ive heard is that Ive been ranting and have a chip… blah blah blah… very sensitive types out there all together.
Mike

I was wondering when that old faithful would be trotted out, ‘any defects, its the building contractors fault ‘,
your an idiot. The architects specs for Letterfrack where followed but they didnt allow enough of an overlap on the cladding and also un-treated timbers are basically unpredictable in their movement.
The defects in ODTs buildings are design fault. They offer up all this sophistry about the at one with nature element to their buildings, but they dont actually understand the properties of the materials they work with.
Theres a bit of the Emperors new clothes syndrome to it all, and that includes alot fo the work going on around us.

Heres a question for you TP,
For a couple of hundred years artists have travelled to the west to avail of the wonderful light, the colours, hues and shades it throws up as the sea sky and land combine to offer a unique inspirational experience, you only have to look at a Paul Henry to see what unique spectral properties exist out there. But also on a practical note they have had to deal with harsh elements, ie the cold and damp.
So if you were putting a drawing studio in a design college where students are sitting at a desk not moving about much would you
A) Locate it strategicaly where this inspirational light and its thermal properties are availed of, or would you like ODT
B) Put it virtually underground encased in cold dank concrete and dependant on flourescent lighting
Oh hang on I know it was the building contractors fault.

On top of the defects that we both agree exist in their buildings , although Id blame the architect, you fault the sub-bies, in my opinion I find their buildings uninspiring and passionless, but then as they say
opinion’s are like assholes everybodys got one.

Well as I have said consistently in my responses, Im still waiting for someone to correct me on the assertions I have made, up to now Ive merely been vilified for being the harbinger of some harsh but honest truths
which leads me to believe that my comments have been well founded albeit crudely put….

So TP if Architecture is a religion does this mean I have crossed the cartoon line with you….

If my claims are so wide of the mark … then wouldnt it have been much easier to correct me rather than continue my public tongue lashing…

Foot, shot and yourself… comes to mind, your countering your own claim by saying my comments have lacked engagement, Ive had plenty responses inculding your s , none of which addressed the issues I raised
ie. the building defects and also the fact no-one has countered those claims.
And come to think of it , if you respond again then your previous claim about not replying to “trolls” (which was a rather purile comment unbecoming of a member of the RIAI) will be called into question.

Regarding the leaks, considering both the Furniture college and the Glucksman are plagued with leaks, does this mean that both these contractors are to blame or should we lay that at the doorstep of the only other common element in this (besides the H2O!) and thats ODT.
You are annoying me know because your not reading what I say, I never said there were construction defects per se, I said there were design defects, if the spec say use untreated timber and the cladding spec does not overlap enough the best builder in the world cannot prevent leakage. Anyways surely regular site inspections be the architects would have picked up on these issues before completion.

The biennale piece was embarrassing, any apprentice 1st fix carpenter would have designed and knocked that up in his sleep.

Yes I know they have won many awards, that has been stated a number of times, in fact thats the main component of the argument to contradict what I have said. Thats kind of a given considering the thread title!
Awards mean very little, evey sycophantic organisation has them .

At this stage I hope someone can demonstrate in some empirical manner where the cracks lie in my logic, cos I just dont get the ODT work.

1. Awards are not only a consequence of quality but of political influence. One might discount early AAI awards because of the narrowness of the constituency.

2. Architects must take some responsibility for performance, at least designing so that a building might hope to perform in the real world.

3. The Biennale project suffered from a lack of technical and architectural coherence with a mixture of constructional methodologies, which either illustrates a naiveté about such things, a desire to subvert them or an essay on the total disconnect between architecture and the methods of building.

4. In an world lacking differentiation in professions, art and other realms, architects have attempted to regain a rarefied platform by the use of the new, the original act, the difference. unfortunately this usually means that in order to be different extremes of expression are rife, leading usually to 2. or 3. hoping to get 1.

5. The ranelagh school suffers from many of the same difficulties in 3. Disconnected elements, the brick blockhouses on the corner, the steel framed stoa to the rear, the playground (roof) facing the wrong way, the timber extensions to the rear and the stone/concrete fire escape (after-thought it seems) to the front.

6. 1. is possible especially if you desire to be considered part of a particular milieu and thus Ranelagh owes a lot to Bonell & Gill and other Spanish, proto rationalist modernist work. However these are quotations rather than a piece of writing in its own right.

7. Ranelagh pushes the modernist objectification of function (via Stirling & others) into the realm of post classical thinking, with its two bays, large formal room at the middle which places it well within the post modern body of work, while not admitting it. Certainly better than the woeful Children’s Court and IFC but still short on the coherent thread.

8. Where is disappoints however is in the lack of embrace in the user, the child and while the children offer much praise, it is relative, since what can they compare it against and certainly it is better than a tin shed which it replaced.

9. Being critical is not useful. It is better to illuminate so that people can make their own mind up. Generally I am not a fan, the work tends towards the shallow projection of image over content and the disappointment continues. A good graphic in a magazine does not architecture make.

@shadow wrote:

Generally I am not a fan, the work tends towards the shallow projection of image over content and the disappointment continues. A good graphic in a magazine does not architecture make.

I would have to say that in my opinion ODT are one of the few practices in Ireland if not in Europe who have, for the most part rejected trying to sell an image. I have always found that their work is far better in the flesh then it looks in magazines and demands a certain respect upon inspection. Even visiting an exhibition of theirs a few years ago it seemed that their concern was with the exploration of space through models and sketches rather then flashy 3d imagery. (The drawings tended to be extremely simple and showed no more then was necessary.)
I would argue that if any of their buildings project an image of shapemaking there is generally a very considered reason and it has not been an arbitrary response to get into some magazine.
Having said that, I do not think that they are above criticism.

I have done my few months on sites and yes they are a hardy bunch; however I was lucky enough to work with true professionals who didn’t cut corners and didn’t sub jobs off hence the architects plans worked.