Smithfield, Dublin
- This topic has 331 replies, 84 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 6 months ago by
.
- Posts
Smithfield 21 November 2011
It looks as if no expense will be spared to kill the horse fair once and for all. The tree planters I presume will be arranged to restrict access to the centre of the square or at least what’s left of it when the building work is complete. Is there any way to find out how much all this is costing? I’ve tried the DCC website but I can’t find anything.
Some recent snaps taken down Smithfield way where the public realm works are substantially completed. Recent developments such as the reopening of The Lighthouse and the new Generator Hostel are to be welcomed. Hopefully the area can start turning the corner. There’s a long way to go though.
Some issues of course…the all important red line boundary means that this whole section remains unresolved. Quite when this (potentially attractive) lane will get some improved paving and lighting is open to question.
The view down New Church Street – smart but a little sterile perhaps. I think more trees would have helped here. The cobble setts set so firmly in cement have lost all their charm and colour in my view.
The welcome return of a little curiosity
Planting on the square to be provided by these guys….beech hedges in concrete pots. There’s loads of them…must have cost a fair packet. They are currently arranged rather haphazardly pending completion of works.
The ‘competed’ section of the square is looking a bit worse for wear in places. These bollards were unsuccessful.
The grassed terrace at the northern end of the square. The terrace of 4 Georgian houses languishes in the background.
Another one of those forgotten streets – with the attractive name Friary Avenue. The housing here is starting to look like a ghetto.
Smartened up again on the connection through to Church Street. Getting people moving through from Capel Street to Smithfield is all important. Dont get me started on those bollards though…
Presumably a NAMA property, this building has been vacant since its completion. At the very least the railing surrounding it could be removed.
what the fuck is this?
are you telling me they’ve taken up the cobbles and put down grass?
grass?
on Smithfield?
The whole gig has been to make the horse fair more difficult, create obstructons etc. Unfortunately Horses have a thing for grass.
@gunter wrote:
what the fuck is this?
are you telling me they’ve taken up the cobbles and put down grass?
grass?
on Smithfield?
Yup. Its already looking a bit peaky. This will be battered earth by summer’s end, in much the same way as Jervis Park went. But they wont be told.
Holy crap, wasn’t this suppose to be the city’s grand open space? They had finished the bloody thing, and they change their minds. I get the whole horse fair problem, but if cobbles stones didn’t stop them grass surely won’t.
I suppose the braziers have been replaced 100 watt light bulbs from the spar shop?
Anyone know what is happening with the chimney btw? The elevator shaft seemed to be collapsing last time I was up that way.
@Service charge wrote:
Anyone know what is happening with the chimney btw? The elevator shaft seemed to be collapsing last time I was up that way.
defunct
The Generator Hostel website seems to indicate it is up and running again? It is a real shame if it isn’t.
I was down in Smithfield last night. There is just a small section of Haymarket to be completed (with cobbling) and some minor fixing up about the square and yet huge sections still given over to the work site. Its dragging on now just a tad. Lets just get the work finished and start building life and business in the area DCC. The newly repaved streets look great and I think the area will start to lift. Generator is a great anchor for the square and the Lighthouse is holding its own, what with another new cinema opened at Point Village.
I don’t know….some of the new paving is actually very good quality. However, what we see today really isn’t anything like the great open European Piazza we were promised.
The pace of development has been labouriously slow, what was built took extraordinarily long (thanks in part to our old friends the serial objectors) and some projects haven’t even comensed like the redevelopment of Irish distiller, the Georgian buildings at the head of the Square, the unsightly derelicting in front of the Glass House and of of course the huge excavation between Phoenix House and the Four Courts. All add an air of drabness and cessation.
Needless to say, mistakes of the past are still haunting the Square. I am speaking about the “Childrens Court” and its attendent retenue of intimidating gurriers and the toytown like 2/3 storey pastiche Council houses at the Northern end.
C
And here is another Facebook-led campaign for a public realm project…this time on that strip of wasteland beside the Luas line between Smithfield and Queen Street
http://www.facebook.com/arttunnelsmithfield
Interestingly the site is owned by the Bargaintown owner according to the blurb. The campaign is now seeking €5,000 funding to realise the garden/installation. I am sure RPA must be able to stump up something! Dice Bar and new businesses on Benburb Street are also contributing.
I think its a great idea….beats the buddelia.
I read on thejournal.ie that there’s to be 17 new stalls permitted around Town with the change in the bye-laws of Dublin City Council. Do archiseekers know if any of these are to be located in Smithfield? It would be good as it could act as a further catalyst to bringing footfall through the area and promoting a vibrant, attractive community.
Also, the Smithfield fruit market needs the cash for its long-mooted redevelopment which should begin and be completed this year. Having the Smithfield fruit market up to the same standard as the English Market in Cork in terms of being a destination for locals and tourists alike would provide another boost to the area and support cafés and restaurants in the area.
Doesnt look like Smithfield is included in this list http://www.dublincity.ie/RecreationandCulture/CasualTradingLicence/Pages/default.aspx but there is already a small market on Smithfield and its not as if there are no vacant shop units that need filling. I’m not really sure stalls will help. I think stalls need anchor shops to attract footfall.
Smithfield Fruit Market…would you call it that. I always think of the Markets area as separate from Smithfield. Preliminary works have already begun on the Market Hall. Interesting collection of images here http://www.dublincityarchitects.ie/?p=98#more-98
Public realm is a key to the success of the Markets I would think. Its is uniformly awful in this part of the city. Perhaps this might help http://dubcitybeta.wordpress.com/
@StephenC wrote:
Doesnt look like Smithfield is included in this list http://www.dublincity.ie/RecreationandCulture/CasualTradingLicence/Pages/default.aspx but there is already a small market on Smithfield and its not as if there are no vacant shop units that need filling. I’m not really sure stalls will help. I think stalls need anchor shops to attract footfall.
Well I’d certainly agree with that – anchor shops are certainly more attractive than stalls to people but given the overall slump in fortunes experienced by Dublin and Ireland it’s not likely that we’ll see too many of them, therefore we’re left with the likes of stalls to generate business. It might be a good idea also to put in a couple more Dublin Bikes stands when the next round of expansion starts with that. Incidentally, I remember reading that fastfood places and phone shops are really footfall-leeches rather than footfall generators in themselves.
Smithfield Fruit Market…would you call it that. I always think of the Markets area as separate from Smithfield. Preliminary works have already begun on the Market Hall. Interesting collection of images here http://www.dublincityarchitects.ie/?p=98#more-98
Public realm is a key to the success of the Markets I would think. Its is uniformly awful in this part of the city. Perhaps this might help http://dubcitybeta.wordpress.com/
Well the place it’s in is called Smithfield on ratemyarea.com so there’s some argument for it being called that! However, I feel the main thing is for the place to be developed, regardless of what it’s called. I’m delighted to hear that preliminary works have (finally) commenced. Hopefully they’ll be ready to go for Christmas this year. It would be another driver of business in around that part of Dublin 1.
Thanks for the link to the blog with the photos of it being built in the first place. Often with these older buildings you think of them as being a permanent feature on the landscape and forget that once, they too, were new constructions. I wonder did they have to deal with an Bord Pleanála back in their day? 🙂
The finished lower end of the plaza – nice job!!!!!!! Skateboard rats are the main activity so far.
That ‘Glass House’ office infill worked out quite well ….. apart from the lack of office tenants, lol.
Now all that’s needed is development of the two sites on the west side on each side of Luas. There were two pisstaking Tiger applications for these sites in the late noughties.
Timeline:
First off was a redevelopment of the buildings on the Smithfield / Haymarket site with a monster 9-storey block, in the centre, above. This was granted permission with no volume changes by Dublin City Council – 2776/07 – and refused outright by An Bord Pleanala on appeal – PL29N.226444. The architects were trying to do some trendy Stockholm-Barcelona building with “woven steel mesh” instead of actually trying to repair some of the damage done to the coherent historic scale of the area by Smithfield Market.
In the appeal, the applicant argued, inter alia, that the location of the site at the junction of Luas and Smithfield warranted a large building such as that proposed. The appellant argued, inter alia, that the site should be seen in the overall context of Smithfield and the appropriate thing to do here was mediate in scale between Smithfield Market to the north and the traditional city scale of the Quays to the south.
While the Haymarket site was still under appeal, a 10-storey building was lodged for the Smithfield / Coke Lane site next door to the south, on the left above – 2012/08
The Coke Lane proposal was redesigned and scaled back by the time of its approval by the City Council, then was further reduced and turned around by 180° on appeal – PL29N.232346
Following the initial Haymarket appeal refusal, a revised 7-storey block was permitted by the City Council – 3045/09 – then reduced to 6 storeys on appeal – PL29N.234398.
So the desired transition in scale between Smithfield Market and the Quays was eventually achieved in the permitted buildings. But there’s no consistency to the City Council’s decision making; they granted permission for the two successive Haymarket applications more or less without any changes, but granted a massively reduced version of the Coke Lane proposal.
I recall during the boom that when Adamstown Town Centre in west Dublin was being created, there were strict briefs by South Dublin Co. Co. which the various architects involved had to follow and they all knew exactly what type and size of building was required in each location. Yet a major Dublin-city-centre civic and historic plaza like Smithfield had no guidelines about how its remaining gap sites should be developed, about what type of buildings the City Council wanted to see there …… so you got this tomfoolery nonsense of applicants coming in with obviously ridiculous proposals out of proportion to the location, with the City Council usually just throwing permission at them ….. hopefully it’ll all be cleaned up on appeal. Crazy.
It’s all a bit much when you read the reams and reams of waffle in the new Dublin City Development Plan under headings like “shaping the city” and “spatial structure of Dublin” (just open it here and start reading anywhere). The sham that’s been called “planning” in Dublin city centre for the past decade cannot hide behind this wall of bluff.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
