Tall Buildings in Dublin

I’m not so much a skyscraper fan as an admirer. Anyway:

1) Yes, the station will be redeveloped. It is unlikely that Irish Rail will design another building.

2) Irish architects don’t publish drawings very often:
19 Storey in Ballymun – Pierse Contracting, this has permission

Tallaght – Is this Shelbourne Development’s Belgard Square? If so, it was granted permission and an appeal against it was lodged. It’s only 13 residential stories, so it’s probably only about 45m tall

Smithfield – Because of much trouble over the height of the tower in this development (Developers Fusano proposed a 23 storey building), the architects have no rendering of the approved 13 storey tower. http://www.hkr.ie/smithfield_page1.htm

3) John Rogerson’s Quay. This is a 20 storey, 96m tall office buildin with full approval. However, developers Dunloe Ewart sacked chairman Noel Smyth, who championed this building. That, combined with weak office rentals, may kill it.

4) Only some apartment buildings have been designed for Spencer Dock. The area plan allows for a 60m (revised from 100m) building near the Point, several buildings up to 44m around “Station Square” and a building of up to 44m on the National Conference Centre site.

Dublin’s midrise buildings, numbers of stories and structural heights:

Liberty Hall, 17, 59.4m
One George’s Quay Plaza, 14, ~58.5m
Millennium Tower, 17, unknown
Central Bank, 9, 45.4m
O’ Connell Bridge House, 12, 44.2m
Pearse Tower, 16, 41.5m
Connolly Tower, 16, 41.5m
Clarke Tower, 16, 41.5m
MacDonagh Tower, 16, 41.5m
McDermott Tower, 16, 41.5m
Plunkett Tower, 16, 41.5m
Ceannt Tower, 16, 41.5m
Hawkins House, 13, 41.5m
Civic Office, 10, unknown
K Building, 11, unknown
Guinness Storehouse, ~42m
Irish Life Centre, 10, 38.5m
Nurse’s Quarters, St. Vincents, 13, unknown (demolished)
Ardoyne House, 12, unknown

I heard the Tara Street building is supposed to start around this time next year. Don’t know what the reason for the delay is, possibly to do with financing or something, but as of now its still going ahead.

By the way, I probably could be called a fan of skyscrapers, I think Dublin and Ireland in general could do with a few of them, provided they’re well-designed of course.

The notion of tall in Dublin is an insult – it’s more and more proposed to put something “tall” in as a nice landmark – slender and with little or no sq ft-age (example U2 building) – rather than addressing the original idea behind high rise – more economical use of land. Which of course we fail miserably at here in Ireland. We give out about bungalow blight and the unchecked sprawl of suburbia – but we don’t seem to do anything about it. And the “high rise doesn’t equal high density” argument just doesn’t work. I cannot accept a five story building with the same ground foot print as a nine story building has the same density.
But then again – as recently pointed out by Minsiter Brennan – we are a country of 1.5 million cars, but only 1.2 million homes.

Spencer Dock and the Southern docklands were the last realistic hope of addressing this issue but as anyone who looks at Spencer Docks plan, or strolls down Grand Canal Basin – all an utter waste on bland 5+1 super super over priced apartments currently under construction, that will effectively render that area as dull and squashed as the IFSC is at present.

The amount of different figures I’ve heard for the height of George’s Quay, ‘oh it’s taller than Liberty Hall’ ‘my brother works there he knows’ ‘my uncle was contractor, I think he’d know somehow’ etc blah blah

I’m glad to see you have the correct figure Andrew!
I had the privilige to view Georges Quay from Liberty Hall, sure you have to look down on it for goodness sake!
Oh how I enjoyed rubbng it in afterwards…

I’m not sure about the height of Liberty Hall; it’s normally given as 59.4m but I think that’s from ground to the top of the frilly bit. The above sea level height of 63.4m may include the service shack on top, since the aviation authority need to know the full height rather than structural height.

Incidentally, Tara St will be 63.3m above sea level (lower than Liberty Hall) and 60.8m above ground, implying a ground level of 2.5m. If the ground level at the George’s Quay offices is the same, since they are 62.675m above sea level, the above ground height is 60.175m. My guess of 58.5m is based upon what I can see with my eyes.

The most often quoted for Liberty Hall is 196 feet – which equates to your 59.4m – whatever it includes…

I’m a planning student and have been researching doing my final year dissertation on tall buildings in Dublin – in relation to the concept of building up rather than building out in order to combact urban sprawl.
Would really appreciate any comments/ideas that you might have on the subject

There are acres of comment on this in previous threads if you delve back a bit.

It’s not an either or of building up or building out, aoife c. But you should ask James Pike of O’Mahony Pike for an interview if you are serious about your thesis. He’s very approachable and few people know more about the implications of tall buldings in Dublin.

realise it’s not an either/or situation, just believe at certain locations well-designed tall buildings are feasible alternatives – variety is apparently the spice of life after all!

Cheers for ur help