Vertigo? U2 tower to be taller
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@Morlan wrote:
It’s a bit of a mystery alright. I honestly can’t invisage 50/60 metres of paraphernalia hanging off the top of the tower.
Could not have put it better myself. I was thinking what wind turbines and a solar panel stretching for 60m would look like in the context of the structure and the mental image I have of it is not good. Would it be straightly vertical? It would have to be. It would change the look of the building significantly. I wonder does the fact they left it out tell us anything about the final product!?
hmm, not impressed with this at all – looks so evil :/
The buildings adjacent to the tower are 7 stories so about ~30m high… from the render published i would suspect the height of the tower to be 180m at the level where both beams of light originate. I can’t see this ‘energy centre’ being a 60m addon to what is rendered – i would think it will be contained in the open area above the u2 studio, maybe the turbines are fixed to the horizontal structure shown at the top. Anyway, i guess everything will be cleared up soon enough, but that render certainly does not show a 120m structure (unless the scale is screwed, which i doubt).
In fact, when i look at it again – is there some sort of turbine being shown (very vaguely) between the top of the egg and the horizontal structure (x marked above what may be its centre point)?
Blah… i’d like to see the zaha hadid proposal
Anyone else see this in yesterday’s Daily Mail? A little behind the times now, but interesting all the same!
“It’s Bono the builder – Controversy as U2 are set to be revealed as docklands winners”, written by Andrea McCullagh.
SEVEN years after it was first mooted, the U2 Tower, Ireland’s tallest skyscraper, will finally get the green light today – but not as we know it.
Sources have revealed that the DDDA will finally bite the bullet and announce what has become the city’s worst-kept secret – that the megarich rock band have won the contract to build the tower that will bear their name.
U2’s joint bid with developer Ballymore Properties, designed by Clarence Hotel architect Sir Norman Foster, is understood to have been chosen at a top-level DDDA meeting earlier this week.
The Ballymre/U2 bid was one of a shortlist of five that also included Sean Dunne’s Mountbrook Homes and a joint venture between Sisk and Treasury Holdings. But the authority delayed the announcement until today, anticipating yet more controversy in a saga that has already had more than its share.
For the success of the Ballymore/U2 venture means the authority has abandoned the daring twist design that it announced as the winner of a prestigious international prize in 2003.
That stunning glass tower was designed by the Dublin architects, Burdon Craig Dunne Henry (BCDH), of which Felim Dunne, brother-in-law of U2 manager Paul McGuinness, is a senior partner.
It is understood that BCDH will take its grievance to the High Court if it transpires the Ballymore U2 bid incorporates a new, Norman Foster design – a case that can only cause friction between the McGuinness family and the band members.
Also believed to be heading to court is developer Sean Dunne, whose unsuccessful bid was based on the assumption that the authority was committed to the BCDH design.
The saga started in 2001 when a compulsory purchase order was placed on U2’s Hanover Quay studio. The band negotiated a deal with the DDDA giving them the top storeys of whatever tower was built along with the naming rights.
Yesterday a spokesman for Ballymore Properties was not available for comment and a spokesman for U2 also declined to comment on the issue – but all is likely to be revealed during the day.
That Dunne would probably take legal action (as well as some of the other bidders) and that the architects would too has been known for ages in fairness.
Dump the whole thing, from the sublime (maybe this should be subprime) to the ridiculous.
The wastage of time, effort, talent, the innuendo, the scandal, stacked juries, lost documentation, the awful designs…..
How about running a proper fully international, properly organised and properly researched appropriate brief (rather than the anorexic one that was produced before or even the obese one we see now) with a proper secure and audited process of elimination.
UIA perhaps….
These selected (limited) competitions are certainly not getting anything better out of the so called “big boys” than you would see in open competition.
The current design suffers from overarching belief in a simple form, the icon as building. The “sure” analogy has to go on a T-shirt. Maybe it is so that the DDDA and U2 can finally stop perspiring over this.
So has anyone emailed the DDDA on height clarification and more renders?it would be a shame if they chopped 10 metres off it but at least it looks like finally going ahead.
No mention of it yet on Foster & Partners website…………….
http://www.fosterandpartners.com/Projects/ByLocation/Ireland.aspxI’m happy to see the back of the twisting effort, it was flawed from the start & lets face it, a rip off.
This jobee looks interesting, but as always the devil is in the detail, of which there is very little. They could be proposing to clad it in egg cartons from what we’ve gotten so far.
If the north facade is actually leaning, thats a very curious render, attempting to divert attention from what would surely be a primary feature ?
We need views from up & down the quays and eh cut the crap with the perfect evening shite :rolleyes:
We’d like to get your opinion on something. We were entrants in the U2 Landmark Tower Competition
a few years back when all the hullabaloo about the winning design, the winner’s relationship
with the Client, etc. was at hand.I just read the other day that DDDA may tip Foster
to ultimately do the new tower for U2/DDDA. This would not have been a shocker in any
other circumstance, until I saw the image of the proposed scheme that looks (we believe)
similar to ours. including the gesture at the entry with an ocular view to the rest of the harbor. Coincidence?Your thoughts…?
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@htd2008 wrote:
We’d like to get your opinion on something. We were entrants in the U2 Landmark Tower Competition
a few years back when all the hullabaloo about the winning design, the winner’s relationship
with the Client, etc. was at hand.I just read the other day that DDDA may tip Foster
to ultimately do the new tower for U2/DDDA. This would not have been a shocker in any
other circumstance, until I saw the image of the proposed scheme that looks (we believe)
similar to ours. including the gesture at the entry with an ocular view to the rest of the harbor. Coincidence?Your thoughts…?
Vaguely similar but hardly a total rip-off, foster’s looks better overall. Please don’t sue, this project has little enough chance of ever proceeding as it is 🙂
obviously some similarities, but hard to judge from that proximity, any more renders ? not that we know a huge amount about fosters proposal either.
I asked for a statement on the height issue. This was the offical reply:
The Norman Foster designed tower which has been selected for the provisional preferred bidder stage of the U2 tower competition is 130 metres above ground at its highest point. The first hundred metres of accommodation is residential and there is a public viewing gallery and egg-shaped U2 studio above that which brings the overall height up to 120 metres. There are a further ten metres of empty space that form the peak that the studio is suspended from This is shown in the image. These heights are the same as those of the reference design that the DDDA issued to all competitors.
and further
The architects have proposed an “energy centre†comprising wind turbines and solar panels that could rise to a point 50 metres above the top of the tower bringing the overall height to 180m but this was not considered in assessing the competition as it is outside the guideline heights. The architects have stated that the energy centre would enable the building to generate its own electricity and that it would substantially reduce the carbon footprint of the development. They estimate that the competition design will achieve a BREEAM* rating of “Very Good†but that if the Energy Centre could be added it would increase the BREEAM rating to “Excellentâ€
which is the most environmentally sustainable rating possible.While the Docklands Authority will not consider any development space above a height of 120m above ground, it may consider the energy centre in due course subject to technical and planning criteria.
Must be 130m then. (so why does the DDDA say 120m on its website). The lack of clarity with the entire project from start to finish has been a disgrace tbh. Easy to see why its hard to take anything the DDDA says seriously anymore. Did you refer to the ‘180m’ that was mentioned for the renewable energy thingy on top when you asked? Poor old Frank got it wrong. Obviously some bright spark at the DDDA told him 180m for the laugh. The incompetence is incredible really. 🙁
To top it this is right in front of them in the Irish times. No clarification, nothing. You have to ask to get it.
Just re-posting part of my previous comment regarding the height issue:
Re-reading the 2006 Amendment to the GCD Planning Scheme (http://www.dublindocklands.ie/files/…scheme06q4.pdf – it’s the same link as I posted above) I see the following (my emphasis):
3.2.4 Building height
Building heights within the blocks will vary in order to achieve appropriate
urban scale. Maximum numbers of storeys are prescribed for both
commercial and residential development as shown in Diagram 5. The
controls will allow for vertically mixed use buildings with commercial,
residential and other use storeys. The main element of the landmark tower
should not exceed 100 metres in height to the shoulder above existing
street level. The shoulder is the top of the front wall of the building,
excluding any parapet. Accommodation above this level must be well set
back and consistent with architectural and service elements. Such elements
will be permitted subject to a maximum overall building height not
exceeding 120 metres above existing street level.All of which makes the following highly suspect:
The Norman Foster designed tower […] is 130 metres above ground at its highest point. […] There are a further ten metres of empty space [above the 120] that form the peak that the studio is suspended from. This is shown in the image. These heights are the same as those of the reference design that the DDDA issued to all competitors.
What exactly is a ‘reference design’? Is this the original U2 tower?
Did the DDDA revise the allowable height in the tender documentation?
Did the DDDA revise the revised Grand Canal Dock Planning Scheme without telling or asking anyone?
Does the DDDA know the meaning of the word ‘maximum’?To state it baldly: this proposal is not in keeping with the GCD Planning Scheme and beyond the provisions of a Section 25 Application.
This saga, more than just about any other scheme/proposal in the Docklands, shows just how inept the DDDA has become, effectively re-writing the rules as it goes along to suit… to suit what? Or who?
All I can do is echo shadow’s comments above, and reiterate previous comments of mine made elsewhere (here, for example) re the DDDA and its sell-by date- probably necessary in the mid-1990s, now an anachronism.
Personally I’m disappointed to see the twisting tower won’t be built. I thought it looked fantastic. So there’s a few more around the world, so what? It still looked great. This new design just doesn’t compare. Crying shame. 🙁
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