Briain

@Tuborg wrote:

That plan was part of the Governments RAPID strategy launched 7 or 8 years ago, Murray O’Laoire were brought in to undertake a review of the Kings Island area and draw up a draft masterlan as to how the area could be improved. Kings Island has now been included in the Northside Regeneration strategy. Both the Northside and Southside masterplans were scheduled to be completed last month but we are still awaiting their publication.

We’ve all heard that the City Council supposedly favours clearing the whole Island field and developing a new riverside quarter comprising high quality residential, commercial and leisure facilities. It all sounds great in theory but ultimately we will have to wait and see what the regeneration agency proposes. What is clear though is that this part of Kings Island really deserves a more appropriate use than a 1940s council housing estate.

Well what about the presentation that happened in UL back in April/May? There Hugh Murray presented the plan for the regeneration of Kings Island, along with the other regeneration agencies discussing where they were heading and how they were doing it. MOL’s plan seemed to be fairly far along, canals introduced into the island, a medieval quarter preserved and the location of a public park & sports facilities at the other end of the island to attract people through it. Obviously a mix of social/private housing also.

I would have thought some of the contributors here would have attended the meeting back then?

@vkid wrote:

In another location yes..but in its current spot a music venue is not suitable. When it was used as one on several occasions there were drunk kids literally falling onto the busiest bridge in the city..not to tarnish all who went there with that brush but it was a common occurence in my own experience. Unless proper access is sorted its uses are limited. BUT i do agree that a suitable use should be agreed on before a building design is decided on. Its a decent size site overall so something worthwhile is very possible..I personally think a venue/coffee shop would be a complete waste of this site.

AS for what i think of the current proposal, i like some elements (the glass front – albeit too high) and dislike some (side profiles and lack of windows).

Personally I would like to see UL have one of their smaller faculties use this site…maybe with imput from the School of Arhitecture..It would bring the University into the heart of the city(sorely lacking) and really add something to the city..A coffee shop would not have the same effect imo.If the city needs a music venue i’d prefer to see the resoration of the long closed Limerick Athenaeum(Theatre Royal)

The School of Architecture is moving into Kings Island for 4th and 5th year design studio, the first class will be moving in at the start of September. Actually, the whole school might be out there for a week or two, not sure yet. They’re going into St.Munchin’s church.

Although your proposal sounds quite interesting also. There were a few different options and locations for the school, none of which was to construct a new building however (afaik)

@gunter wrote:

Briain: If I might stick in another uninvited comment here.

This is an impressive scheme, that’s not in doubt. I queried the eco qualities of this complex because they seemed to be accepted as a given in all discussions of the project and they looked slightly superficial to me.

You seem well convinced that the eco credentials are sound here, so I’m happy to concede that one, for the moment.

I suppose the bigger issue here is similar to the issue we’ve been discussing on the Ballsbridge thread:

If a new quarter is suddenly parachuted into a existing context, how do you go about setting out it’s parameters. Do you say, ‘This is different, different rules will apply’? do you say slab blocks, carpet bombed across a site didn’t work in the sixties, but that was because of the cheap materials, the wrong social component, or the absence of services, it wasn’t the architecture and they didn’t have winter gardens.

Whatever way you go about creating a justification for this, at the back of the mind is the niggling doubt that we’re only impressed with this now, because it’s shiny and new and soon it will be familiar and it won’t be new and maybe the timber will start to look faded and sad and we’ll forget that it’s cutting edge eco-friendly because eco knowledge will have moved on and we’ll start to associate this scheme with the Tara Towers hotel and the nurses home at St. Vincents and we’ll start to say when are they going to knock this eyesore down and who was minding the door when this strolled in.

In my opinion, when you walk around a city you should be able to read the logic of how it was put together and how it has evolved after it was first put together. If you come to a place that doesn’t quite seem to fit, a place where the logic breaks down, or where the story is no longer legible, you may be able to wander down a new ‘route’ and appreciate the office park scale in isolation from the surrounding context, but are you not left with the feeling that none of this is actually planned, none of the lessons of 20th century planning failures have actually been learned, we just convinced ourselves again that it would be better this time.

Well, in my mind there isn’t the worry of the buildings ageing or the wood fading. That’s a natural process and I don’t think it detracts from the aesthetics of a building. That’s my opinion anyway, I know it’s not the consensus however.

So far I haven’t been judging the scheme in relation to it’s urban context, or how it will be evaluated in years to come. For me, what has impressed me is the eco-friendly approach to the scheme, how the scheme shows that high density can work alongside a human scale and doesn’t just result in faceless slabs squeezed onto a site.

How I think of it is that this project was going to happen. There was a certain amount that could be done to reprogram the brief, but the project could have just been blocks thrown onto the site, with none of the approaches seen in here evident; no reduced energy usage, no sensitivity to the surface of the site. This project negotiates a complex, dense program without losing (for the most part) the importance of the pedestrian experience.

Now, the planning of the site in relation to the surrounding urban fabric is another discussion. I don’t fully see the problems you have with how the site attaches itself to the ‘logic’ of Dublin. I don’t see what was there to work with in the first place! (in a local scale) It’s an interesting point however, now let me ask you something; could you give me a suggestion as to how the site could have been more successfully planned in relation to the layout of Dublin?

@gunter wrote:

Can you make a concrete and glass office block environmental by clamping a few lengths of wood onto the facade, or is it more complicated than that?

Which ‘lengths of wood’ are you on about? The lattice-like structure supporting the glazing for the winter garden, or the natural ventilation panels? Either or, they’re doing more than being slapped on the facade.

I’ve been waiting for a discussion about this scheme for a while now, should be interesting if it gets going!