brunel
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Is it just me or is it not strange that the fact that there is planning for a landmark building RIGHT BESIDE the U2 sight was not mentioned in the competition brief ?!? How can one design a building in the context of its surroundings when one isn’t even told that, oh ya by the way there is planning for a huge building across the road !?!?
I wasn’t all that impressed with Paraic White as he got caught for a few of Pats questions… however as said above the cost for BOTH construction AND land acq. is 1.7 billion (don’t think that includes VAT but not sure)…… but as he said it will take 8-9 years to design and 3-4 years to build…. hence the costs can be expexted to rise within this period…. so the figure that they presented to the minister was their estimate at what things would escalate to…
Maybe it was a bit naive to publish this figure though, as everybody has jumped on it and made stupid comparisons with other systems etc without knowing what they are comparing.
And its not the RPA’s fault that so much is being paid out for land, but the PR for the whole thing was not done very well. That said as he pointed out in other countries such projects are often under-priced in a bid to win political approval, with Copenhagen costs alot more than originally planned….
Confused by this now…. the attachment below is from the DDDA plan for the area… the two tasteful ‘stars’ indicate the location of the two tall ‘landmark’ structures with the area, with the rest of the buildings being limited to cornflakes box proportions of 4-5 stories +1 possible setback.
Location of the ‘star’ though is right between Britain and Sir JR Quay’s …. maybe there was method in the madness of their graphic designers ?!?!?!
By the way I’m not saying that a cluster of tallish well designed buildings wouldn’t look good in this area, just think its strange that all those who submitted plans for the U2 building were not given all the info – by stating that the building was to be a landmark surely gives the impression that it will stand out from its surroundings, and not be blocked by another building right beside it !!!
But anyway I’m sure the farsighted people in the DDDA have thought of all of this….
Didn’t realise the two sites were so close Paul
Image from DDDA site
The Sir John Rogerson’s Quay site is the large site DIRECTLY behind the U2 Britain Quay site (outlined in red). I looked at the U2 brief page here on Archeire and didn’t see anything mentioned about this building… which if it has planning (as some people here seem to think) then surely it has to be accounted for…. the view of the Sir John Rogerson’s Quay building shown above will look slightly different with a 60m high building stuck in front of it !!!
But surely this couldn’t happen ?!?!?
Maybe this is a better image of the building:
Taken from the architects (Ó’Muiré Smyth – OMS) website.
I should point out that I only saw the city hall from a seat on the Thameslink so I probably should get a proper look at it before I start complaining !!! 🙂
Curves are essential to architecture/engineering in that they create forms that efficiently resist forces – i.e. a straight beam of stone/timber can only span small distances, whereas the introduction of an arch or dome allows the material to be used much more efficiently. ‘Modern’ day industrialisation has made such forms too expensive to build due to the changing cost balance between labour and materials, along with ‘new materials’ such as reinforced concrete etc etc etc.
I like the Swiss Re building so much because it really does challenge our existing notion of what a building should look like. I think the last thing we need in Dublin is a Dubai hotel look alike, but it is hard for me to have an opinion on the Sir John Rogerson Quay building from just looking at the image above – there is no way to judge the texture/context of the building from such a computer generated model.
As for the City Hall in London – I think it looks really stumpy !!! But I think this puts it best:
Sorry for diverging from the thread title but having recently seen the Swiss Re building under construction in London, I have to say it looked incredible… the curves just make it stand out… would we ever be so brave in Ireland to allow such a unique building ?!?
Image taken from Foster’s website
Well I suppose ‘after’ the Celtic Tiger we do have two 50m pools, the absence of which was a major grip 10 years ago…
You can find a lot of pictures on their homepage – no decent shot of the finished exterior though.
Some info from the architects webiste can be found here. You have to laugh when they say “The NAC has already been recognised as one of the finest and largest leisure facilities of its kind in Europe” – ah hello it hasn’t even been opened yet !!!
By the way does anybody know of they have extended the engineering building to take Civil Eng (and Ag?) – presume they must have had as Civil had pretty big labs in Earlsfort…
Regarding Belfield I’ve always hated the exterior of the Eng building… although O’Reilly Hall is one of the few STW building I like… will never get over what they did to UCG !!! 🙁
On the topic of UCD the Civil Eng department are finally moving to Belfield this summer (presume Ag and Medicine will be following ?!?) so it will be very very interesting to see what will happen to the Earlsfort terrace building… was based there for a few months and its location must be the best in Dublin with the Iveagh gardens and Stephen’s Green so close… the building itself has MASSIVE potential but the current layout (of the college section) was destroyed to a great extent by the NCH which split the building in two forcing one up and over their entrance… that said I’m sure the NCH would love to have the library and maybe now they will get some more space. The building really had been let go, with some of the offices in a pretty bad state….
As mentioned this does seem to be an Irish trend, build it and never touch it for decades and then complain about it, like people expect buildings to take care of themselves.
The situation here in Sweden is totally different – a friend was just complaining yesterday about the constant building work going on around her… i.e. they are refurbishing the bathrooms and corridors of our building now, having done a job on the outside about 2 years ago, while they are also doing up the exterior of the building where she lives, and her husbands offices are also being done up…
The thing is in all these cases the buildings were in pretty ok shape and could easily have survived so to speak… but the buildings are kept alive by this constant upgrading… a really good system and I’m sure if you look into “life cycle cost analyses” etc etc it probably makes perfect financial sense as well…
Yes the copper “sails” are indeed very dramatic and impressive… although they do seem at odds with the rest of the building (that said when I saw the building, construction was not 100% complete so maybe the finished product is integrated better).
Murray O’Laoire have a few pics on their website:
Hadn’t known about the burst pipe… got the sprinkler thing from today’s Indo:
“A MULTI-million euro clean-up is under way today after the accidental activation of water sprinklers yesterday flooded the country’s most exclusive department store…. It is believed the system was activated by workers doing renovations on the women’s fashion floor.”
Some workers were bored and wanted to knock off early on a friday so decided to set off the sprinkler system… and wham the store is in bits…. 😀
Kinda funny really (although I’m sure its gona cost them/insurance company a hell of alot) but u’d think there would be some big red buttom somewhere that could shut it off once they realised there was no fire ?!?
