BTH
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Why oh why would we want anything remotely like that muck that’s planned for Milan? Where’s the grace or elegance in the proposal. All I see are a series of self regarding, ego driven edifices scattered on a lump of parkland with no discernable logic or form. Each individual building may have their merits but together the result will be revolting. And what is the point of the Liebskind block in the middle? Torre C? Awful stuff…
That Spinaker thing in Portsmouth looks terrible – pure retro-future kitsch in the vein of that ridiculous hotel in Dubai, the Burj Al Arab…
It’s also been a complete disaster from a constructional point of view, opening 5 years late and having to close agan because the lift dosen’t work properly. And because it’s a bespoke lift designed specifically to fit the tower they have no idea how to fix it. Now it looks like it’s going to have to be ripped out and replaced, closing the tower for at least another six months.Give me the U2 tower any day – i think that the inital winning entry was fairly poor but the new, higher version looks much more elegant and will add a touch of class to the fairly uninspiring Docklands.
BTW, the mateus hotel seems to be going up pretty quickly – I’ve only seen it from the railway line into Connolly but it looks to me like a whole section of the “checkerboard” facade is complete to the south of the building. Im I correct in assuming that this is the hotel or is it some other building entirely!?
STW have been in decline for the last 30 years – nothing they have done has even come close to their 1960’s masterworks and their book, whilst beautifully realized, makes depressing reading…
This proposal truly marks a nadir in their design standards. It’s appalling and shameful that anyone thinks that this lump could be a positive addition to the area.
Also worrying is the involvement of the developer behind the project. Surely after the disgrace that is the Capel Building this guy shouldn’t be allowed near an important, high profile development site…
In case anyone missed the pics…
@a boyle wrote:
the end justfies the means . his means resulted in delaying completion of the project, not a better project. this is why he is an old fart. he did not articulate a viable alternative, unlike frank mcdonald. why is he given so much attention?
Maybe try reading jimg and Thomond’s posts above? :rolleyes:
They express the facts of the matter pretty clearly. Can’t you read that he advocated a full metro line including underground sections which I clearly recall reading about at the time? Personally I think he was and is dead right as any luas between Stephen’s Green and the North Side is going to be ridiculously slow (Connolly to Heuston anyone? On streets far more choked with pedestrian activity?) and potentially quite visually disturbing to College Green.I also find the “old fart” remarks pretty childish and beneath the usual high standard of discussion on these boards…Thomond Park wrote:I totally disagree the old Eyre Square was great and was designed for the JFK visit in 1963]There was nothing great about the old Eyre Square. It’s “Design” consisted of a few low walls, a grotty concrete paved area, lots of inapproprate parking areas, dire and stunted planting and randomly strewn objects such as the Padraic O’Connaire statue and the Kennedy memorial. It’s one, rough and ready diagonal pathway was intersected by a number of mucky tracks created by people wanting to go in other ways across the green area.
What’s there now isn’t perfect by any means, I could think of dozens of issues that could have and should have been resolved in better ways. However it’s infinitely better than what was there before in terms of being a usable, active space with properly defined routes and areas of focus. the lighting is excellent, the whole square being lit in pure white with some interesting and subtle color changing features and the sails fountain should be spectacular when switched on at the grand opening.
Overall it’s a great improvement to the heart of Galway and it’s good to have the place back! Obviously going by how intensively used the place has been over the past few weeks the people of Galway and the Tourists are pretty happy with the result also. Unfortunately there are already a few problems – litter and inadequate bins being the most pressing, but also skateboarders causing damage to the stonework and intimidating other users of the space. THere is talk of a full time attendant/caretaker for the square which I believe would be an excellent idea.
God it really annoys me when people say “it was fine the way it was”, “what a waste of money” etc etc… The square was an absolute disgrace before the renovation started, a mess of poor planting, stunted trees, horrible 60’s paving and even more horrible street furniture and bus stops. Are people’s memories so short?
It’s by no means perfect now, the paving material used on most of the surfaces is utter crap, stone aggregate slabs that look no better than bog standard concrete with too-wide jointing and lots of chips and cracks appearing already. The paving also shows up dirt and grease to a shocking extent, especially in the otherwise quite nicely done “market” area at the top of the square and the overriding grey-ness can look very grim on wet days.
However, substantial areas have been paved with proper stone which looks fantastic, the green areas are looking beautiful and the limestone clad walls that mark the changes in level and define pathways look great (potential skateboarder’s paradise though..). The fountain is looking quite snazzy though would have been better left flush with the ground. The street furniture, light fittings, bus stops etc all look great. And the bound gravel/resin surface along the curved route through the square is really nice as well.
I do wish that the browne doorway had been removed from the square and placed into the city museum as originally planned. It’s really deteriorating rapidly and could do with being sheltered properly and it looks completely wrong standing in the middle of the new triangular plaza at the top of the square. The plaza is rightly focussed on the rusty sails sculpture but the doorway really fragments the space and takes away from what could be a spectacular public gathering place. The kiosk and toilets have been clad in copper which, as ive said in another thread, is a huge mistake – it looks fairly cliched and it’s also going to look disgusting after it’s been grafittid, puked/pissed on and stoot up against for a few weeks. Copper cladding is not suitable for ground level uses!! It can’t be effectively cleaned.
Overall im very impressed and happy with the scheme, However i hope that sense prevails and that the horrible paving gets replaced sooner than later with proper stone as should have happened in the first place. How come O’Connell St, Henry St, Patrick St. in Cork etc etc could all be paved completely in high quality stone and Galway had to settle for cheap and nasty crap…
Isn’t spar’s logo, colouring and typeface absolutely horrific… Such a blast from the 70s… Their new signage thats been rolled out recently is a little bit more subtle but not much better than the pic above. Its hard to know, in some ways I really hate the real pastiche style signs with gold lettering on olde worlde timber shopfronts but the shiny plastic and garish colours are generally far more offensive…
Any samples of good shopfront design to post here? It’d be nice to get a comparison!
@lomb wrote:
did u guys ever hear about out with the old and in with the new? i actually prefer the new centra signage, and also love the eurocycles signage also. people are just trying to make a living and there are crazy laws done by ‘conservationists’ holding them back. anyone who thinks the cycle store signs look bad or the centra looks worse than it did before needs their head examined.
Wow… “I… love the eurocycles signage…”. What a first post!! 😉
As i recall it’s used reasonably sparingly on that Prospect Hill design u mention JammyD, just for roof features and I think one strip running down the facade – for once it actually looked like the use of copper was quite well-considered in the renderings I saw, not just plastered on without any real thought (as on the Oranmore project you mentioned which is one of the worst schemes I’ve seen in a long time!).
Personally I love copper as a material and I really think that the patinated stuff really works well with the quality of light etc. in Galway in particular. Plus it has a reasonable precedent on old public buildings such as the University and the Cathedral. It’s the absolutely bitty, tokenistic use of it on buildings like the new development at the Claddagh basin that really pisses me off whereas on something like Wellpark, GMIT and even the new building in Loughrea it’s used with a little bit of flair… Give me copper roofing/cladding/detailing any day over PVC or cheap aluminium panels!
The Eyre Square jacks and Kiosk are a joke, I can’t believe they are being so stupid to use Copper in this way on buildings which are going to get so much wear/grafiti/abuse etc… I guarantee they will look disgusting within a month of the square opening just like what happened with the Living Room…Local suppliers and fixers can be very interested in smaller jobs, especially if they are a little bit out of the ordinary – Going by the guys I used for my project over here in the West anyway. They have done some major copper and zinc cladding projects but were more than happy to look at the smaller jobs as well… May be the architectural connection at work though as well because they will definitely be getting my recommendation on any future larger jobs i’d be working on…
My apologies FIN for hurting your feelings… And no, jealousy does not come into the equation, just sadness and frustration at the standards that seem to pass for architecture in Galway… A scheme may come in on time and on budget but that does not mean that the end result adds anything positive to it’s surroundings as a good building should.
In my opinion the schemes on the Fairgreen are abysmal in terms of streetscape quality, handling of materials and in plain old human experience… There is nothing remotely pleasant about looking at or walking around/through these buildings and thats a real shame. A whole section of the city has been ruined by lowest common denominator, engineer driven design.
Im sorry if this seems insulting but I’m sure my opinions don’t make one bit of difference. As long as targets for square footage are met and it can be done reasonably cheaply, with a little bit of superficial flashyness (acres of curtain walling/brise soleil/strange red things on the roof) to keep the potential tenants and the planners happy – the commissions will just keep rolling in…
BTW, I don’t have a practice, but if and when I do I hope to god I don’t end up producing more of the dross that currently blights Galway. A couple of practices have the city fairly sewn up between them and it’d be an interesting excercise to post pictures of all the buildings they have done over the past 20 years to see what effect a real lack of architectural thought has had over a sustained period…
Couple of interesting announcements lately:
The scheme on the former Crown site at Mervue looks huge. Unfortunately it also looks fairly bog – standard. Massive slabs of buildings with ridiculous looking “features” such as a huge red cylinder plonked on top. Must dig out the images and post them…
It amazes me that the architects of this scheme continue to get such major commissions as their recent track record with commercial buildings is pretty dire – all flash and no substance.The application for the rebuilding of the horrific Galway Shopping Centre has been re-submitted. This €450 million scheme aims to quadruple the size of the shopping centre, create a network of streets around it with apartment buildings and ground floor cafe/retail uses and to create a landmark civic building at the Terryland roundabout to house a small theatre, a municipal gallery and other cultural uses. M&S and Debenhams are the mentioned anchors who will join Tesco and Penneys in the redevelopment. I hope this goes ahead sooner than later as the current centre is a disgrace.
Most excitingly it’s been reported that an application for €750 million redevelopment of the CIE lands behind Eyre Sq and Ceannt Station is to be submitted in the coming months. Sean O’Laoire of Murray O’Laoire Architects is said to be heading a multi-disciplinary team who are working up a masterplan for the huge site which has the potential to significantly increase the scope of Galway’s city centre retail and business core. The scheme is also set to include a new Bus station with 25 bays, a completely renovated and expanded train station with 3 platforms (currently just 1) to accommodate Limerick and commuter services. It remains to be seen whether the scheme includes land currently occupied by the oil tanks at the docks which, when cleared, will offer fantastic waterside development opportunities.
I have high hopes for this site as it’s an opportunity for a whole new urban quarter for Galway which could potentially absorb a lot of the pressure that the historic core is coming under from high st. multiples etc. It’s just off Eyre Sq. so couldn’t be more central and forms a major gateway into the city by rail, which will be an increasingly important approach in the near future. I’ll post any further info when I get it!BTW, Eyre Sq is really taking shape – almost finished at last! It looks well, somewhat over-fussy in places and some ridiculous mistakes, such as the cladding of the public jacks in horizontal banded copper. I’ll give it 3 months before it’s so stained with footmarks, puke and worse that it’ll have to be painted over. When will people realize that pre patinated Copper should not be used at ground level – it cannot be cleaned effectively! A pub in Galway learned the hard way a few years back, the shopfront was clad in copper and looked great – for a few weeks. They tried cleaning it and the patination came off leaving the brown copper below. They ended up painting over it all…
Firstly Zinc looks absolutely fantastic on a low pitch roof, especially if you go the whole hog and incorporate the guttering, downpipes etc and be careful with the edge detailing to make it look as thin as possible.
However, it’s a pretty awkward system alright – the underside of the zinc has to be ventilated and a lot of control is needed at the joinery stage of the roof construction so that the Zinc contractors can come and do their job properly. It probably isn’t worth the hassle unless the roof is going to be quite visible.
It’s also quite expensive! A (fairly large) zinc roof component and the guttering and downpipes came to about 10% of the total cost of a house I’m just finishing which is pretty rough. However, I reiterate it does look fantastic!My apologies. I’ve heard Douglas Wallace’s name mentioned in regard to the development on numerous occasions so I assumed that they designed it. However, finding out that they are just clearing up the problems with the building makes a lot more sense!
Would it be possible to edit my original post to remove reference to Douglas Wallace?
