Cathal Dunne

Strangely enough, the pole right outside the Civic Offices has yet to be adorned with fingers. It’s still swaddled in green netting at the minute.

@StephenC wrote:

So the first phase of the Way Finding signage scheme is more or less complete, in time for St Patricks Day and the traditional start of the tourist season. I have to say they make a great addition to the cityscape. There are some minor tweaks required. Some units face in confusing ways but this is a feature of their square design. Its worth saying that a round signage unit works no better, as seen in Docklands where signage can face the wrong way completely. Its not the end of the world however.

Still I have to say FAIR PLAY to Dublin City Council for delivering a good quality way finding scheme. :thumbup:

I agree with your congratulations of DCC for a job well done here. They get rightly criticised here for some of their more questionable policies but they do have their good days and achievements as well and this is one of them. They certainly do add a lot to the city centre. They’re stylish and informative signs which help you navigate the streets of our great city. It’s great that you can actually say that about Dublin now. Wayfinder signage has been a blind spot in Dublin and Ireland more generally and it’s fantastic to see it being addressed like this.

Could you put up pictures/renders of the panels which will form part of phase 2 of this project, Stephen? It’d be great to see them so that we can keep an eye out for them going up in the next few weeks.

@GrahamH wrote:

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of poles around Town covered in green netting very similar to the ones Graham has so assiduously photographed here. They must be the latest batch of the 140 signs due to be fitted around Dublin. I spotted poles near the Four Courts, at the top of Pearse St/bottom of D’Olier St. and at the top of Grafton St. Hopefully they’re finished soon as, going by the City Hall example, they’re wonderful directional tools and they’ll improve the ability of tourists(and some locals) to get around the city.

@pdosullivan wrote:

The big crane that was working on the Montevetro site was taken down over the weekend too, they’re fairly advanced with that project. Obviously the fitting out has yet to start in earnest (and they’re going to do it on a rolling basis as it’s rented out I understand) but to echo one of the above comments, fair dues to Treasury for having such confidence.

Yes, it’ll be a great, high-quality, landmark office building with excellent transport links. I hope Google moves into it from over the road and Facebook, LinkedIn etc. move into Google’s old place.

@GrahamH wrote:

1/3/2010

I see Costa’s new café on the corner of Dawson Street and Molesworth Street has shut down exactly one year since it opened (my, how time flies).

(March 2009)
.

I was walking past the closed Costa café and now its all boarded up with white boards. The dragon stone is gone as well. It looks very forlorn.

While I was on my jaunt, it did strike me how shoddy some shopfronts are. They’re covered with stickers, unneccessary paraphernalia, gaudy signs and the like. Do retailers think we’re completely blind that we wouldn’t know there were shops there without all the clutter?

@Bago wrote:

approach road bit like the sex scene in the naked gun, trains into tunnels and all that. Went through it today, certainly something new for ireland anyway.

Indeed. One could call it a Freudian slip-road.

This is the new and actual plan for the site? Gods above, it looks terrible. The building to be developed around the Carlton looks drab, depressing and ugly. The street covering is skimpy and derisory. The new streetscape looks as if it could be anywhere and does not inspire confidence. I wasn’t fond of the previous submission and I wasn’t convinced that the Park in the Sky could work but it is far superior to this effort. At least it had a bit of panache and would contribute something to Dublin’s fabric. The Park in the Sky could in fact be made to work and become a new focus for the city. Unfortunately, with the new plan, this will not come to pass.

@dermot_trellis wrote:

Looks like at least some of the seats will be, wait for it………. green!:

I am shocked I am. I wonder if we shouldn’t have nice Hibernian blue seats in one of our stadia?

The butchery of College Green proves beyond any doubt that Dublin City Council have as much vision as a myopic bat in a fog.

@GrahamH wrote:

It is the road, and will always be the road, that detracts from this development though. Plonk it in a lavishly landscaped green setting and it would be transformed, as any design concept for this site would. It’s difficult to imagine that any softening of the architectural language – while acknowledging some degree of a tempering effect – would make such a difference, relative to the impact of the road on the scheme, as to warrant a radically different design. Likewise, the harshly engineered environs of the fronting pavement and public street area to the side do the development absolutely no favours.

Could some ivy and Virginian Creeper growing over the brickwork serve to soften this development and replicate the effect that putting it in a green setting that you set out in the above excerpt?