ctesiphon

@cobalt wrote:

No, but I saw the sign on the island outside the Bleeding Horse in action the other morning. You could kind of ignore it in the daytime when it was just a static image, but it’s now illuminated and has a vertically scrolling ad. I’m sure I’m not the only person who found it really distracting.

And what was the scrolling screen advertising? Why, it was advertising ‘advertising’!- with a (fake?) trade journal showing different ‘celebrities’ from the advertising world.

I have heard anecdotally that a number of organisations and companies are reluctant to advertise on the boards due to the almost exclusively negative press they’ve received. How amusing it would be if the only customer were to be JCDecaux.

If only there were a Garda Station in the vicinity…

(Or, at least, one from which the view wasn’t blocked by a double line of parked cars.)

@alonso wrote:

As for Temple Bar – the Arthouse, Project Arts Centre (still there?), Cultivate, recording studios, Temple Lane, IFC, music venues like Dorans and the Music Centre ~(button factory me arse), the food market, tonnes of specialist retail and restaurants, and the IFC. It’s a very very different place in the 9 to 5 than at night but sure Joe Duffy and The Star don’t write about that. Also, while not fully pedestrianised it’s the only pedestrian dominant place of that scale in Ireland, i’d proffer, open to correction. So while it doesn’t have an Abbey, a Gate or a National Concert Hall (which it was never intended to ) it’s the number and mix of uses which make it unique – still – despite all the boozers and the easy tabloid slurs. It contains a critical mass of variety, if that’s not an oxymoron, which add up to a cultural quarter. Don’t forget that while the stag and hen parties are staggering all over the shop at 4 am there are people tucked inside less “public” buildings writing songs, recording, painting and making movies etc 24/7.

Spoken like a young Arthur O’Shaughnessy there, alonso. Very moving indeed. :p

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.
…

Ode (excerpt)

.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

I see Munich’s Marienplatz mentioned on this thread in relation to the pluses and minuses of the use of College Green for public transport.

It’s important to remember that the location is fully pedestrianised, with not a bus or tram in sight – hardly any buses enter Munich’s city centre, while most of the city’s trams are only a few hundred metres distant (e.g. at Karlsplatz), but not in the Marienplatz itself.

As far as I recall, there is a carriageway (i.e. lower than the paved surface, with a kerb) at the east end of Marienplatz on which buses run. Admittedly, it’s at a snail’s pace, but they’re there.

@johnglas wrote:

Why are the visible addicts in the North Inner City and not Ballsbridge?

Have you been to Roly’s lately? And that’s just the ‘visible’ ones. Not to mention Mother’s Little Helper, alive and well in the farmhouse chic kitchens of D4 still, johnglas, make no mistake.

As to your question- they’re in the north inner city because that’s where the clinics are. They’re around Baggot Street too, because there’s a clinic there- and that’s D4.

There are myriad points that one could proffer in this debate, but none of them have anything to do with architecture or planning, so the conversation properly belongs elsewhere. However, the fact remains that many people don’t feel comfortable walking the north inner city – in the last month I’ve seen defecation, oral sex, violence, vandalism and theft within a five minute walk of O’Conell Street – and I think that’s the point Sarsfield was trying to make. You might be right about his language, but so what? I’d argue that the point remains valid.

So the DDDA has realised all of a sudden that there’s something called ‘heritage’ down Docklands way? How convenient that it has promoted or permitted the relatively comprehensive erasure of most of that history before the belated effort to acknowledge it. So much easier to commission a book on the stuff once it’s gone than to try to keep it while it’s still around, eh?

It’s not as if the heritage value of the area hadn’t been documented- the School of Architecture in UCD carried out a full survey of the area, published in 1996, on behalf of the CHDDA, called Inventory of the Architectural and Industrial Archaeological Heritage.

That survey now reads like a new chapter of Lost Dublin, but one that was written whilst the buildings were still standing. What an odd sensation- to have your funeral before you’ve died.

This isn’t a dig at your project, Turtle, it’s a dig at the DDDA for its utterly shameful approach to the assessment, evaluation and protection of the cultural heritage of the area of the city for which it has been responsible (in one form or another) for over 15 years.

@tommyt wrote:

Don’t know if you’ve ever walked those grounds but there are stands and individual examples of spectacular yew trees that must be ancient and their preservation would be central to the design-haven’t had time to peruse the masterplans yet-just thought I would stick an initial oar in:)

I haven’t walked it, but I’m familiar from reading the documentation and looking at it on Virtual Earth. I’m not advocating a blank slate approach, btw, and retention of the historic buildings and whatever specimen trees remain would be essential in my opinion. That;s the starting point.

notjim-

Re densification- increase the number of floors? Bear in mind, this is possible without going up. Though, in the case of Grangegorman, I do see potential for higher buildings too. My original point was more to do with potential for future densification. As you note, the current layout might increase the pressure on the green spaces, whereas a more concentrated one could specify which lands are for amenity use and which ones are for future development. If not, it could become another UCD Business Park.

Re the fingers- it’s a cute concept – oh look, it looks like a hand! – but I’d prefer it if they were called green corridors rather than fingers. Would you bet against someone at some stage referring to DIT ‘reaching out into the community’? 🙂

I looked at this a few weeks ago, and what struck me was the relatively low density of the overall development. Higher densities on smaller footprints – though not necessarily high rises! – would allow for more expansion in future, whereas the current parkland layout might prove difficult to densify down the line.

Dublin City Council made almost no demands.

JC Decaux has reneged on its commitments to provide street furniture.

JC Decaux has reduced the number of bikes it intends to provide.

JC Decaux has installed most of the advertising hoardings, but the civic benefits of the scheme will not be provided until Spring 2009 at the earliest.

A force for good?

One clarification of Smithfield Resi’s last post- the decision text quoted doesn’t relate to all the appeal cases, though they were all very similarly worded. You’ll note the mention of a ‘contraflowing cycle lane’ in that quote, which leads me to suspect it was taken from the Inspector’s Report for a Capel Street/Ryder’s Row sign.

Also, not sure if the Dean Street sign was appealed; I don’t think so. (Not that that undermines the case against it, but I think we need to keep our facts straight.) The fault here was with DCC only, not with the Board. Had it been appealed, it would likely have been refused, as were all of the large metropoles that were appealed.

In other good news, the sign at the corner of Rathmines Road and Richmond Hill has been removed. It was terrible.

Any more removals? Arrivals?