d_d_dallas

Zzzz…

graham – dontcha think a bit of colour will help the street? 70’s supermarkets aside, I think a purely grey granite surface on that scale would be very drab especially in the poor quality light of an Irish winter. There are patches of pinkish colour and grey on the “nearly there” Patrick St project in Cork – and I have to say good choice! It really brightens up the place.

Also pink goes so much better with blackened chewing gum!

Hmmm – well Killkenny is called a “city” – and Cork is allegedly (and I can would tend to agree) the smallest 2nd city in the western world (proportionately that is) and barelyt scrapes the term “city”. So imagine what qualifies as a “village”…

An Irish village is a street with one petrol station acting as corner shop, butcher, video rental, hairdresser, with twelve pubs.

I always thought that the bridge looked decidedly shabby far too quickly after it opened. I guess this is the natural extension. The materials probably sounded good on paper and as we found out so often – real life is an entirely different matter!
At least the bridge is doing the right thing and going the way of all the other Millenium projects!!!

The building lacks the mystery of Central Bank (for me) which is a building I harboured fantasies about working in (although not for the Central Bank themselves!). Maybe the atria give it a bigger sense of openess, and thus satisfies my curiousity.

Well they lost out on Stack A (wanted the whole thing to themselves) – this could be their cuppa.

The notion of tall in Dublin is an insult – it’s more and more proposed to put something “tall” in as a nice landmark – slender and with little or no sq ft-age (example U2 building) – rather than addressing the original idea behind high rise – more economical use of land. Which of course we fail miserably at here in Ireland. We give out about bungalow blight and the unchecked sprawl of suburbia – but we don’t seem to do anything about it. And the “high rise doesn’t equal high density” argument just doesn’t work. I cannot accept a five story building with the same ground foot print as a nine story building has the same density.
But then again – as recently pointed out by Minsiter Brennan – we are a country of 1.5 million cars, but only 1.2 million homes.

Spencer Dock and the Southern docklands were the last realistic hope of addressing this issue but as anyone who looks at Spencer Docks plan, or strolls down Grand Canal Basin – all an utter waste on bland 5+1 super super over priced apartments currently under construction, that will effectively render that area as dull and squashed as the IFSC is at present.

Singapore: I think it’s only going on sale in pharmacies “for the treatment of oral conditions”. But that’s the kind of concession that spells the death knell for the ban there.

Patrick St: Not really for this thread, but what’s done is to a very high standard – bike stands, bus stops, and esp the granite paving are all commendable. I’m reserving judgement on the lamps until they’re all in, alone they look bizarre so I’ll wait till I’m down South next time. If the O’Connell St paving follows suit (and from what I’ve seen it is) then things are looking up!