DARA H

A Scot/ Irish architect’s society sounds like a good idea (I’m not an architect though). It is most likely true that developments and interests in Ireland and Scotland have more similarities between each other than either do to the London –centric RIBA or, is that an unfair criticism?

Both parties could exchange ideas e.g. through a journal, and even foster a healthy bit of competition between the two nations! It could mean more work/ interchange between practices in the two countries and, a society could give people an excuse to visit each other’s cities for study and ‘cultural’ exchange visits.
Could people from other disciplines etc. join in these trips – for example in the way that the ‘Urban Design Group’(http://www.udg.org.uk) which operates in Britain and is meant to be multi-disciplinary, organises trips and has a (quarterly) journal?

In reply to MG’s query, I guess that post – independence if every sign of our colonial past was extinguished e.g. select street names and ‘Royal’ affixations to organisations – that a section of Irish society might have felt unwelcome? Otherwise, I suppose people couldn’t be bothered to change and/or maybe thought ‘Royal’ affixations sounded good – like the unfortunate occurrence of new, ‘exclusive’ housing estates been called ‘Earlscroft’ or ‘Bellevue’ or some other similar vomit inducing names.

Is grey/silver the ‘new black’ in irish architecture???

In principle i would not really have anything against the development in general. But, considering the importance of the site context something that is only ‘o.k.’ or ‘standard’ is not good enough.

I would have to say no to what is currently proposed.

The building looks (from the ‘generated images’) to be boringly monolithic in its colouring and to a lesser extent its ‘shapes’.
Maybe its seemingly overall grey colour is a nod to Kilmainham but, that building can get away with it because of the decorations and styles it has, that the proposed building does not seem to posses. In other words, the proposed building looks grey and fairly boring. I would not advocate a pastiche building because 1. They are useally not as good as the real thing & 2. the building is not physically attached to Kilmainham.

As for height, it looks like its setback a fair bit – set it back more and throw in a fully segragated bicycle path? Throw in a load of trees and some hard lanscaping – stone beches, and /or contemporary, steel and wood benchs (personal preference) – steps that can be used as seating, bike racks + cover for them, and so on.

Jazz up the design of the building – e.g. use some copper for roofing??

Stick a meaningful (& mixed tenure/tennent) residential element in it.

Are there any convenience shops (e.g. newsagents /grocers like ‘Spar’ near by?). Should one of those be specified as one of the retail units?

Overall, in my opinion the development is ‘alright’ but, not quite good enough for its context.

Hello Kevin, if you’re looking for any ‘ole ideas how about this: Look at the mirrored dome in the Parc de la Villette (Link below). http://www2.rudi.net/cs/paris/parclav.htm#Picture
Then, try to imagine what the tower would look like from a distance if the base of it were covered in a broad band of mirrors – a la dome in the French park. Would it look like the base had almost disappeared? Put a narrower band just below the top edge of the tower for the same effect. Build a glass observation tower at the top like an airport control tower. Cover any external parts of the observation tower in glass or in some silver reflective tape (like that stuff the DART stations were putting on the edges of their advertising signs last year (2 years ago?)). Put some local historical info etc. on angled tables in the middle of the tower that might also say in which direction the different places mentioned are located and how far e.g. Ferbane is x miles behind you. The point of putting the tables low down and using mirrors/ reflective tape on external parts would be to make the tower as transparent as possible from a distance to keep the tower’s original form?

At night it could be floodlit in one or two colours e.g. red or, in the local GAA colours etc. See for example the Souleuvre Viaduct in the link below and the point that the darker the background the less light is needed to highlight the subject. http://www.eur.lighting.philips.com/ilr/ilr992/flood.shtml

[This message has been edited by DARA H (edited 17 May 2001).]

Go to An Bord Pleanala’s website for their decision on Smithfield.
http://www.pleanala.ie/recent.html

James, its interesting to get the views of someone who does not seem to agree with the majority on this particular website. I personally believe that there is plenty of potential to get local people more involved in big developments. I also think that most people howerever do not take the bigger picture into mind when making their comments on developments. i.e. a development may be good for the city/country but not good for them so they’ll object.

As for sustainability – some higher heights for buildings are probably the way forward. As for shadowing, unless a building is absolutely huge, the shadow will only be cast on any one spot for a short while. You mentioned wind problems i think, i doubt because of the building heights proposed and the location of Smithfield that there would be too much problem with gusts of wind e.g. wind tunnel effect – these can be mitigated anyway e.g. by trees and hard landscaping, building shapes.

Still, all opinions welcome.

p.s. haven’t heard a response yet from An Taisce as regards my letter i sent to them.

DARA

I would be interested to know exactley what people would define as high-rise? I suppose for myself any buildings that are big and have gone beyond the 10 storey mark would look fairly high rise(ish) to me.
Didn’t Kevin Roche say that he didn’t consider his Spencer Dock to be high-rise? The two links below have some stuff (articles etc.) about urban living and researchh etc.
http://www2.rudi.net/rudi.html
http://www.udg.org.uk/

Try the link below for ordering details on a new book for planning in communities.
http://www2.rudi.net/ppo/wates/cph.htm

Also, there is a newish book about called ‘From Property to people? Partnership, collaborative planning and Urban Design’ by: Mc.Carthy, J. and LLoyd, G. Published year 2000.

There could well be a case for developers themselves shelling out a few thousand quid to get some collaborative planning specialists to meet the public (locals) over a course of days to bargain with them and convince (educate?) them (depends on the development) of the benefits of proposed developments.
This way, developers might get more development unofficially approved by the locals than they might expect with less likelihood of local objections. What weight would local support for a development have weighted against an objection by (non-locals) An Taisce in An Bord Pleanala’s decision making?
This kind of co-operation could help everybody get benefit from developments.

This kind of thing has been done in Britain (not often!) and has proved very cost effective for developers.

[This message has been edited by DARA H (edited 08 May 2001).]

Green Party says 3 storeys only for Cork City. AAArrrrrrrrrrrr! They’ve got to be joking!!!!?? Have they no sustainability agenda? Do they not aknowledge like most other environmental groups, that variety in the urbanscape enriches the built environment for EVERYONE?

Do An Taisce have a website? I feel inspired to send them a note complaining/ questioning their disapointingly, over-conservitive views that are not doing the nation at large any favours.

DARA

Yeah, the tower looks pretty good, would have made a nice bit of contrast to the surrounding squat-looking developments. Talking of the general buildings height and the one storey been chopped across the board – they don’t even look to be the 6-7 storey ‘European City’ – style that I thought Dublin was meant to be emulating anyway(not that what I’ve seen in the Docks looks convincingly ‘European’ either).

What is the general building height going to be?

An Taisce should make up its mind where it thinks ‘sacrifices’ in the built environment have to be made to accommodate growth (commercial, residential etc.), in existing urban areas or greenfield sites?
i.e. is it better to have a ‘visually inappropriate’, seven storey office block in a city centre location or… Object to it, get five storeys instead, and have the other two floors of lost capacity met eventually by a two storey office block on a former green field in a new, ‘landscaped’ business park out in west Dublin -well served by lots of private cars and no public transport ???

There is a picture of the proposed Blackhall Place bridge by Santiago Calatrava on page 310 of Frank McDonald’s book “The Construction of Dublin”.

There is also a picture of the Calatrava bridge for Macken Street on page 89. Apparently the pylon for that bridge is going to be a high as Liberty Hall.

It may be of interest to note that the Dutch city of Rotterdam built a huge ‘Calatravaesqe’ bridge a few years ago (by one of Calatrava’s students) that they now use as a symbol of that city – for promotional literature etc.

DARA