Devin

They look well.

As an icon, the U2 tower is nothing special.

There’s another queer little building on Newmarket – coulda been a weighouse.

One problem I can forsee with Grand Canal Square is that it is east-facing.

Best if a public space can be south or west-facing to get those important afternoon and evening sunlight hours, but especially one fronting water. You should be able to linger by the water with the evening sun in the distance, but instead the sun will be disappearing behind the big Performing Arts Centre on summer evenings, leaving much of the square in shadow …… pity.

Have to say out of all the Irish towns I’ve been to in recent times, I found the nuisance and irritant value of traffic in Wexford Town extremely high, one of the highest of any town. Cars just seem to course through every last laneway in the town. The new public space by the seafront is lovely, but it is an isolated people-friendly area.

It’s the usual Irish town story; sprawl and one-off housing in the surrounding area mean every journey must be undertaken by car …public transport is impossible to put in because of the low-density pattern of development … businesses complain that they won’t be reached if any traffic restrictions are made in the town … high traffic levels on roads mean it’s unpleasant and difficult to walk or cycle anywhere …. so just drive instead. And so it goes on …

It’s such a shame because Wexford is a lovely town with a distinct character – possibly due to the strong survival of indigenous businesses. It has a good urban structure; the narrow windy main street, the parallel interlinked streets above that and the proximity of the core to the seafront. Some great architectural heritage as well; grain stores, slate-hung houses, vernacular shops – though it’s sash windows have taken a fair beating (no thanks to a certain, ahem, well-known Irish PVC company being located there! :rolleyes: ).

Wexford Town definitely needs the ‘Ruthless Suppression of Traffic’ approach!

Make no mistake about it – the Henrietta Street decision was a bad decision by Dublin City Council planner …….. . ……… (Ooooh, nearly said the name there!! 🙂 ).
As I said, detailed 3rd party submissions were made (on plans almost identical to the approved one) on the huge scale of the building and the need for significant scaling-back. These concerns were ignored and the building approved, and – even more ominously – with the knowledge that, as there had been no 3rd party submissions to the approved plan, it could not come before the appeals board (thanks to the restrictive measures of the Planning & Development Act 2000 on the taking of appeals).

@publicrealm wrote:

I really think it is unreasonable to expect planners to prevail in such circumstances.

What?!! 😮 Are you serious?! Well they had bloody well better be able to prevail when there’s a site like the Henrietta Street corner at stake!! (Ok, I’m being OTT, but you get the drift).

To be honest, publicrealm, I can’t make that much sense of your last post at all. You seem to be trying to tell me that most planners are well-intentioned and diligent – did I say they weren’t? You tell me planners are under-resourced and under pressure from other forces – did I not say this in my last post? You seem to think I’m attacking planners as a whole – already said I’m not. Good decisions are made. Bad decisions are made. As it happens the proportion of good decisions (decisions that accord with proper planning and sustainable development) would tend to be higher in Dublin than elsewhere. Dublin City Council have just refused an overscaled 8-storey building on a rear site behind protected structures on Aungier Street (Ref.1037/06) – a good decision. But Henrietta Street was a bad decision. Where did I say I there was a lack of appreciation of heritage matters among the planning profession? – the issue with the Henrietta Street building, as I and others have maintained, is good urban design & cognisance of historic town planning.

@publicrealm wrote:

I do not know what the answer is but a large part of the problem stems from the greedy and underdesigned applications

The answer is – would you believe – MORE RESOURCES! 🙂

Publicrealm,

I am not having a go at planners here. I hold the Irish planning profession and everything it stands for in the highest regard. As you will know it has a history of inadequate resourcing and subversion by non-planning local authority staff or other outside interests, but it remains the critical determinant in the quality of our built environment – as has all-too-unfortunately been borne out in case of the Henrietta Street building.

With regard to use of the word “stupid”, I think a sense of perspective is needed. It is the internet and the planner in question is not being named, so I reserve the right to use the word “stupid” if I wish. Worse is said of named individuals in the media every day.

The planner involved may well be “highly qualified”, but they made a grievous mistake in passing this building in its current form, especially as there had been detailed submissions in opposition to it, to plans previous to the one which was passed. I cannot check reference numbers at the moment, but I know that two separate applications for the building were running concurrently – this is why I use the word ‘confusion’.

Some contributors to the thread have criticised the materials and finishing of the building. I wouldn’t have any problems here. I think the brick was carefully chosen for the context and the so-rarely-used lime mortar was a treat (though the brick bonding is not in fact in the ‘traditional’ method as you say (‘Flemish bond’), but is the quicker and easier ‘stretcher bond’). I even like some of the architectural detailing such as the frosted glass balcony panels and their steel frames. I think the timber panelling was well-used. Had the building been at an appropriate scale and articulation, I think its materials and finishing would have been most complimentary to Henrietta Street, and the building as a whole could have been a great success.

But it is a tragically overscaled building. Even by the standards of the planner’s argument (as indicated by ctesiphon’s quote that their “opinion derives from an understanding of urban form consistent with contemporary trends, but inconsistent with the Georgian tradition of planarity, linearity and sequential hierarchy.”) the building not a success. It is monolithic and unbalancing.

The planner, not the architect, was the final determinant of the building that is now on Henrietta Street. You say (sarcastically) that “the best that the stupid planner can do is to mitigate the worst excesses of the architect” – but that wasn’t done in this case; i.e. reduction of the building to an appropriate scale / requesting of an appropriately-scaled redesign. This is a tragedy for Henrietta Street and a blow for Dublin’s Georgian planning in general.

As well as anything could possibly do today, I think Rocque’s map of Dublin (below) – 250 years old this year – illustrates the hierarchical relationship between Bolton Street and Henrietta Street. The consideration of this relationship should have been the starting point for development proposals at the corner:

Yes Alek I agree the area is being sterilised. The planners would tell you that those kind of concerns (like Duffy’s) are “not a long-term sustainable use for the area” but they were definitely part of the character of that part of town.
Then there’s the horse fair …..