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Continuing on the sarcasm theme – I think it’d be better if they built yet another suburban office campus in the centre of our capital city – its the only way we’re going to keep up with Scunthorpe. Plus it would also fit in with the DDDA’s motto of “think smalltime”.
Seriously, I don’t think anyone is arguing for height just for the sake of it, any building would need to be well-designed as well, which just isn’t the case at the moment. But some well-designed tall buildings are so badly needed at present in some of these developments to alleviate the monotony – its difficult to argue against that. Suburban architecture belongs in the suburbs, not the city centres. I know this topic is probably getting boring, but at least its not as boring as modern Dublin architecture.
To answer the original post, yes I thought it was the gasworks too, but I’m not 100% either.
That prefab probably is whats going up. The DDDA would’ve thought long and hard about how it might overshadow some weeds growing beside a kerb, how once in a while a car might have to drive up to it, how it might actually be visible from someones house and how it might ruin the uninterrupted view of the wastelands (the IFSC extension) from the sea, but eventually decided to be brave and controversial and let it go ahead, turning down the alternative, more conservative proposal of a five-man dome tent which was heavily pushed by some members of the board.
Those poor DDDA guys will be tossing in their beds tonight wondering when the torrent of protest from local residents will arrive, still they’ve allowed yet another prefab be built in whats supposed to be our capital city – Other cities will be green with jealosy.
Its difficult to draw any conclusions from the illustrations on the OPW website since they’re not very detailed. It’s a fantastic site there in Waterford so hopefully they’ll put something worthwhile in there, i.e. keep Scott Tallon and Walker and anyone with any connection to the Dublin Docklands as far away from it as possible. I’m just hoping this isn’t put on the backburner like hundreds of other things in this country, never to be heard from again.
As far as the winner being non-Irish, I don’t really have a problem with that. If theirs was the best submission then fair enough, they deserve to win regardless of where they’re from.
Exactly, there are always trade-offs if you want the conveniences of city living – except it seems in Ireland. Here they seem to be quite keen on covering the entire country in concrete just so they can appease some nimby protestors who don’t want their kitchen window “overshadowed” or whatever the latest buzzword is.
Just look at London, a city with a similar climate, hours of sunshine and all the rest as Dublin, the general height and bulk of buildings there is far greater than it is in Dublin (and they mostly look good too) yet most people I’ve heard seem to love the place architecturally and I’m not talking about Canary Wharf sized developments either.
The fact is that whats going on in the Dublin docklands right now could pass for developments in Grimsby or Swansea or Stoke-on-trent or some other such backwater in England. Do we want to aspire to be more like London or more like the places I just mentioned? Apparently the DDDA want the latter – if only they could be removed from power – even An Bord Pleanala seem to be gradually being dragged kicking and screaming out of the 19th century if their permission for the Tara Street building is anything to go by.
Well to clarify a little, I’m most annoyed by the buildings that front the river. Apart from the Clarion Quay apartments which aren’t too bad, the rest of that row of buildings are awful. With a bit of luck the Citibank block will be gone in about 25 years time, the same goes for the other office blocks (I think Commerzbank are in one of them).
I can’t help but think that not only should these buildings have been at least twice as high given the width of the river there but that some sort of competition to design them be undertaken, rather than modelling the whole place on a Rice Krispies box. At least that way they’d provide some kind of focal point rather than the black-hole they are now.
Just a thought, but doesn’t the lack of height and therefore space in the city-centre have to be made up for elsewhere? i.e. the suburbs and urban sprawl. Now I know the mantra about high rise not necessarily equalling high-density but surely a little more leniency, especially in the relatively remote docklands wouldn’t go astray? Do the planners think endless Rice Krispie boxes look great or something?
Anyway, I’m beginning to think I’m obsessed by the rubbish ultra-conservative planners we have in this country. Hopefully they’ll get their act together soon or I might go mental altogether.
Looking at the IFSC extention a few days ago I was thinking about how likely it is that in 20-30 years time it’ll all be torn down to be replaced by something,…. well…..good. Personally I think its odds-on to happen, can anyone else see this happening? The same goes for whats now being proposed for Spencer Dock i.e. more of the same boredom. If so surely this is a major indictment of the inadequacies of the DDDA and their lack of any kind of ambition whatsoever.
Apart from Windsor Park being an awful dump of a ground that makes Lansdowne Road look space-age, its situated right in the middle of a staunchly Unionist area i.e. the kind of area with union jacks flying from every available pole and kerbstones painted blue, white and red. The chances of an Irish team other than Northern ireland playing anything there in any degree of comfort and safety are slim to say the least.
It says this on the Bord Pleanala site:
“the height of the development onto Poolbeg Street is reduced by 3.9 metres; the height of the development onto Tara Street is reduced by 7.8 metres; the overall height of the development onto Poolbeg Street and Tara Street is now at 44.9 metres; the overall height of the development forming the curvilinear part of the composition remains the same, 60.8 metres at the north apex and 57 metres at south apex”
Can anyone translate this? What does that bit about the height of the curvilinear part mean? How is this still 60.8m when it lists those reductions above? To be honest I can rarely make out what reports such as these are actually saying at the best of times.
An indoor arena in Dublin would corner the market for concerts and shows, the Point would become obsolete overnight (which is no bad thing) because of the greater capacity and facilities. This is apart from ice-hockey games, which may or may not catch on, its difficult to say. Most major British cities have large indoor arenas, so presumably it is a profitable venture or they wouldn’t have come about in the first place.
Interesting comments from Noel Smyth, the chairman of Dunlow Ewart:
http://www.onbusiness.ie/2002/0916/stadium.html
He seems to be interested in building the stadium along with some other things under the right circumstances. I think the key to getting the private sector involved is the actual site at Abbotstown itself, it must be very valuable land so if a private consortium can get it say at a favourable price they could build the stadium along with high-density housing, an indoor arena etc and make money.
Actually, the more I think about it the better it sounds (in theory) – the country could potentially get a stadium, an arena and some other things as well as a lot of new high-density housing which can only be a good thing for hard-pressed house-hunters (provided its done right). I have a bad feeling though that the PDs will object to offloading the site for less than its worth, even though the potential gain to the country is fairly great. Anyway, I refuse to get excited about this because something always gets in the way of these things and ruins it.
There’s no need to bring the swimming pool into it, that was needed to stage the Special Olympics and after that it’ll stage the European short-course championships, so its already proving its worth. Even apart from that its a very valuable training centre for our swimmers who at last now have two 50m pools to use (Limerick and Abbotstown). The more world-class facilities we have the better.
This is exactly my problem too, Peter. Why is anything over five floors deemed unacceptable when most of the stuff they do allow is horribly unimaginative and nothing to look at? I know I’m just repeating what you said, but I’m glad somebody else pointed that out. I get the feeling that our planners and indeed the whole system is terribly conservative and afraid of upsetting anybody, so we’re left with the dregs that they do allow for fear that somebody’s windowbox might be “overshadowed” (is that a buzz word these days?), or that something new might look out of place amongst all the red brick.
Yeah I thought you might do that, couldn’t help myself I’m afraid. I think its fair to say I’m not Mary Harneys number 1 fan.
Its a total cop-out, stadiums aren’t profit-making so there’s no way the private sector will get involved. The whole Croke Park thing is a red herring since the FAI and IRFU have more sense than to become tenants of that crowd. Well at least we have Lansdowne road with its 20,000 capacity for the next WC qualifiers, wonder what kind of an atmosphere there’ll be with no fans behind either goal? I have to say I’m rapidly losing patience with this country.
But the alternative to what was actually built there would almost certainly have been more of those awful 5 storey boxes that surround the towers, rather than just leaving it derelict. At least the towers are something to look at (whether you like or dislike them), and as proven here can generate discussion. Would more 5 storey boxes generate any discussion other than declarations af how terrible thay are?
I know I’m probably preaching to the converted here, but the IFSC extension has got to be one of the most depressing additions to the city of Dublin in recent years for the reasons mentioned above. A huge opportunity to do something worthwhile was wasted. Absolutely nothing stands out there, and now they want to do the same to the rest of the docks, and no doubt similar rubbish will be inflicted on the Cork and Waterford docklands on a smaller scale. If this is the case dereliction might be the better option, because at least it means it’ll be a blank canvass for some future generation with a bit more ambition and courage.
If the central station was on O’Connell Street then where would it connect with the DART? As ew said, a central station should be where you can change from one major line to another. It’d be ludicrous to have different lines that don’t intersect each other anywhere, meaning people have to leave one station and walk to another to complete some journeys.
I’m assuming that they’ll connect at Tara Street, which would make that the central station, not anywhere else.
I think the reason most people are so enthusiastic about them is becuase they’re one of the very few buildings that are actually noticable above the utter disaster that is the Dublin “skyline”. At the very least they’re a focal point, making a change from all the 5 storey rubbish that the planners in this country seem to think are so great.
I often think I’m missing something here – have tall buildings been declared evil by the supreme court or something? Why do the planners think 5 storey blandness is so much better? I can’t believe that they actually think that all these unnoticable 5 storey boxes are better than something that would actually stand out and be something to look at.
I think the 20 billion figure came from some of the professional scaremongers we seem to have in abundance in this country. I’d swear there must be a department of scaremongering or something here judging by the amount of it going around sometimes.
Don’t know about Copenhagen, but 1 billion euro seems pretty cheap for 10km of tunnel, 11km overground and 17 stations, bearing in mind labour costs are even higher in Denmark than they are here. I’d be pretty sceptical of that figure I have to say.
ugly but better than a standard 4 and 5 storey effort, should have been less bulky and taller though. i think the mass of the buildings appears ‘too much’, especially viewing the first photo on this thread.
I think its OK too, better anyway than a continuation of the 4-5 storey crap thats in front of it. I’d be interested to see what the Tara Street development looks like beside it when its built. By the way, is that still with an bord Pleanala or what? It seems like its been ages since that was first proposed, no doubt they’ll turn it down for some invented reason or other and force the construction of more 4-5 storey lego-block blandness.
