doozer

You can’t out right ban certain buisnesses but you can use the carrot and stick approach. Introduce facade guidlines and building upkeep that would make the area less attractive to the lower end of the market.
Get a couple of flagship high-end shops into the area through grants and subsidies and it will begin to regenerate itself. That’s the tactic being used in alot inner city area’s on the continent.

It was my understanding that there is a masterplan in existance that is being phased in gradually. For example the regeneration of Henry Street, the spike etc. Granted, this may not be extreme enough to transform O’Connell Street into the country’s first avenue but its not quite the chaos that it appears and it is in the middle of development.
A gradual upgrading must be preferable to an over night clean sweep that may not be so well considered. I was living just off O’Connell Street last year and we all got a copy of the plan in our post boxes. It seemed fairly reasonable, nothing earth-shattering, but then I suppose the Spike is the coup-de-grace.

As for policing, Graham I think your right, that’s more of a city wide issue. Singling out O’Connell Street for tougher measures may cause more problems than it solves

although….. I could just keep posting these ‘talking to myself mails

AndrewP how come your a senior menber now ………………..oh the injustice.

Disrespectful to Calatrava????? WTF?

Anyway since when did design begin and end with whether the thing stands up and looks pretty? You have more of a responsibility than that!

As for not hearing about similar problems with other designs.
It seems in the course of this bridge’s contruction there has been alot of stuff brought to light that we didn’t know about this designer.

At the end of the day I don’t think they should alter the bridge at all. If you get hurt its your own tough luck (put up a sign so the can’t get sued or something) but its a failure in urban design and it should be considered a failure for the architect.

Perhaps there’s been a bit of a digression, the issue should not be about so- called knackers or whether we should lock children up!! or what the ethics are for architects to even entertain such theories!.
Its no secret that I do not like this bridge but however much we scaremonger and moan the population of inner city Dubiln is no worse than many other capital cities in my experience.
Therefore if a problem like this presents itself almost as soon as the thing is up and open then the responsibility must lie with the design and the designer.
Come on.

Originally posted by GregF
Na…….no way snobbish bud……I am of such stock which fully qualifies me to give out about such. No pretensions here.

And there I rest my case.

All I’m saying is that this is an inner city area and that people climb on urban structures all over the world (Its not just Dublin kids and the pointless attacks on their behaviour add nothing to the arguement)- is it imposible that Calatrava could have forseen that this would be an issue. Its seems on the contrary that he provided young people with a challenge.
I’m sorry but that’s where we should draw the line for architect’s responsibility-
wilful bad and ill- considered design.

Your right – if they fall it does serve them right, I don’t disagre, but there are levels of acceptable risk and I don’t think this is acceptable from a design point of view.

So it would seem that Calatrava has landed us with a structure that has not taken into account human usage or its surroundings………………..

Latvians must not be the seasoned opportunists that we are.
Anyway I thought Russia’s backround was really weird – just a long street with lots of traffic if I remember correctly????
Why??