exene1
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I don’t know if anyone is on these threads but anyway….
I see the Irish Georgian Society were refused permission by Dublin City Council to replace the two-over-two 19th century sash windows in their HQ building, Assembly House on South William Street, with replica multi-pane 18th century windows.
Are the Georgians being too purist, or would the correct 18th century windows really be an improvement?
The decision:
“1. This proposal will result in an unnecessary loss of historic fabric that will erase a phase of revision / intervention at this building, a phase which represents an integral layer of its development both in terms of the building’s social history and its evolution within the wider historic city context and therefore does not demonstrate best conservation practice. The proposed development would adversely affect the character of a protected structure located in an Architectural Conservation and would thereby be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.”
Planning Ref. 3957/14
[IMG]http://i1154.photobucket.com/albums/p539/tlemm/00_City_Assembly_House_Facade_by_Oliver_Grace_1765-1771_Photo_by_Stephanie_Joy-s.jpg[/IMG]
A most interesting area due to retaining its historic use. For sure, an assessment of the area is needed to determine what is of value. Example of some features here from that Little Britain Street area north of the main markets:
This corner building has a presence and is worth keeping in any future regeneration. It was the Little Green Gallery for a while.
A few doors away one & a bit storeys of an 18th century brick house survives. Nothing much maybe, but should at least be assessed.
Then an interesting little grouping of buildings here on Cuckoo Lane; a goods building with a crane hoist – once seen all over the city but now fairly rare – and a nice pedimented warehouse just out of view behind it.
And this doorway which faces St. Michan’s Park / playground needs to be investigated.
Anyway a fuller survey is needed.
That 2007 proposal posted earlier for Little Britain Street is spectacularly non-contextual. Some further images of it here – http://www.dublincity.ie/AnitePublicDocs/00153952.pdf We need to get new development to respond to and add to the character of the city.
Will development ever get going again in the markets area or wider city centre? Who knows. But we need to learn from the past.
Thanks for post stephen.
@Paul Clerkin wrote:
Plan for a clock tower for the markets… just nothing much changes… plan… drop plan… plan again…
https://archiseek.com/2014/1869-design-for-clock-tower-green-st-dublin/#.UxH8xPmwIQc
Lol I’d remove the round tower bit on the left :wtf: This was presumably to be on the corner of Green Street and Little Britain Street.
This was a 2007 application for an 8 storey building on Little Britain Street. Dublin City Council planning department were brainlessly permitting buildings of any size at the time (2859/07). It was pulled back to 6 storeys on appeal (PL29N.224378), but no changes to the crappy tiger spec rounded glazing ignoring the character of the area. Long expired now.
@StephenC wrote:
No one can agree on good design, no one can agree on what colours work and what don’t, no one can control what premises are doing on a daily basis.
I know Stephen, all true. But one thing is for sure: poor quality is generating poor quality. The previous Gorta front, also installed without permission in the late noughties, led to the crude plastic ‘Trimmings’ shop fascia (just out of your picture on the left) being erected a year or so ago next door at 137 Capel Street, a Prot. Struc. The new gorta front is an Even Worse version of the previous one.
Likewise original 19th century shopfront consoles replaced without permission some time ago by crude oversized ‘traditional style’ ones by Ryan’s pub, 5 Queen Street, a Prot. Struc. (documented on ‘Shopfront Race to Bottom’ thread) led to the similar crude consoles erected today at 4 Queen Street. Same thing replicated across the city as you say.
While on Queen Street an honourable mention must go the Dice Bar opposite. In contrast to the crapfest of Ryan’s pub and Bargaintown, their signage is tastefully set with the historic shopfront fascia and architectural character of the overall building well maintained.
They should try and get the upstairs of that unit for seating. Then again it would soon get trashed if unsupervised. Tables covered in graffiti and a smell of pee in the corner.
In Korea they have Starbuckses with multiple floors of seating above the ground floor. It works because there is NO anti social behaviour, just floor after floor of perfectly behaved Koreans, quite a sight lol.
The KC Peaches job.
@GrahamH wrote:
We have a new development on Dame Street.
The previously virtually invisible No. 54 Dame Street on the corner with Temple Lane has been reinvented as a KC Peaches wholefoods café. Its facelift, from dirty white to a smart variation of teal, has demonstrated in stark terms the value of judicious use of colour on exterior facades. This famously lacklustre vista closure, terminating the view from South Great George’s Street has been rendered, well, that bit less lacklustre.
What is so remarkable about this simple repainting is how it has markedly pronounced the step of the building line along this stretch of Dame Street, even viewed as far away as College Green. Quite literally, a new streetscape has emerged.
It must have spectacular views from the upper floors (the first of which also has public access) down Dame Street towards the West Front of Trinity.
Now, there’s no getting away from the fact that No. 54 is never going to win architectural awards, not least for its ridiculously clunky handling of such a critical corner site in the city, but the repainting has at least injected it with a certain provincial charm which heretofore manifested itself as hamfisted pretension, with its bizarre array of underscaled gables projecting skyward like a cluster of submarine telescopes.
I notice it is the local independents who are more likely to do a better job with paint schemes. The Irish company Bobo’s presumably observed the beautiful subdued effect of the dark green Dame Street shopfront here in the 1961 Cushman colour pictures, and did likewise when they opened a branch in the building a year or so ago. Not bad for a fast food restaurant.
The KC Peaches colour scheme, too, is like something you’d see in an old Kodachrome slide.
I notice it is the local independents who are more likely to do a better job with paint schemes. The Irish company Bo Bos presumably observed the beautiful subdued effect of the dark green Dame Street shopfront here in the 1961 Cushman colour pictures, and did likewise when they opened a branch in the building a year or so ago.
The KC Peaches colour scheme, too, is like something you’d see in an old Kodachrome slide.
Smithfield in 1999, two makeovers ago:
There’ll be another one in 2020.
Rationale: “The 2011 scheme is considered to have introduced a busy variety of elements and textures into the 17th century square. The current scheme sees to re-establish the original open character of the market place with a consistent, uniform treatment across the ground plane.” lolol
A restoration project for you Ryan’s pub, Queen Street:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Just one attractive hanging sign. Back then conservation areas were conservation areas without being conservation areas.
Frankly, with the standard of your commentary on Archiseek, you’re not in a position to be proferring approval or disapproval of Dublin Civic Trust and An Taisce. Both have very different roles in the context of the city heritage; the Civic Trust (a body formed out of An Taisce) an architectural heritage awareness body, and An Taisce a vital cog in the development consent process, among other things.
I dunno, maybe you’re just a kid. If so, sorry. Go off and work abroad for a few years. Good for getting perspective on things.
The finished lower end of the plaza – nice job!!!!!!! Skateboard rats are the main activity so far.
That ‘Glass House’ office infill worked out quite well ….. apart from the lack of office tenants, lol.
Now all that’s needed is development of the two sites on the west side on each side of Luas. There were two pisstaking Tiger applications for these sites in the late noughties.
Timeline:
First off was a redevelopment of the buildings on the Smithfield / Haymarket site with a monster 9-storey block, in the centre, above. This was granted permission with no volume changes by Dublin City Council – 2776/07 – and refused outright by An Bord Pleanala on appeal – PL29N.226444. The architects were trying to do some trendy Stockholm-Barcelona building with “woven steel mesh” instead of actually trying to repair some of the damage done to the coherent historic scale of the area by Smithfield Market.
In the appeal, the applicant argued, inter alia, that the location of the site at the junction of Luas and Smithfield warranted a large building such as that proposed. The appellant argued, inter alia, that the site should be seen in the overall context of Smithfield and the appropriate thing to do here was mediate in scale between Smithfield Market to the north and the traditional city scale of the Quays to the south.
While the Haymarket site was still under appeal, a 10-storey building was lodged for the Smithfield / Coke Lane site next door to the south, on the left above – 2012/08
The Coke Lane proposal was redesigned and scaled back by the time of its approval by the City Council, then was further reduced and turned around by 180° on appeal – PL29N.232346
Following the initial Haymarket appeal refusal, a revised 7-storey block was permitted by the City Council – 3045/09 – then reduced to 6 storeys on appeal – PL29N.234398.
So the desired transition in scale between Smithfield Market and the Quays was eventually achieved in the permitted buildings. But there’s no consistency to the City Council’s decision making; they granted permission for the two successive Haymarket applications more or less without any changes, but granted a massively reduced version of the Coke Lane proposal.
I recall during the boom that when Adamstown Town Centre in west Dublin was being created, there were strict briefs by South Dublin Co. Co. which the various architects involved had to follow and they all knew exactly what type and size of building was required in each location. Yet a major Dublin-city-centre civic and historic plaza like Smithfield had no guidelines about how its remaining gap sites should be developed, about what type of buildings the City Council wanted to see there …… so you got this tomfoolery nonsense of applicants coming in with obviously ridiculous proposals out of proportion to the location, with the City Council usually just throwing permission at them ….. hopefully it’ll all be cleaned up on appeal. Crazy.
It’s all a bit much when you read the reams and reams of waffle in the new Dublin City Development Plan under headings like “shaping the city” and “spatial structure of Dublin” (just open it here and start reading anywhere). The sham that’s been called “planning” in Dublin city centre for the past decade cannot hide behind this wall of bluff.
The historic house No 21 Aungier Street initially ran as the planned guesthouse when a lengthy refurbishment finished in the late ’90s, then there was bigshit when he, the fella who ran it, turned it into refugee accom about 10 yrs. ago ……….. why is it things that work in other cities – ie. historic house as guesthouse – don’t work in Dublin?
No. 6 will be back for their takeaway permission soon enough …….. there’s another takeaway currently under appeal two doors away at 8 Aungier Street. It’s depressing!
But there are a few decent cafes on the other side of Aungier St, and Bald Barista within Avalon Hse – knockout coffee.
Nice sunny picture. But when I passed it recently the yellow looked pukey. That might even be a conservation yellow but I still find it pukey. Why does every newly refurbished plastered building have to be painted some tone of yellow?? It’s the Irish yellow obsession that’s been going on for the last decade or so.
Now, dear me what happened to this fine commercial building on Aungier Street? See it below from Google Streetview. Mind you most of the historic shopfront detail still survives. The surviving right-hand half of the building was recently, or still is being, refurbished.
Also note Aungier Street’s provincial-town character in the old photo, haha!
Two views of that building in the street. Not too many pictures of that stretch of Dame Street in the old days.
The O’Connell Street Area Shopfront Design Guidelines (2003) contained specific recommendations for the improvement of the appearance of Protected Structure No. 14/15 Lower O’Connell Street which is a good quality brick & stone grid-frame building of the 1920s. Some design and signage improvements were recently carried to the convenience store shop at No. 15 in accordance with these guidelines under planning application 3004/08, notwithstanding an unpermitted Subway illuminated sign in the window.
However, at the other shop – No. 14 – things have actually got WORSE since the guidelines were published. The discount bag shop there, which doesn’t even have a name on the fascia, is using an advertisement banner across the shopfront which is contrary to the Special Planning Control Scheme for O’Connell Street which says ‘Banner type signs and advertising sheeting covering any façade or part of a façade of a building is not acceptable.’ (Section 4.2 – New Advertisement Structures).
And, previously, the entrance to the upper floors had the building number sign – ’14’ – above the doorway, which the 2003 shopfront design guidelines recommended be relocated level with the fascia of the two shops. But instead it has been replaced by a bigger, cheaper and nastier version in the same place. See pictures.
Who is policing? Why is there no resistance against such low standards? Why aren’t Dublin City Council implementing the plethora of planning documents they enacted for the improvement of O’Connell Street, even in simple cases like this where it would be easy to achieve a result and prevent cheap rubbish from being put up? This is a stretch of O’Connell Street which is otherwise quite smart and well presented, and that’s saying a lot.
Ok a few of us remember the Old Chinaman, which I recall was a 1970s building.
But does anyone remember a PREVIOUS version of it in a Georgian bdg, apparently just called ‘The Chinaman’? I’m seeing some pictures of it here in the DCC Libraries site:
http://dublincitypubliclibraries.com/image-galleries/digital-collections
@StephenC wrote:
http://www.dublincivictrust.ie/news-ent … 1318848980
Looks good.
Also photos from the DCC Libraries site of the ’74 bomb aftermath show that Parnell Street’s buildings were once much classier looking:
@GrahamH wrote:
@GrahamH wrote:
@GrahamH wrote:
Stenchy Fibbers.
