franClaud Reich

I hope that there is some purpose to the extent to some people went to in producing the amount of work that was displayed last night and something promising becomes of it and congrats to Conroy Architecture. Cutting to the chase – having attended the exhibition last night, I was hoping to come out satisfied in the knowledge that the winners were deserved, and I’d have seen a scheme that picked up on something which I did’nt …..

Scheme 1.

………where this scheme is plausible, pragmatic,ordered, intelligible, it would have appealed to the urban designer and city architect and there is enough for the Goff and the pomme to get their teeth into….. This was an ideas competition and I would have liked to have seen something more in the spirit and ambition of the competition – I guess I would have settled for something a little more novel for the top spot…….I can see the panel stood in front of the presentation thinking….”yeah this ones a safe bet”……I have no problem with the scheme and it seems to reference some elements unique to Cork to good effect, but I’m more in admiration of its successful engagement of the different backgrounds of the jury than the architecture, which is essentially the case for most competition……

Scheme 2;

The shopping park…..I think that the diagram of the “shop+park= that amalgm of whatever” did it for me. When you are limited to 200 words there is a lot that goes unexplained and you can get away with quite a lot & maybe, if your lucky, hit the big time…… and when this is judged on its merit of architectural content and integrity and there is an evident development or thought process, I can accept ……..big graphic, random scattering unrelated mis-shaped urban forms and no explanation of strategy, relationships to itself or its surroundings …….and of course the object in the river (this can be forgiven if it was left over piece and it didn’t fit on the site in which case it was right to put it in the river-I would have put it in the bin)…….. all the trappings of…. “let the year out student have a pop at it”

Scheme 3

“The assessors considered the urban strategy to be deft, which is facilitated by the removal of the Garda Station. By breaking the rules in this way this architect came up with the interesting scheme.” …………… This is a mockery and I ask myself did the assessors understand the conditions and why even bother making these rules if your going to disgard them so readily….. I would like to hear how the assessors legitimize this decision….On reflection, I have vague recollection of reading the constraints on the brief, which lead entrants to believe the Garda Station was to be kept……..Where is the skill in taking out part of the inherent challenge in creating a scheme that incorporates this building type…By removing the Garda station Donaghy and Diamond produced a strategy was deft, but it failed to address the same conditions as all the other entrants. Had there been the option of removing it, I’m sure a lot more entrants would have played the market sweeping into the building card………I don’t want to be harking on but from the model image the urban strategy is not explained…..THIS IS AN UNFINISHED MODEL IN ISOLATION & WITHOUT CONTEXT …… HOW CAN ANYBODY CITE ITS STRATEGY AS DEFT OR CREDIT THE URBAN SRATEGY WHEN ITS NOT THERE TO BE DECIPHERED……… how does the elevation respond to the urban conditions that it encounters along the extent of the river, ……this was one of a number of entries that broke the building down into3/4 blocks but this was weak and unremarkable considering the advantage of not having to bring the Garda station into play

Scheme 4:

Same kind of approach as above but seems to acknowledge the context somewhat….. “The assessors commended the concept of a simple series of layers based on the historic form of the city and praised the quality of the sketches and the presentation.” …… ………….. “simple series of layers based on the historic form of the city” ….contrived, convoluted nonsense….seems the assessors …….this development looks like a generic office development with a weak pedestrian move splitting the building in 2 at which point I ask why….etc……

Ah what could have been………………………………………………………………………………………………