garethace

The underlying theme here I think is basic human greed, the same for thousands of years really, and the Architects have their fair share of blame here too I suspect. One basic question to ask would be how much energy is guzzled up by these brand new biospherical public buildings? The single biggest sector of energy usage in Europe is, you’ve guessed it: buildings. Running 160 million buildings in Western Europe alone, uses over 40% of Europes total energy consumption. 40% plus of carbon dioxide emissions come from buildings. Only 31% CO2 currently comes from transport! But then again, a commision to build a shopping centre extension, can keep a small Arch practice ticking over for 12 months plus. That is good money in anyones’ language.

The current plan is to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions in Western Europe by as much as 45 million tonnes by 2010. This is where the current situation gets a little bit tricky for planting those nice shiny new Biospherical developments everywhere IMHO. Unless you totally want to stick your head in the sand, and completely ignore the energy conservation brief. In Europe, as part of the goal to reduce CO2 emissions, all new Buildings over 1000m2 buildings will need to state their energy saving criteria, as part of their conceptual design. I can only presume this is why Bolton Street/UCD/Queens now have their Architectural students drawing trendy little green and red ‘air-flow’ arrows all over the place. 🙂 Is it a sign I am old when I get nostalgic for the old days, when a drawing a few fire escape route arrows was considered cutting edge?

Even though, Residential Buildings still manage to go through a whopping 2/3’s of the energy consumption from that 40% total buildings now use. The service industry’s growth in Europe, means, that things like Biospheres are catching up rapidly. As the Commercial sector is growing, it just demands more and more energy, fact. Compared to older and currently more unpopular models, like the old shopping centre in Stillorgan and similar examples scattered around Ireland, including the humble ‘main street’ of many Irish towns and villages. Okay, so you couldn’t get away with a tank top and hipsters in the month of January, as you sift through the half price runners box, with some gentle hip R&B music playing in the background.

In Britain alone, the energy guzzling demands of the service industry jump by no less than 3.7% each year, which represents a greater growth in energy consumption than that of all transport! Are we all suddenly getting the picture? Still feeling sanctimonious in your new 4×4 which has that spanking new catalytic converter technology built in? Presently the Architectural profession is simply not prepared to do their duty, to highlight this important facet in the design of any typical biosphere. Sorry, but no amount of friendy looking ‘air flow’ arrows and diagrams, is going to convince me otherwise. In an era, when we are meant to be so concerned about our environment, then why have we all so suddenly decided building more and more retail infernos, is the best way to go? Why has there not been any serious discussion in any major Irish architectural press about this?

With all respect,
Brian O’ Hanlon.

Yes, I remember now, the notion of having sites ‘laid on a plate’ to developers was bascially the point made in the Trim Castle feature…. and that point was made quite well too… it was just very difficult to keep track of so many busy points being made together at the same time,… in what was quite a decent attempt overall.

That point about selling sites under-priced in the current climate of property prices definitely deserves its very own spot though.

It would have served Trim and the case for regulation of extraction much better to have had Trim featured in a prog devoted to regular devlopment, of which there are hundreds of dubious cases, and a subject to which people can relate to – whilst concentrating Monday’s prog exclusively on the extractive and infrastructural industries.

Yes, there is considerable scope and sub-catagories in just regular development issues, to create a very good programme out of that alone.

Any opinions about the ‘State of the City’ documentary by Duncan Stewart a while ago? ? ? ?

Went up today… very nice gallery and lots of interesting panels…. funny though that some panels lack an impact in the space while they are in reality very condensed and detailed when you look closely.
I wonder if it’s time to ask for submissions on CDR? It would allow for more information and dynamic 3d models etc.

yucky, computers! 🙂 cost Ros, basically,… who is going to take time, responsiblity and have the necessary skills to administer all of that…. considering that the AAI usually do well to keep the microphone and slide projector working for the duration of a lecture… 🙂

Fine bunch of lads and ladies in the AAI… thumbs up guys. There web site is a great help/resource too now.

I know an architect who once gave a lecture in NASA in the US of A… and the slide projector would not work…. so it happens… 🙂

http://telematic.walkerart.org/datasphere/telezone_index.html

that was a nice idea… to build a real life model of a sim city kind of thing via the web…. and have the real life article visible on exhibtion in a University someplace in Austria… but someone from Vienna later told me, that it doesn’t actually work… 🙂 That instead people go around at nightime and actually ‘glue’ the bits on manually as best as they can. Dot Bomb!

Nice idea though. Much more subtle and clever than a count down clock to my taste… dunno. Kind of the Sim City equivalent of a computerised voting system… except without the governments bank vault.

I have a few criticisms about the RTE documentary… more to do with the ‘Trim Castle’ type of problems… and how the documentary dealt with that… but just to respond to the spatial strategy points you were making…. I think you have to separate things like resource extraction, from ‘building beside Trim Castle’ as they are totally different kinds of issues/problems.

I mean, I think that Archaeologist guy from Duchas got far too much ‘air time, moan time’ on the Trim Castle…. there wasn’t one Architect asked to speak about that issue… and I presume some kind of architect will be designing/building the actual hotel…. a bit like the debate here a while ago about Dun Laoire STW scheme of gated apartments.

On the spatial strategy…

You are right, it did not show other countries, where resource extractions has happened in a more organised fashion,… and can actually enhance a landscape afterwards. I remember in Malta, a tiny Island in the med, they use all stone there to build everything,… but there are huge vast ‘holes’ in parts of the Island where they quarry that stone… other countries have problems like this too.

Yeah, it seems like we are talking about ‘leading the EU’ in terms of environmental control policies like smoking ban etc,etc,etc…. but when it comes to ‘not so nit-picking’ kinds of issues, like resource extraction,… we still have a long ways to go in our attitudes.

My biggest worry, is the precedent set… if people are allowed just to get away with it,… the whole industry of resource extraction could spiral right of control. It just so happens nowadays that we have a wonderful home market for these materials… because of the national spatial strategy/de-centralisation/road building bonanza… spear-headed by Bertie, etc, and rural housing initiatives…

This artificially created boom in demand for raw materials, has created this huge explosion in production of high embodied energy producs like gravel, concrete, ready-mix, land fill, blah, blah, blah. None of which has been watched, regulated or properly implemented. It is one thing to say, we are going to have this spatial strategy, it is quite another to go about it in an organised, intelligent and scientific manner.

And not only are some of these remote areas where extraction takes place left with a bombed out landscape/environment… but they are also left ‘to cope’ with the aftermath of this temporary artificial resource extraction boom, which creates all kinds of social upheavals and problems when the party ends.

I mean, in this day and age, you would honestly expect any resource extraction to take place… but to be incorporated into some overall strategy to replace the landscape and re-use it properly after extraction has finished… this should be ‘part of the plan’ chosen by the contractor/company doing the extraction right from the beginning… a bit like bin taxes… if you produce it, you pay for it. It seems the law isn’t winning in this area either… dunno how strong/weak our environmental law is in this country.

They had a similar problem in Scotland though, where the Government paid for a couple of very high-class Snow resorts and ‘cable car’ lines up in the Scotish highlands… the only problem now, is there has been no worthwhile snow there for a decade now, and people are wondering what is going to happen!

But it seems to me recently, that we have created an enlarged Gardai presence, a range of environmental laws like bin taxes, smoking bans, on top of income taxes and all the rest,…. which you and me have to comply with. I seems like everything is very well wrapped up, that Fianna Fail is taking very good ‘care’ of us all and our health and well-being, but then something like this breaks…. on the other end of the scale, where a guy can just blast away, half of the landscape and cultivate a very ‘Dev-like’, high-bridged Roman nose, kind of Fianna Fail, high moral stance about it afterwards… LOL! And that is all okay!

I seems to me there is a very big inconsistency, in the law of the land there. And something I only assume that baristers and solicitors are just sitting on at the moment, hoping for a windfall later on, after the fact…. so to speak – rather than helping out the ordinary folk right now, who actually deserve and need so better representation. I felt that local people living down in rural Clare, having to fork out 5 grands worth of ‘tax’ just to hire a legal rep to speak on their behalf was a disgrace.

There is a very interesting series of documentaries on the Discovery Channel about Train wrecks… and one in particular is very good, which shows in America, where oil/gas pipelines often run right underneath residential areas. A train de-railed one day at a bend beside a residential area… and not only killed some people but also damaged a gas pipeline. A week later, when everyone ‘thought’ they were safe and moved back into their houses, the gas leaked out and exploded killing more people.

Net result,…. some con man lawyer moved in for the kill and strung the residents on for years, making a fat salary out of it all…. but the residents never got so much as a dime. Anyone who lives beside a large mining operation like in Clare should be compensated for the loss in value of their property as a result of mining… plain and simple… should be incorporated into the original deal/plan… and if it is not economical to do this, then the mining/extraction process should never be allowed to commence in the first place.

Brian O’ Hanlon.