garethace
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I would love to see the Ulm Gallery by Meier in Germany some time though too – again, open public spaces, lots of movement, light, generous spaces/openings, treatment of views, light, opening proportions etc.
It is difficult to access things like the Printwork apartments in Temple Bar etc. Which is probably just as well too, as most modernist monuments like Savoie and Shroder house, became meccas for Architects pointing Nikons up to the glass and hiding in the bushes. Years before Big Brother on C4.
Originally posted by phil
Garethace, I have been in to it but I think I will go again, maybe this evening.
Always useful – your first impressions aren’t always as reliable as one might wish.
Favourite buildings etc, are a very tricky subject, and that is one of the reasons I started a thread about it – sometimes, all it takes is someone to tell you that your favourite architect/building is crap – and you end up hating that person for the next six months! Certainly, liking Frank Gehry today is like going around with a Mohawk and body jewelery to some people.
On theme with the Aaron Betsky Lecture:
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,62157,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2
click on pics, Paul.
Just how stupid is this?
Imagine to get a G5 and then prove how ‘macho’ you are by doing this!
Very sad indeed.
I mean, I just thought I would point it out, because quite literally, the biggest element of a good interior design, is often insubstantial things like the treatment of the lighting. That is indeed, what makes the restaurant you are in different from the one across the street – you are probably not going to make much money charging by metres squared area, for design services – you make your design fees based on ideas – you know how susceptible the customers are to things like image, trend, fashion, identity, branding etc, etc. Every restaurant and bar in Temple Bar goes head over hells to establish a differnt ‘look, ambiance or feel’ to it – in order to distinguish itself and set itself out from the others.
A bit like Peacocks have huge feathers etc. The problem is that, computer software rendering algorithms, by their very nature would tend to reduce everything to a sameness quality or something. The opposite to what your client paying for that new interior fit out actually wants. The client whats a cool new idea, that is different from anything else and will put money in the register. Ching, ching!
Click here: Yeah you have probably guessed it, computer technology bothers me in architectural design. Frustratingly, it offers opportunities and disasterous pitfalls all at once.
Originally posted by Diaspora
There is no doubt that it has had some impression and that the building stock of good modern buildings are growing.
If you take walk around the mews lanes of inner Ballsbridge say Heytesbury and Pembroke lane. Analyse what was built during the 1970’s through 1995 its twee crap in the main.
One that grabbed my attention here:
http://www.cgarchitect.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000188#000005
Some more on Biotech etc, expect real tech stuff from this forum. . . real investor points of views etc, etc, etc
http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=105069202
notice the mention in the article, about the creative classes in music industry too – which ireland has sort of had for a while – U2 comp etc, etc.
Home time! Bye.
You have to link the thread, remote linking of the actual jpg is prohibited at CG Architect.
Save bandwidth bills, people using site as online portfolio etc.
Odd good rendering here Fin,
Notice just how much involved with nature, houses seem to get in different climates to the oceanic temperate one we live in.
good candidate for sheep?
http://www.cgarchitect.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=next_topic;f=5;t=000435;go=newer
🙂
what is important though to realise, and this does take in Fin’s point about ‘experiencing urban environments more’ – is that these ideas about ‘edgedoms’ exist a lot in contemporary urban and architectural literature and thought.
The only problem is, that until now, they have only existed in the ‘up in the sky’ language of architectural elite super-brains and theory oriented practioners. Translate: The kind of guys who will read Rem Koolhaas books and understand them.
But this BBC feature I saw last night, was the first time in which I actually felt I could understand some of what the environmentalists, architects and urbanists were talking about.
The UCD publication called ‘Tracings no.2’ appears to look at the issue a bit too. The Docklands area of Dublin is a perfect place to argue some of these values too.
I mean, the kind of architecture you will find in an edgedom is typically different from that you might find in urban or rural contexts.
I.e. Containers converted into shops and such – the place has it’s own unique character, moods and language. A lot like what they said about Temple Bar in the original competition times.
Many would argue that Smithfield actually ‘lost’ alot of its character with those ‘award-winning’ lamps going up its centre.
That places like Constitution hill should not be given the art treatment’ so much etc.
Edgedoms are quiet, tranquil little ‘Hobbit places’ around global super cities like London for instance. Places where the environmentalists have been attracted by the unique natural habitats, which can no longer be entirely classified as being rural or urban.
The Dutch are purposely putting sheep grazing into the centre of urban developments now – not because they make any money – they are ‘the most subsidized sheep in Europe’ – but because they reckon that people just ‘need’ to see a sheep or two grazing.
The edgedoms normally happen, where land not used for rural purposes anymore, and is ‘waiting to be used’ for development purposes just get left their – these places are normally littered with the detriteus of modern urban living – corrigated iron, old fridges, and numerous other examples of human waste mingled in with nature.
Rather than approaching these environments as ‘bad lands’ per se, as the more ‘control-oriented’ amongst our society would like – some environmentalists argue, that these areas should be treated as a new kind of habitat in themselves.
THey are very cool places to have walking routes etc, for people in the cities – but not in the strictly organised sense on a closely cropped huge green area with a few planted saplings – a la Capability Brown – but allowed to before a bit natural – cleaned up a little bit – but allowing some rubbish and ram-shackle architecture to co-exist with the nature.
While some people decree, that these places shouldn’t exist at all – there should be a ‘defined edge’ between what we know as urban and rural.
I my opinion, it is always inevitable that ‘edgedoms’ will exist as large developers and pension funds buy up these territories from previous agricultural owners on the edges of major urban centres – (the organisations with the ability to anonimously just ‘sit’ on these areas for generations) the question is, what do you do with these disused places in the meantime.
A lot of the time, these areas change ownership hands many times while planning submissions are made, and grand master plans are suggested over a period of generations – in the meantime they just become eye-sores – but properly managed, could become real resources to the urban fabric.
There was a site at the top of Broadstone, between western way and the Broadstone park, which sat there totally unused for years and years – with several planning applications etc. MOLA have now been sucessful in getting a student residence planning application through for that site. But I guess, there are still several sites still remaining around Constitution hill – making it a kind of edgedom, with the Grange Gorman site and CIE lands etc, etc, etc.
It also falls ‘outside’ HARP and O’Connell St and area etc. It is potentially strategic from the point of view of Metro too I think. If you want to drive home a point, much of Parnell Square could be thought of as an edgedom too. It certainly has enough litter. 🙂
Temple Bar pre-1991, is a typical example of an inner city edgedom I think. Smithfield in its horse trading and car dealership days etc, etc, etc. The Docklands in its container phase. I guess modern Temple Bar is an example of what shouldn’t happen to edgedoms at all.
The debate is currently raging as to what should happen to downtown Los Angeles – investment could destroy what is already a working, viable area for small businesses to ‘start off’. The saying goes, that the downtown LA’s purpose isn’t to service the middle classes, it is to create them through cheap rental office and minor industrial space.
Over-doing the ‘art and culture’ treatment will just push up the rents and drive out the best bits of downtown LA at the moment.
I enjoyed the recent AAI lecture – where in Holland, they leave all activities happen in these ‘edgedoms’ for a 5 year period, and then whatever use is most common in that area after 5 years – it becomes law – that is what the area will become. 🙂
What is a real problem though, is where things like Hotels in Portmarnock are just bought up, and overnight a place which was a public place for years suddenly becomes a privately owned golf course – that is normally what happens to edgedoms in Britain. The debate is going on, over whether Britain should introduce new legislation to sucessfully manage and cultivate good ‘edgedoms’.
Et tu, Brute
what I think, is that the likes of Gehry, Libeskind, Koolhaas and other ‘big named architects’ having created a very recogniseable form of expression – have basically had to go and trawl about the globe looking for nice old urban settings into which to place there designed objects.
I.e. That the big named architects really do subsist upon that nice prime corner site, on a grand old river, in an historic old urban context, somewhere in Europe or elsewhere, to really become the most fitting ‘mantlepiece’ for one of their cool looking hand made presentation models.
We as cities around Europe and elsewhere have facilitated these architects with very nice ‘mature sites’ to build these objects on. You will find a lot less going in the opposite direction, (Europe to America) except perhaps Zaha Hadid attempting to build in Cinncinati city centre or something.
Which is really a ‘second prize’ for someone who is quite a good architect, but has to travel around the ‘hinterlands’ and remote outposts of the architectural world in search of things/places to build.
Not discounting that Cinncinati were glad to get a profiled public figure such as Hadid to build in their city – I compare the situation in modern architecture at the moment, to when ‘gladiators’ were banned in Rome – in the film after that same name.
Architects like Zaha Hadid in that sense have become the ‘Russel Crowe Maximus’ characters of the empire – striped of their former ranks and busy fighting scraps in the remote colonies of civilisation just to stay alive, without a fitting stage for their talents.
I am thinking here in terms of the Cardiff competition etc, etc, etc. If that had been built, would the world of architecture now be a very different place? Recent signs like the Cairo project are promising I think.
Richard Florida article, the man himself:
Click on ‘article’, it is linked.
Creative Class War
How the GOP’s anti-elitism could ruin America’s economy.
In effect, for the first time in our history, we’re saying to highly mobile and very finicky global talent, “You don’t belong here.”
I guess that is how Dublin has scored recently. So what Dispora is saying about commerce and the built environment isn’t a thousand million miles away from the truth.
we are popular with Florida aren’t we now?
For several years now, my colleagues and I have been measuring the underlying factors common to those American cities and regions with the highest level of creative economic growth. The chief factors we’ve found are: large numbers of talented individuals, a high degree of technological innovation, and a tolerance of diverse lifestyles. Recently my colleague Irene Tinagli of Carnegie Mellon and I have applied the same analysis to northern Europe, and the findings are startling. The playing field is much more level than you might think. Sweden tops the United States on this measure, with Finland, the Netherlands, and Denmark close behind. The United Kingdom and Belgium are also doing well. And most of these countries, especially Ireland, are becoming more creatively competitive at a faster rate than the United States.
yeah, I will buy that – then you would create something similar to the throngs of office working people who daily march from Baggot St, Pembroke St and Fitzwilliam Sq, Lesson St etc along in front of the Shelbourne over toward Grafton St, and back again. Could be very interesting.
Hey, we are being talked about!
What should really alarm us is that our capacity to so adapt is being eroded by a different kind of competition–the other pincer of the claw–as cities in other developed countries transform themselves into magnets for higher value-added industries. Cities from Sydney to Brussels to Dublin to Vancouver are fast becoming creative-class centers to rival Boston, Seattle, and Austin.
Hmmmm,….
all quite true,
just on my thread of thought,
If you want to work Smithfield and the Docklands at their very best, the whole notion of ‘crowds of people’ being part of the definition of the design problem must be done. How would you propose that people get to or from Smithfield or Docklands, given that Dublin is already moving like molasses, no matter what kind of transport you use. I think that cities thrive or die on the provision or lack of good open spaces connected in a fashion, which allow people to move. I mean, just look at what the north/south axis of pedestrian movement has created in Dublin city over the years. That massive scale and movement of people is part of what cities are all about. Perhaps we have to ‘buy’ a few properties here and there, just to knock them to make more connections and ways for the city to breath properly.
From this article.
Last March, I had the opportunity to meet Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, at his film complex in lush, green, otherworldly-looking Wellington, New Zealand. Jackson has done something unlikely in Wellington, an exciting, cosmopolitan city of 900,000, but not one previously considered a world cultural capital. He has built a permanent facility there, perhaps the world’s most sophisticated filmmaking complex. He did it in New Zealand concertedly and by design. Jackson, a Wellington native, realized what many American cities discovered during the ’90s: Paradigm-busting creative industries could single-handedly change the ways cities flourish and drive dynamic, widespread economic change. It took Jackson and his partners a while to raise the resources, but they purchased an abandoned paint factory that, in a singular example of adaptive reuse, emerged as the studio responsible for the most breathtaking trilogy of films ever made. He realized, he told me, that with the allure of the Rings trilogy, he could attract a diversely creative array of talent from all over the world to New Zealand; the best cinematographers, costume designers, sound technicians, computer graphic artists, model builders, editors, and animators.
