garethace
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Nice photo. But what’s the point exactly.
Yeah, I seriously like to show off and pretend I am some kind of artist with deeper insight than normal human beings, from time to times. Apologises.
🙂
Some good points there indeed, and there are many flip-side arguments, and opposing views, to my general train of thought,… I am busy myself currently working with that train of thought, because my own train of thought would have been rather similar to your own, for most of my own life. It was only very recently, it was brought to my attention, other ways of looking at it, than what I had taken as conventional ‘common sense’ way to view things.
So, to put it one way, the jury is still out,… but I will continue to explore, this new train of thought of mine anyhow, to see where exactly it ends up.
We’re given the flip-side too, with the ever increasing tolls and the stephens green drunks.
I can tell you what though. If any of those drunks had been in selling, they would have been good.
I followed a drunk, who got thrown out of the Centra beside Judge Roy Beans on Nassau St., he put money into the cup of the homeless guy just outside that Centra, then went around the corner to Dawson Street where he pestered the people waiting for a No. 10 bus, I think. Anyhow, went up Dawson Street, hassled a couple of suits ‘on a night out’. Then got over to the Duke or someplace, and hassled the people drinking outside, then finally I left him and went home, as he was just getting started on some young lady standing outside smoking, at Eddy Irvine’s pub, the one called ‘Cocoon’.
I reckon I see this kind of thing all of the time, and it is sad to be reminded, in a time of such multi-cultural diversity in Dublin’s city centre, that Paddy Irish man can always be relied upon, to be the smelly bum wandering around streets harassing people. But it is true, unfortunately and I do feel ashamed. Something must have been deeply wrong in this country, before we got anywhere economically, in the big wide world. Just like the ‘street bums in the city centre’ problem, this is why I am suspicious of how we have dealt with traffic in the city, or town down through the years too – I don’t know if we ever seriously addressed the concept – probably not. You see?
Thankyou again for taking the time, to make your reply.
Brian O’ Hanlon.
This is from the Economist Myron Scholes,… interesting observation.
In general, he said, new technologies are “often adopted before all the infrastructure” necessary for them to work at their best is ready. “If there is a value to a new technology it will survive.” As an analogy, he told of his recent trip to China’s Yangtze River region where people in relatively large numbers have just learned to drive automobiles. “They drive everywhere and stop in the middle of the fast lane if the rice falls off,” he said. That accounts for many more accidents than in Beijing, where people have learned to drive cars on crowded streets.
Isn’t it strange though, how something like the City seems to operate with a kind of ‘higher intelligence’ adapting its very form in evolutionary response, to fit snuggly around that new technology of the automobile?
As demonstrated by the two ‘Pattern’ JPEGs above.
Brian O’ Hanlon.
I am only speculating here, but I suggest the predominance in other posters’ images of ‘global perspectives’ of the Dublin city skyline, has got something to do with people not wanting to express an individual opinion, of what the Dublin city skyline is, or is not, or could be. That is quite problematic, when dealing with environments, if people are taught somehow, not to put mass in their own personal interpretation of their immediate conditions, but instead are forced to stay out there in some safe zone,… where you merely look at the global perspective, rather than risk embarassment from looking any closer than that. The Pot Spotters I think are people who like to view things that pertain to their own lives,… people who have their eyes open.
The quoted piece below is written by John Allen Paulos, and tells you something about games, in which people vote on what they think the group would like. Eventually, if you play this game for long enough, things reach what is termed the ‘Nash state of Equilibrium’. That is, when individuals modify their actions until they can no longer benefit from changing them given what the others’ actions are. I think the above series of posts on the skyline, represent quite a difficult problem in terms of the planning of our cities and built environments,… the planning game plays itself again, and again, and again.
Eventually it reachs a point at which it can’t budge anymore, and that situation is usually the ‘safe zone’ of perception of what is a skyline, imagined in so many of the previous posts. I would have been much, much happier if people had posted one or two shots of Chimney Pots,… at least then it would ensure to me that people were actively aware of the skyline conditions that pertain to their own lives, in an everyday context. The fact that noone showed a picture of their favourite chimney pot, and instead chose to highlight the global panoramic view of Dublin’s skyline, suggests people here, don’t feel too engaged with a skyline, at the ‘everyday’ scale. Noone on this message board, wakes up in the morning and sees the broad panormaic images of Dublin shown in the posts on this thread – Noone.
The Coop Himmelblau architecture can indeed by very useful in a lot of cases in old European urban cores, where the ‘Nash state’ of things, comes to weigh much too heavily upon decisions regarding skyline and aesthetic expression. The Coop Himmelblau work, focussed peoples’ attention back on the everyday, the skyline that was a part of their own lives – the kind of descriptions of skylines, that remain in novels and paintings years and years after they might have vanished.
John Maynard Keynes, arguably the greatest economist of the twentieth century, likened the position of short-term investors in a stock market to that of readers in a newspaper beauty contest (popular in his day). The ostensible task of the readers is to pick the five prettiest out of, say, one hundred contestants, but their real job is more complicated. The reason is that the newspaper rewards them with small prizes only if they pick the five contestants who receive the most votes from readers. That is, they must pick the contestants that they think are most likely to be picked by the other readers, and the other readers must do the same. They’re not to become enamored of any of the contestants or otherwise give undue weight to their own taste. Rather they must, in Keynes’ words, anticipate “what average opinion expects the average opinion to be” (or worse, anticipate what the average opinion expects the average opinion expects the average opinion to be).
What I am saying really, is that most of the images presented above, try to anticipate what the average opinion expects the average opinion expects the average opinion to be. 🙂
Brian O’ Hanlon.
I said I would attach a couple of more, to save you digging through their site,… but what always appealed to me about Blau, was they didn’t skirt around the issue of designing for a skyline,… they tackle the issue head on, and sometimes, when that is demanded of a site/brief,… Coop Himmelblau just product the goods better than anyone.
Brian O’ Hanlon.
I once, remember a story of a boy who grew up with one of the finest stretches of Trout Fishing River, in all of Great Britain, at the end of his back garden,… who later in life, having not expressed any interest in fishing whatsoever, at any stage,… developed a very keen interest in Train Spotting. So I guess, it shows how little your upbringing, surroundings and background sometimes have to do with how you grow up and develop. Yeah, I reckon, there is someone for just about every hobby under the sun,… and I think this website here, proves that point, yet again.
http://users.breathe.com/yorick/potspot/rules.htm
BTW, I notice every one of the above posts/skyline pictures has focussed on the macro scale, whereas, the scale that people are most likely to experience, in the scale described by the skill of the ‘Pot-Spotter’. I mean, the Chimney Pot is more a development of the Classical Orders,… if you were to look at Le Corbusier’s Ver Une Architecture,… he does a quite nice study of the Parthenon, and goes into much detail of how the Parthenon is still one of the most beautiful buildings on the planet. I mean, even if it is things like cantilevered lamp posts, and street lights nowadays, it is still about skylines. One of the Architects, who deserve the utmost credit in recent times, for repairing, or ‘adding’ to urban skylines, have been Coop Himmelblau.
http://www.coop-himmelblau.at/index_frames.htm
They have managed to build in some of the oldest and most conservation oriented urban centres in Europe and the world, and most of their architecture speaks about this notion of the urban skyline. Carme Pinos spoke widely about the urban skyline, in relation to her tall buildings, during her recent lecture here in Dublin this year, at the AAI. I think she has got something to say about that,… as does the architecture of Enric Miralles, who has done a lot for streets in Spain and elsewhere, through his spatial constructions, all of which deal with the notion of silouhette and meeting with the sky also. The Architects who deal with the opposite to skyline, are Architects like Thom Mayne of Morphosis, and when you put Coop Himmelblau and Thom Mayne together, as they did, to do a project for Los Angeles, in an urban park, to build a Concert Hall, sunken into the ground,… you got a building which dealt with the earth, and being ‘in’ the ground, which also having a building, that was exurberant and danced ontop of the ground, playing with the light and the sky and the ambiance,… that was Coop’s contribution to that project. If you look at any Morphosis books, you will see the project I am talking about. Niemeyer, is an Architect who I think has done quite interesting things for the skyline too, in his own South American native part of the world. Even an Architect such as Mies van der Rohe should not be left out, given the contribution he made to cities in North America, surely a Mies building is a lot to do with the skyline, the sense of place, of a city like New York or Chicago.
Architects like Kahn, and even James Stirling tend to be good at working on the ground, as part of the ground and in the ground, giving their buildings that sense of rootedness, in the place, the earth itself,… which is a feeling that I really am drawn to. Though on the other hand, Coop Himmelblau’s stuff has done so much for old cities too, creating what they describe as ‘cats walking on the roof’,…. you get the feeling that if the cat jumped, the whole roof top installation, would respond by quivering, and shaking in response. I was drawn by these nightime, urban, skyline kinds of Architects for a while. I think looking at the recent works of Zaha Hadid is worth while, who is influenced by Mies and Niemeyer. Or even looking at the contributions by people like Piano and Grimshaw, urban projects, or even Santiago Calatrava. Who have all introduced dynamic and spectacular forms in the urban fabric. Gehry, Koolhaas and Libeskind most certainly. . . Depends on how much you want to get into it, but certainly many, many architects have responded to this aspect of cities and architecture,… as much as they have to the more ground level stuff, the boardwalks, the pavements, the streets,… it is good to work the two together, to think of the two together I feel. Getting back to the more ordinary level stuff though, even in suburbia, there seems to be a lot of stuff, on roofs, and people interested in roofs, on the web,… but any of the above mentioned famous architects, would bring you close to an understanding, of skylines, and the contribution of buildings and new architecture in that respect,… certainly Coop Himmelblau, should be a port of call for you. The images I attached are typical of Blau, and what they aspire to achieve I think. More banal but,…
http://www.roofersreview.com/gallery2/main.php/v/Oneofakind/
Can you imagine how important a ‘landmark’ this building’s roof would be for a cold, grey, car-dominated suburban kind of city in the US…. I mean, the Future Systems stuff, or the Libeskind stuff is trying to make a bigger statement, because the site demands it, or the building type demands it, or the City’s major demands a bigger statement, or whatever, but the same effect, should also work in Suburbia, albeit on a smaller level. It is something that has yet to be fully exploited in Dublin’s suburbs,.. In the suburbs, even small landmarks can become ‘big’ landmarks over time. Venturi’s book Learning from Las Vegas would be worth a look at too. Fine collection of roof top objects here,…
http://www.roofersreview.com/gallery2/main.php/v/copperbydesign/
what this does highlight, just like Le Corbusier’s description of the Parthenon, is the scale at which you need to increase things, to actually make an impact, when ‘to be viewed’ on top of a building,… you really do have to supersize things, or they get lost,… that added considerable cost too, when you are talking about materials which are durable like copper especially, which is I presume, why one sees fewer rooftop objects anymore,.. that is why I suggest Coop Himmelblau,… they manage to divert money back into building budgets for skyline aspects of the architectural impact, statement and design. Mies really was the Daddy though, he could manage to divert all efforts in a building design,… to just making some of the most beautiful silouhettes and exterior skins, ever since the Parthenon.
Enjoy,
Brian O’ Hanlon.Don’t knock it too much though, as I said, the architecture by guys like Glenn Murcutt down in Australia, has most or even more of this ‘functionality’ integrated into it,… and is still considered fairly cutting edge stuff. Yet all that most architectural books and publications want to focus on, is the glossy architectural photography aspects. Glenn Murcutt himself, denied himself all self-promotion, and award receiving all his life, just to focus and concentrate on making very utilitarian things like houses work efficiently. There is a good lesson there for all architects I am sure.
The whole concept of ecological architecture – of touching the earth lightly, boils down at the end of the day, to some fairly utilitarian concepts. I linked the bits about ‘Clearwater City, Florida’, because the idea of keeping the water clear is obviously one of their biggest aspirations – it might appear like a utilitarian enough aspiration, but I don’t know, maybe we have a lot to learn here in Ireland, in this whole department. The best way to see it clearly, is probably to get outside of Ireland altogether, to get a much better idea, of the efforts we are making here at home. Instead of giving a load of ‘lip-service’ to ‘Eco-this’ and ‘Eco-that’,… I would much, much prefer to see a sectional diagram of a s***-house, now and again, as part of an architects presentation.
http://www.oas.org/CDMP/document/codedraw/images/fig-f-3.gif
It may not be what the AAI wish to re-produce in their ‘brochures’ but anyhow. Herman Hertzberger even touched a part of this in his recent lecture here – the notion of providing lots of suitable ‘play-surface’ tarmac areas for young people to do what young people want to do – be dynamic. I must get a photo of the Central Bank skateboarders some time soon, to emphasise this point. I think the dynamism of these youths could add a dimension to urban landscaping and culture that shouldn’t be excluded. In much the same way, I think the flower sellers flowers on Grafton Street could be integrated in some way, that dignifies the whole performance too. Herman Hertzberger said something quite important I think, in his talk – about architecture trying to ‘raise people’,… not necessarily give them what they want – but raise people. I am sure Herman could take a postive enough view about the Pissers of Fleet Street too.
Because everything Herman had to do with Architecture, was about accepting the ‘reality’ of what people are, and turning it into some positive kind of opportunity. The fact that people have to use Fleet Street as a urinal, justs tells everyone so much about how Dublin City Centre has become, as a place that caters for people. I.e. Rather than use a commercial premise to do their nature’s stuff – they are obviously been discouraged from doing that and using a public street instead. I have a couple of more photos to post up shortly, but the Centre of Dublin really has a lot of growing up to do in the future. My ‘Herman on Form’ Post:
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3933
I guess most of my posts here at Archiseek, have been trying to look at this idea, of accepting people for what they are – and working from that as a starting point. I try to avoid as much as possible, the typical preconceived notion of people as merely Photoshop, cut-out, clip art props, that find their way into promotional renders and views of proposed developments. Lord knows, I have a big enough collection of clip-art people to put in building renders myself, but I know it is not a true representation of people at all.
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3703&page=3
Brian O’ Hanlon.
Just be glad we don’t live in Florida or the Carribean, where ‘big weather’ means they need to take pretty tough measures to build at all. Still even in Ireland, and Dublin, I guess an amount of money has gone under the ground, as well as over the ground. Unfortunately, few of us really understand, the stuff under the ground. Dunno if there are any engineers here in the house, but if you care to see how your colleagues over in Florida are building cities, as in the ‘city as designed by the engineers’,…
http://www.clearwater-fl.com/gov/depts/pwa/engin/Production/stddet/index.asp#100series
I reckon they get some pretty ‘big’ weather in Florida, so I guess Civil engineering standards have to be strict. It tells you why, when you have a plot to build upon, why you have to give a certain margin between you and the road – an easement – they call it over in the US. Notice in the link, how in the United States, they have ‘adapted’ the English language, so that everything almost contains an explanation, in the name itself. I overhead a couple of America ladies not too long ago, speaking referring to what we call ‘pedestrian lights’,… as ‘I guess we should cross at a cross-over’. You need the sufficient American ‘twang’ to say that properly too, btw. But funny, how I think, their terminology for Civil Engineering details, contains more or less the exact same ‘user-friendly’ naming scheme. In any case, any of you familiar with terms like rodding eye etc, should contrast it with the American equivalents. I love this ‘Wing Inlet’ Surface Water Manhole, it is like something straight out of Buffey the Vampire Slayer kinds of flics.
http://www.clearwater-fl.com/gov/depts/pwa/engin/Production/stddet/20901.pdf
I was having a quick squint at the storm water hardware installed in O’Connell Street new paved areas this morning, and there is plenty of capacity there for most flood situations I think, which is really good. It is nice how they have managed to integrate their particular likes of drainage channels into the stone landscaping too, while still giving enough capacity for any amount of rainwater. But if you really want extreme, go just down a little bit further south of Florida, to this caribbean disaster mitigation project website.
http://www.oas.org/CDMP/document/codedraw/intro.htm
Where the ‘General Construction Principles’ include, the use of ‘separation’ to improve resistance from tidal waves and hurricanes. 🙂
http://www.oas.org/CDMP/document/codedraw/sectna1.htm
Some of this stuff is exceptionally basic,
http://www.oas.org/CDMP/document/codedraw/images/fig-f-3.gif
But it gives you a clue, how much of a struggle any building at all, is in some parts of the world. It was really during the Glenn Murcutt lecture in 2003, in Bolton Street lecture theatre, where I first began to realise some bit, how basic things are in some places. I think Glenn Murcutt is one architect who amazing decided to operate in these kinds of conditions – albeit with better clients/budgets – and still manages to create architecture that is aesthetically profound, but functional to the n-th degree.
Brian O’ Hanlon.
Pit privies shall preferably be located on the leeward side of a building and shall be ventilated. Privies shall not be used in areas where the water table is within 2 feet of the surface since they will not function well. The precast concrete slab pit privy has been adopted by many health authorities.
There shall be openings at the top of the walls to dissipate odours. For maximum odour control a vent pipe can be installed in the tank to carry odours away from the privy. The vent pipe shall be at least 6.0 inches (150 mm) in diameter, painted black, screened with a wire gauze and located on the sunny side of the latrine so that air inside the pipe will heat up and create an up-draft. The pipe shall extend a minimum of 2 feet above the roof of the privy.
The door should open outwards to minimize the internal floor area.The toilet shall be sufficiently screened to discourage flies. The walls and roof shall be weatherproof, shall provide privacy, exclude vermin and be architecturally compatible in external appearance with the main house.
http://www.cutaactu.ca/main.asp
The original PDF is 1.37MB, and is just too large to upload here,… this is what it said on the PDF.
Note:This paper is based on a special research report of the same name,
published in 2003 by the Canadian Urban Transit Association, the Federation
of Canadian Municipalities and Moving the Economy.To purchase a copy of
the full report, please visit http://www.cutaactu.ca or call (416) 365-9800 x113.If you did around the website, or send ’em a mail, they will probably sell you a PDF of the full thing.
A while ago, I found a lot of great Socio-Economic Papers published here:
http://www.cmhc.ca/en/index.cfm
The Canadians seem really serious about their environment, me thinks, which is good.
Even this city of Ottawa site, is really well organised and zippy fast, well laid out, clear me thinks, dunno…http://city.ottawa.on.ca/index_en.html
I have attached two images from of the CMHC socio economic papers.
The amazing thing about the ‘evolutionary adoption to the car’ image shown below, is when you actually think about 1900, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s design of street patterns here in Dublin, this is exactly what has happened… I mean the really early ‘Corporation Estates’ were all fragmented parallel stuff, a development, on the older grid iron – and by the 1980s we are building stuff, which lacks all form completely – in places like Raheen in Limerick, which initially had some fragmented parallel stuff – now it is all lollipops on a stick.Brian O’ Hanlon.
Couple of very useful images, relevant perhaps to our discussion.
Brian O’ Hanlon.
P.S.
Just link this here too…
Dunno, if you read my post here fellows, I tried to say something about the new strong relationship happening between urbanity, pedestrians and the service industry.
Even this photo I think is quite indicative of the scale,
that can work even in really old Architecture,
is small old towns in Italy,
which makes me wonder, really, what is so terrible about the larger scale stuff,
we do here in Ireland, that gives it such a bad rep?I mean, a lot of Mr. Meagher’s lecture seemed aimed at exploring,
the notion of increased height ‘working’ well even in an existing city fabric,
as opposed to the normal rubbish that happens when you go larger in scale.Brian O’ Hanlon.
Just ran across a couple of nice pictures of an old medieval town somewhere in Italy,
where these very distinctive vertical military? I presumer, structures, were left embedded in the fabric of a town.
I am reminded very much, about Mr. Meagher’s comments in relation to their own job,
for a multistorey building in Temple Bar,
the wooden one, on that new stepping street.I am getting very worried about the AAI myself,
because for one thing it doesn’t benefit from a public online, or otherwise ‘available’ feed back loop system,
whereby someone can submit a genuine and sincere observation, suggestion or comment,
and think, it will not just end up in a dustbin somewhere,
or that you will not insult somebody for opening your mouth.I think the famous stock market investor summed it up nicely,
while describing the cult of the CEO in the United States,
to criticise the CEO,
even if you were an investor with millions worth of your finance tied up in a company,
felt like ‘Belching at the Table’.The CEO was seen as a visionary,
someone so brilliant and creative,
you daren’t question their motivations, or strategy.
I notice very much a similar culture bred into the AAI,
and into the Architecture scene as a whole.While people don’t invest actual large finance into the AAI,
the investment of energy, concentration, and committment,
just to support the AAI in terms of providing an audience shouldn’t be sniffed at.
Something tells me though, the AAI might take that audience,
a little bit for granted,… and should try to involve the audience slightly more,
through organisation of some kind into open workshop nights or something.I am sadly aware too, that this mono-directional strategy has more or less forced them down a complete back alley.
I think the first step is the publically available, transparent feed-back loop idea,
whereby, the resources, they spend on designing cool looking brochures and posting them out to members,
should also be focused at distributing the comments,
or reactions, or feelings of its members,
good, bad and indifferent.That includes all the time investment they make in doing this ‘AAI Awards Catalogue’ too,
which is something began as a simple document,
nothing too flash, or trying too hard to be overly ‘presentational’.
Yet that is what it has become today.
But no place in the said publication,
do you find any contributions whatsoever, from the ordinary job soap AAI member.The AAI could act as a kind of net, for an awful lot of interesting stuff,
happening only in peoples’ minds out there all the time.
Yet, the AAI have never explored that avenue,
in terms of a company, it would be called ‘wasting your knowledge resources’.
There is enormous wealth of knowledge resources sitting in the membership of the AAI,
yet 0% percent of that gets harvested year in, year out.I mean, the start of a lecture, when everyone is busy sitting down scratching themselves,
in a seat, waiting for a talk to begin, could be another ‘space’ that could be exploited,
to read out some more comments, feedback etc, etc.
Even members observations, or comments on previous lectures.
Something, anything,… just to invoke a kind of two-way process,
rather than a strongly mono-directional one.In any TV Show, which is a commercial environment, where they actually,
place a monetary value on listerners, or viewers,
the effort is always made to include the audience,
via reading out something,
or whatever… even the late late show reads out text messages/emails etc, etc.
I know it is a bit of a skit,… but still it adds ‘something’, however small.When one decent CEO, Steve Jobs returned to the Apple Computer Company,
the one he founded in the 1970s,
one of the first things he did, was reduce, the amount of products they did.
I have noticed myself, that the AAI’s very limited man power,
is spread out very, very thinly over many different products, projects, events and branches,
at this stage.
I think there is a lot of potential to reign that in,
and just do a smaller number of products, but do them to a much, much higher stanard.Then perhaps, introduce some new products, approaches, ideas,
that are right for the AAI,
and its considerable audience,
to consume.
(Apologises for the Sonnet-like format of this post)Brian O’ Hanlon.
An image describing the use of spaces in a city for ‘dynamic’ activities, Meeting House Square yesterday, was using for fencing no less. On the use of Steps, to promote socialisation,… yeah, they work alright, like those nice steps on Dawson Street that have for some strange reason,… (maybe the sociologists here, could explain why)… seem to have become a place where ‘knacker-drinking’ is very, very popular these days. I mean, they have the whole street to do their drinking and for some inexplicable reason, those particular steps are where they always go.
Brian O’ Hanlon.
Edit: I also attached just today, a nice pic of the inside of Wright’s gallery in New York, which be all accounts serves extremely well nowadays as a social kind of space, and has inspired the work of others, in the design of public architecture.
Couldn’t resist including this particular paragraph, from a book by Frank Partnoy, called ‘Infectious Greed’, which described (or tries at least, since its workings are still mysterious) the workings of Salomon’s famed Arbitrage Group of mathematical PhDs,… who would use financial computer models to suggest volatile bonds, to buy, where you could make a profit. I think this is probably where a lot of the consumer oriented ‘Push’ strategies originated from in the 1980s. Except nowadays you are trying to understand, how large a position you want to buy in orange juice, or nappies, or toilet roles or something. 🙂
Brian O’ Hanlon.
Not surprisingly, traders who were consistently designing transactions to avoid legal rules – and who were paid millions of dollars for doing so – developed a culture of supremacy and disdain. Mozer and other traders began to disparage other firms in the same way salesmen from Bankers Trust had derided their clients. Salomon’s customers were important to the Arbitrage Group, because they provided precious information about supply and demand that traders needed to spot inefficiencies. But many of Meriwether’s traders began to take that information for granted, and to view their customers as fools. Paul Mozer was said to “turn on the charm on sales calls. But then he’d turn around and say something about what a moron the person was.â€
Nice New York Times piece here:
http://econ.gsia.cmu.edu/Freshman_Seminar/scholes.htmI just attached a couple more, taken from the same point of view at College Green – really, that tiny space, between the traffic going in either directions, reminds me of the space where minnows in a rushing stream hide behind rocks and obstructions for their own safety. I should have inserted a bubble over the ‘little lady in the red coat’ above,… saying, ‘Do I really need this S*@^!’
On the Grafton Street point, I think some reflection is required. Did you ever hear of that expression in the movies, where the CIA and the FBI argue over jurisdiction? As in, the famous phrase, ‘Domestic is our back yard!’ You really need a strong American twang to pull that off properly,… but in case I sound like I am drifting off point here, lets start at the beginning.
Imagine that crossing of two streets in Grafton Street was in fact, the central mall crossing in any suburban shopping centre, the point at where all the ice-cream cones and trinkets are sold, Sony always seem to have a kiosk in this area these days, to sell flat panel TVs and digital cameras. Anyhow lets, just say for arguments sake, that along one day came these Street Traders selling flowers, and decided all of a sudden, to just block off two spoke malls from the central shopping centre area – what do you think would happen? Would all the business owners, on the spoke malls, that are effectively blocked off, and desolate,… suddenly ask for a reduced rent, or even a refund perhaps,… you bet they would, and start looking for better premises too.
Unless, unless that is, you are a pub that needs a beer garden, to allow people to smoke in the street,… see further down for more details. Anyhow,…
This is my point, while the Dublin City Council speak in public talks about all that ‘more’ they can offer, that Blanchardstown or Dundrum Shopping Centres could never offer – you also have to look at what Dundrum and Blanchardstown can offer, which Grafton Street obviously cannot. I mean, you don’t see scooters parked at the central atrium space in a suburban Shopping Centre, you don’t see massive ruggedised steel enclosed Telecom switchboxes either. Public phones are discreetly tucked away someplace, off the main drag, where the baby changing and toilets are. And you certainly do not having Street Traders blocking up pedestrian traffic from two directions from the central atrium.
Why? Becaues ‘Domestic is my back yard’,… you see in a shopping centre, beneath that covered roof element, which will probably pay itself off within a year’s good trading/rental,… the Law as regarding use of the street totally changes, from relying on the Garda to keep the streets tidy – to where you have guys walking around in security uniforms with walkie-talkies, moving on the loiterers and so forth. You don’t have to write ‘a fine letter’ to Dublin City Council, to discuss matters – you tell your security firm to sort it out, or they are fired.
I am amazed that some representative from Dublin City Council, says they can offer something ‘way more’ than Shopping Centre environments, and keep a straight face,… when the evidence that I can see obviously points to the contrary. That is probably why the city centre is losing so many clients, and failing to attract hip new ones. Guys, Property Owners in Grafton Street, get a grip, group together and do something about your ‘front yards’,… I know it sounds like too much work, but at the end of the day, a proper framework plan for those side streets from Grafton Street would reflect handsomely on everyones bottom line, and might open up some exciting new opportunities you hadn’t thought of,… If I was a trader there, I would not want to tie myself down with the lethargy of a slow-moving Central City Planning Council. No way!
Greed is often thought of as a negative quality – but it can be a positive motivator too sometimes. I will leave this discussion now to Grafton Street area business traders to think about. BTW, as just a corollary to my point on the Street Traders – one has to remember the smoking ban is in place nowadays too – and pubs without some kind of ‘smoking lounge’ are finding it difficult going. Well, the two pubs directly behind the barricade of flowers on Grafton Street, both benefit most handsomely from that said ‘flower pot barricade’.
Indeed, both of those pubs, seem to see it fit, to use a public street now, almost as a beer garden, and with the advent of mass hystery over Saturday Live Matches in pubs, you can see how this develops on a busy shopping Saturdays. The nicest part, is because of the public street thing – it isn’t the pub’s responsibility to keep patrons on the premises – it is the Gardai’s.
Would somebody in Dublin City Council mind telling me, was it the intention of Grafton Street and areas ‘pedestrian-isation’ to include whole streets as parts of licensed premises? I.e. To allow them to use the street as a beer garden, and devise neat means to do so, using Street Traders, as a kind of outer perimeter to this same beer garden? Then to expect, Garda patrol to walk around and make sure that everyone is inside the designated drink/smoking area,… seems like passing the buck to me,.. to a patrol force, which is already busy enough doing important work, without keeping drunk people ‘on the pub premises’ too.
Get Smart Grafton Street and get your team thinking hats on, or be prepared to go the same way as the Dinosaurs.
Respectfully,
Brian O’ Hanlon.There are more to come tomorrow if I get around to it, I need to add two more to the College Green post,… that is, if the flower traders don’t ‘knock me off’ in the meantime. Basically, I was interested in presenting two views of Architectural Photography here,… that of the smoking shed in Bolton Street, with its ‘Zen-Like’ purity – basically, the kind of view of Architecture pretty much deeply embedded into the public now, because of publications like the AAI Awards catalogues.
And another kind of Architectural Photography, that maybe looks at the dynamics of pedestrian navigation – and the sometimes very odd situations it seems to throw up, when you look at the conditions that people exist, or ‘try’ to exist within,… That is the real trick with the pedestrian though – don’t look at the pedestrian per se, but rather look at the conditions they are forced to live under. A pedestrian is largely defined by its environment, be it cars, street trading or whatever. Mr. Meagher spoke of this too in his lecture of Trinity college, how the entrances in the eating hall, was no longer through the front door. The book ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’, does go into a description of why people behave the way they do, in a que situation, as regards to seats on subways, as regards to supermarket checkouts, and how something like a que, is in fact, a labour-saving devise, so that everyone gets served, with the minimum of effort and maximum of return.
Here is a quote from the Art of War, 5th Century BC, which is something that maybe planners could bear in mind this time, rather than proclaiming, victory against the car, in a loud, brashy way… I think a lot of the fight against the car to date, has been calm enough,… a lot of areas of the city have been sucessfully reclaimed for the pedestrian, and there is loads of work still be be done – hopefully I can look forward to some nice stuff coming from the Architects/Planners.
Brian O’ Hanlon.
What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease. Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom nor credit for courage. He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated. Hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy. Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
If you are indeed doing a thesis on pedestrians etc, etc, you might want to look at the following, and how the lack of provision on Grafton Street, for street traders, or low priced retail space, for traders, has indeed worked very negatively against a couple of prime retail properties, directly on, or just off Grafton Street no less! If I happened to own, any of these properties, I would be complaining about it – I may even be forward thinking enough to strike some kind of deal with the street traders, to offer them a portion of space in my ground floor retail property space, just to tidy up the mess, that now exists outside my doorstep, and is stopping me from doing any kind of business, or attracting good rental clients.
I mean, in the Photos I am about to show, you can see a Bank, which a completely blank facade, a corner retail location, which should be a prime location, with ‘50%’ discont signs all over it, a Post Office down just from that corner, which has been disused for months and months, two very distinct considerable patches of urban paving space, just off of the busiest pedestrian thoroughfare in Ireland, which are absolute devoid of life, shuned my all pedestrians, all because of the imposition of four ‘street’ traders, on the way pedestrian traffic is allowed to flow. Notice, how one space, has become occupied solely with inanimate objects, like public phones which are never used these days, a cash machine, and a parking space for a scootter! Why? Because you have to practically ‘fight’ with the traders to get through towards McDaid, or Dawson Street direction, off of the Grafton Street axis. It would indeed be worth any forward enough thinking, property developer’s money, to offer those street traders some space, just to remove them from blocking the flow.
I mean, you don’t even have to think in terms of cars, to see dead space created, or nasty unused space created,… the street traders seem to manage more or less the same effect. What is sadest of all, if you look at the Church in the background, you begin to get just some idea, how that space is meant to work, with the cleaning up of that vista, the Church on Dawson Street visible in the background, and a perpendicular route to Grafton Street, which presents all kinds of opportunites, for retail, service industry etc, etc,… which currently just aren’t being seen by anyone.
Brian O’ Hanlon.
I do know that I’ve always had as a pet hate the way most architectural photography disregards the human element of buildings, i.e .treats the buildings as abstract compositions while treating people as intrusions into the purity. Perhaps it’s the same mentality? (A similar point about photos was made in another thread, re deBleacam & Meagher- was it by you, garethace?
This was the De Blacam and Meagher comment here,…
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3903
My first AAI lecture experience, was in Autumn 1992 – back then it was just a room full of chairs, and an ordinary projection showing stuff on a wall. At that level, it was perhaps flawless in its execution – but it grew into something else from those humble beginnings, and I am really not sure into what – but I don’t like it all. Worst of all, it has absolutely no feed-back system, whereby views on how things are done, etc, etc,.. are publicised and openly debated. The AAI publications, seem to lack a format, an editor basically, and seem to just lump in everything and anything to make up a publication. The organisation around the Downes Bronze Medal is a really bad mistake in my view, cause most of the time, the exhibition from which they draw the medal winner is inaccessible to the public – last year I went to visit it on a Sunday at Guinness’s and it was locked shut. Indeed the whole AAI concept, seems to be locked shut into some tiny group structure, which is really straining these days to support itself.
The restriction of presentations to boards etc, is bad – cause the AAI Awards should be less about awards and more about the exhibition part, where you get to see over an extended period, a couple of months perhaps, a decent view of some major projects, with models and the works, in some building that the AAI could be guaranteed – the top floor of the National Gallery of Ireland springs to mind – yeah, something as large as that, that can handle the crowds and be accessible. The idea of people travelling to the exhibition then, rather than the exhibition travelling around the country in the booth of someones car, in the form of flattened A1 boards, for ease of portability etc, etc,… all this should seriously be debated,… if the exhibition was indeed good enough, it would be worth the train ticket to Dublin for a day to visit it in a decent exhibition space.
Architecture translates very, very poorly into photography – yet so much of the young architectural students experience and definition of Architecture is based on photography these days. Good Architectural photography can tell you a reasonable amount about 50% of what Architecture is, but like some lossly compression digital format, that discards information for smaller file size, so Architectural photography discards an entire dimension of time. You are also right, most good architectural photography discards the people too,… but I am now going to demonstrate an attempt of showing people in the photograph, with my attachments. The whole AAI thing, and the format in which good modern architecture is presented on these multiple flatten A1 boards, which are exhibited in locked spaces, for the mere sake of finding a Bronze medal Award winner each year, this whole format reeks of inefficiency and small-mindedness. And personally as a way of presenting Architecture to the citizens, I need the whole format, needs a good shove in a new direction.
Re. the pub crowds- are you familiar with the economic concept of ‘The tragedy of the commons’? It states that individuals will exploit a ‘common pool’ resource (in the example given, it’s the grazing of animals on common land) to maximise their own ‘profit’, resulting eventually in damage to the resource, the suffering of the collective and thus of each individual? Think of city traffic, Ireland’s fisheries policy… Has been used as a justification for planning (i.e. govt intervention in the ‘free’ market for the ‘common good’).
Yeah, I have come to many of those same conclusions, with the approach to traffic in Dublin’s city centre in particular,… where the pedestrian aught to be considered at least 50% of the equation, with cars,… as opposed to only about 5% important, as it was always perceived in the past. Here again, a lot of social programming went on,… and it is only now, we are all beginning to realise, how deeply engrained our views of cars and cities actually were.
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3903
Normally the Architect doesn’t get too bothered about solving a particular problem, or even contemplating a problem, unless they are given a site, a brief and a client. Then and only then, do things begin to start moving. It has occured to me, that lately, a little known part of the community – a pedestrian – has become a client, a site and a brief for Architects to work on – in other words pedestrians have for the first time ever, become a problem, to be solved. While it isn’t quite like a person who wants to build an extension and arrives in person to the Architect’s office, asking for the design service, the Architect is nonetheless finding a way to relate to the pedestrian more these days, and help them out.
The thing is, pedestrians don’t define conditions, the pedestrians themselves, their whole state is defined by the conditions. You will probably not come across too many ‘pedestrians’ out there to talk to, to interview, to discuss progress on the project with – like say a house extension/modification brief. Indeed the Architects have been finding out, that certain pedestrians have a tendency to sue more than the house building type. But one thing is clear, attitudes have changed, and it is no longer good enough to provide pedestrians with the conditions more or less outlined, in the JPEG image I have attached below.
Brian O’ Hanlon.
The Architects, and architectural enthuasiasts in the audience are just going to hate this rotten turn the discussion has taken, but heck,… I like computers, I like calculations that involve discovering the behaviour of large numbers of agents, and firmly believe that someday, all of this sort of research is going to amount to something useful to the urbanist/architect. I just couldn’t resist, posting this piece,…
Yeah, the Suroweicki book is grand,… I must check out that Crowds and Power Book too, after I finish the Wisdom of Crowds,.. I must scribble down all the others like it I have picked up over the last year,… Suroweicki suggests a certain book/study done on New York city pedestrians, called ‘City’, by William H. Whyte. I think the study of pedestrians, an understanding of how traffic engineers always want to design the city, from their perspective,… I think that is all going to be useful in solving problems that Dublin city and other Irish towns and villages, will face in the coming decades. So this whole ‘bottom-up’ idea about organisation is important – whether it be stock markets, ant colonies or pedestrians.
Trouble is though, most Architects have no clue what a pedestrian is, the notion is not a part of their toolkit,… they tend to stress more, things like ‘drawing’,.. and that kind of design. So it is too easy to ‘blame’ traffic engineers for pushing mechanised movement, when Architects themselves didn’t do any homework about pedestrians either – except this is improving, several architects I have listened to speaking/presenting lately in Ireland, seem to be getting there, painfully perhaps, but at least, getting there. I still think a more determined effort is required from first year in Architectural Schools though. But believe me, I have sat in lectures where a tutor attempted hopelessly to ‘animate’ this kind of subject matter – sometimes, with sucess, sometimes without – but in general the whole undertaking proved to be a terrible load of stodge,… I dunno, perhaps Architects aren’t designed to grasp these sorts of notions, or to present them with any enthuasiasm?
Any views?
Am I way off base?
Brian O’ Hanlon.
In the early 1990s, the economist Brian Arthur tried to figure out whether there really was a satisfying solution to this problem. He called the problem the ‘El Farol problem’, after a local bar in Santa Fe that sometimes got too crowded on nights when it featured Irish Music. Arthur set up the problem this way: If El Farol is less than 60 percent full on any night, everyone there will have fun. If it’s more than 60 percent full, no one will have fun. Therefore, people will go only if they think the bar will be less than 60 percent full; otherwise, they stay home.
How does each person decide what to do on any given Friday? Arthur’s suggestion was that since there was no obvious answer, no solution you could deduce mathematically, different people would rely on different strategies. Some would just assume that the same number of people would show up at El Farol this Friday as showed up last Friday. Some would look at how many people showed up the last time they’d actually been in the bar. (Arthur assumed that even if you didn’t go yourself, you could find out how many people had been in the bar.) Some would use an average of the last few weeks. And some would assume that this week’s attendance would be the opposite of last week’s (if it was empty last week, it’ll be full this week).
What Arthur did next was run a series of computer experiments designed to simulate attendance at El Farol over the period of one hundred weeks. (Essentially, he created a group of computer agents, equipped them with the different strategies, and let them go to work.) Because the agents followed different strategies, Arthur found, the number who ended up at the bar fluctuated sharply from week to week. The fluctuations weren’t regular, but were random, so that there was no obvious pattern. Sometimes the bar was more than 60 percent full three or four weeks in a row, while other times it was less than 60 percent full four out of five weeks. As a result, there was no one strategy that a person could follow and be sure of making the right decision. Instead, strategies worked for a while and then had to be tossed away.
The fluctuations in attendance meant that on some Friday nights El Farol was too crowded for anyone to have fun, while on other Fridays people stayed home who, had they gone to the bar, would have had a good time. What was remarkable about the experiment, though, was this: during those one hundred weeks, the bar was – on average – exactly 60 percent full, which is precisely what the group as a whole wanted to be. (When the bar is 60 percent full, the maximum number of people possible are having a good time, and no one is having a bad time.) In other words, even in a case where people’s individual strategies depend on each other’s behaviour, the group’s collective judgement can be good.
A few years after Arthur first formulated the El Farol problem, engineers Ann M. Bell and William A. Sethares took a different approach to solving it. Arthur had assumed that the would-be bargoers would adopt diverse strategies in trying to anticipate the crowd’s behaviour. Bell and Sethare’s bargoers, though, all followed the same strategy: If their recent experiences at the bar had been good, they went. If their recent experiences had been bad, they didn’t.
Bell and Sathare’s bargoers were therefore much less sophisticated than Arthur’s. They didn’t worry much about what the other bargoers might be thinking, and they did not know – as nights when they didn’t show up. All they really knew was whether they’d recently enjoyed themselves at El Farol or not. If they’d had a good time, they wanted to go back. If they’d had a bad time, they didn’t. You might say, in fact, that they weren’t worrying about coordinating their behaviour with the other bargoers at all. They were just relying on their feelings about El Farol.
Unsophisticated or not, this group of bargoers produced a different solution to the problem than Arthur’s bargoers did. After a certain amount of time had passed – giving each bargoer the experience he needed to decide whether to go back to El Farol – the group’s weekly attendance settled in at just below 60 percent of the bar’s capacity, just a little bit worse than that ideal central planner would have done. In looking only to their own experience, and no worrying about what everyone else was going to do, the bargoers came up with a collectively intelligent answer, which suggests that even when it comes to coordination problems, independent thinking may be valuable.
