hutton

I wonder what way the siting of these are being handled in Paris…

Paris to get 14,000 free bikes

Outdoor advertising firm JCDecaux has won the contract to supply Paris with bikes for a new and free city-wide bicycle hire service. The company already operates Cyclocity pay-per-ride cycle hire schemes in Lyon and Brussels

The contract with Paris City Hall will see JCDecaux’s Somupi unit establish a free bicycle hire service with 14,100 bikes in place by the summer.

JCDecaux bit a rival bid from Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. Clear Channel had formed a consortium with Electricite de France, France Telecom and Vinci Park.

JCDecaux operate Lyon’s successful Cyclocity rental scheme, a cycle hire service originally called Vélo’V and started in May 2005.

The Cyclocity bikes were ridden almost 12 million kms in 2006 – that’s 5,000 kms per bicycle. There were 5.5 million rentals during the year, an average of 15,000 rentals per day with peaks that exceeded 30,000 during exceptional events such as Lyon’s Festival of Music. ??Cyclocity schemes are also operated in Marseille, Aix en-Provence and Brussels.

Published Tuesday 30 January 2007

What adds to the annoyance is that theyre in areas nowhere near to the routes – whats the story re Mercer St – 3 there and its not even on one of the routes 😮 😡

Its a little bit like a nasty cheap sci-fi plot gone wrong – Invasion of the bi-pods :rolleyes:

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

Good piece in the current History Ireland magazine….

https://archiseek.com/gifs/Byrne_St Pauls.pdf

Yep good one – well presented, good illusrations… click this link to get there ]https://archiseek.com/gifs/Byrne_St%20Pauls.pdf[/url]

@PVC King wrote:

The key issue here is the protection of un-replaceable elements of the built environment. .

Exactly what matters.

@jimg wrote:

’cause they’re stainless steel and so by definition (like covering areas with cheap granite, plonking down useless kiosks and plazifying open areas), sticking them into the footpath is cool and adds credibility to the scheme and shows that DCC are forward looking. :rolleyes:

Oh you mean in terms of providing function or form or complementing for historic urban fabric? I’ve no idea.

Oh Mmmeeooow – and yet so spot on.

Balls is what I say! Big granite balls that would achieve the same effect (whatever that is – suspect prevent vehicles mounting pavement) without having to cut into the existing slabs…

Ah ctesiphon – “costing the earth”; an excellent programme on an excellent station – had thought I was the only Irish person under 60 who listens to R4! 🙂

Journeyman Pictures have an online video report on the Lyon experience:

Cycling City

‘In Lyon, an intriguing collaboration between private enterprise and the city council has slashed car usage and improved residents’ health. Now, there are plans to introduce the scheme in other cities.

Using a prepaid card, residents can rent city bikes for free for the first half hour. The scheme is funded by advertising company, JC Decaux, in exchange for exclusive access to the city’s public billboards. “We had to offer 2,000 bicycles, 200 bike stations, a server and all the maintenance”, explains a JC Decaux spokesman. “But if our calculations are correct, advertising revenues will be about the same as expenses for the bike scheme.” As scheme designer, Jacques Le Gars, predicts: “In five years time, it’ll be common to see this kind of program in most major cities throughout the world.”’

11 Min documentary video on Lyons experience here –

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7509568322806821099

(It plays in window when opened, and does not need to be downloaded)

@vitruvius wrote:

DCC are obviously having a laugh – after giving PP to that bit of gik at the bottom of the street!
40 years too late for them to start taking an interst. They should be leading conservation not just trailing the private individuals who have spent their own money and lives trying to save the street.:eek:

Spot on. Henrietta St is already covered by both the HARP IAP and the 2001 Dorset St And Environs Area Regeneration Plan. During this period “the incredible bulk” has been permitted at the bottom of the St, while on Dominick St Upr the Corpo erected a block in the mode of Eastern Europe circa 1952 – adding nothing to the context of H St. The other outrage is of course the lousy job done – by the corpo – on resurfacing H street 15 years ago which led to the collapse of the cellars.

The Dorset St plan, as is the case with this plan, incorporated some fine ideas – but with likewise no budget; 5 years, on what implementation except for a couple of trees now being planted during election year?

The public domain of Henrietta St is a disgrace; in the abscence of this plan indicating a basic schedule or budget to resolve the mess created by the corpo, it is an exercise of futility – or worse hypocrisy.

As inventories go, Grainne Shaffery has done a careful and well researched job – I can only commend her part.

However, what is the point in DCC bringing out another ‘plan’, after the horse has bolted, without even funding earmarked for the public domain… never mind taking into account the fiscal realities faced by the owners of the properties themselves?

It is now clear to owners on the street that they will get no support in continuing to run the houses as they do – incorporating many artists studios as well as maintaining heritage properties. It would seem clear to me that they will have to review their affairs – and most likely rely on themselves in putting their properties on a more commercial footing. And what will Dublin get – most likely the loss of an active cultural quarter in that the artists studios will go, to be replaced by another Georgian office quarter that dies after 5pm.

Still, Im sure that the canopies were nice at the launch :rolleyes:

PS For anybody who wants to see DCC’s actual level of commitment to the area, have a look at Bolton St at the entrance to Henrietta St where there satellite dishes continue to have a population explosion on the facades of buildings – nice unauthorised shop fronts too … grrrr… 😡

@GregF wrote:

Here’s Sam’s effort at Georgian reproduction……awful is ‘nt it!

I dont think its that bad at – the destruction of what was originally there was awful, but thats a separate matter. Sam also rebuilt the corner of Mount St & Merrion Square (as the front walls fell down during the works – oops 😮 ), and they fit in fairly well.

For real pastiche shite, go round the corner from GregFs photo onto Leeson St where there are real gems to find :rolleyes: … And of course for total dross, have a look at Fitzgeralds crap on the Parnell Square East – concrete 70s style steps; lovely 😮

One of his better and lesser known designs (imo) was the Horse Shoe Bar in the Shelbourne – where on occasion he could also be seen enjoying and adding to its ambiance. Fond memories.

On the Dublin Institute building, as photoed by Graham, the architect Alan Dunlop of Gordon Murray and Alan Dunlop Architects, Glasgow wrote “Recently, I spotted a simple modernist building – the Institute of Advanced Studies, on Burlington Road, designed by Sam Stephenson. Unlike the British Embassy, it is both clear and concise in its architectural lineage and its influence can be traced back directly to Louis Khan. The building also reminded me of Alvar Aalto’s National Pensions Institute in the clarity of its structure and immaculate detail.”

Heres a few articles I came across online –

The Sunday Tribune, 2nd May 1999 – Interview with Colin Coyle

Architect Sam Stephenson learned a number of hard lessons when he found his first home in Leeson Close in the late 1950s.

There was the mortgage of £700 he had to scrape for from the Irish Permanent. There was the protracted planning permission row. There was also the small problem of coming up with the other £300 that was required to buy the converted mews at the back of 31 Fitzwilliam Place.

And there was the drinking. I had more time than clients, so I decided to do the conversion work myself. I had studied carpentry and bricklaying in college but the demolition work was killing me.

Stephenson employed the services of two “iron men” labourers that he knew from his first job in a display firm. “One of them had fought in the Spanish Civil War and they were great workers. They’d burst through the work and then I’d have to bring them to O’Brien’s pub for their pay. They’d always insist that I come along and I’d have to try in vain to keep up with them as they’d demolish pint after pint of Guinness.

“It was my first real introduction to serious pint drinking and since those sessions, I’ve developed a serious distaste for Guinness,” he said. The conversion work took Stephenson the whole of 1958 to complete. “The place was in fairly bad shape when I found it. It had been used for horses up until I bought it and the first time I saw it the layers of dust were inches thick. At the back of the mews I came across a newspaper from 1933 and realised that no one had even set foot in the place for 25 years. The owners were a firm of accountants who had paid £4,000 for No 31 Fitzwilliam Place and the adjoining mews. They reckoned that they were pulling a fast one making £1,000 for the mews.”

“On the day I arrived home from my honeymoon, all we had in the flat was a cooker, bed, and a round table and chairs that I had built myself. At the time Brendan Behan was living upstairs. He barged in one morning to use the phone; he wanted to ring the pawn shop to see how much he’d get for his typewriter and when he saw the state of the place he gave my young bride some typical Behan advice – ‘don’t worry, he told her, ‘all you need is a bed, a table and a corkscrew anyway’.

“When the mews was eventually ready, we piled everything into a cart and moved down. It wasn’t very fashionable to live down a lane and the interior was unusual for the time – a double height livingroom with lots of timber and exposed stonework. When my mother-in-law saw it, she told us that we’d have awful trouble getting the wallpaper up.”

A few years later, the interior was photographed for the New York Times magazine as an example of modern interior design. “The firm of accountants I bought it off finally realised that 1,000 was a bargain because of the development potential of the mews. Whenever I meet any of them, they tell me that selling the mews was the greatest mistake they ever made.”

Colin Coyle, The Sunday Tribune, 2nd May 1999

The Sunday Times, September 29th, 2002 – Reveiw of 31 Leeson Close

Despite it’s association with poverty and insularity, the 1950s represented something of a golden age of modern design in Ireland, and included Michael Scott’s superb Busaras, the innovative Aer Lingus posters and what is still probably Dublin’s coolest interior, 31 Leeson Close. Originally designed as a domestic residence, it is now a guest house.

Situated down a lane off Lower Leeson Street, this former mews building was converted in 1958. The small entrance hall is conventional enough, but just beyond is the house’s most spectacular feature – the downstairs living room, which looks like it belongs more in an Austin Powers film than in a 1950s Irish interior.

In layout, use of materials and furnishings, the room is both slinkily relaxed and bracingly modern. This modernity is set up by geometry: spatially by a central rectangular sunken area and graphically by the flooring, which is covered with white mosaic tiles that set up a strongly ordered grid.

The sunken area has a large fireplace at on end and is fitted with continuous leather seating around the other three sides. The dedication of the majority of the space in the room to an area that seems devoted to lounging indicates a living room as a place to relax, an idea not really designed into conventional Irish homes until the 1970s. Behind this lounging pit is a small bar, decorated in mirrored mosaic tiles that lighten up the room. The walls are of painted rough stone, again providing a bit of textural relief.

The overall scheme communicates confidence in a chic urban lifestyle, firmly situated in a modern age.

Sam Stephenson, now better known for his desecration of Wood Quay, designed 31 Leeson Close as his home. If the blank brutality of his civic offices gave public modern architecture a bad name, the interior of 31 Leeson Close shows that in private he was capable of creating a generous version of modernism.

– – – Some small photos at original – http://number31.ie/no31pag/sam-times.htm and also http://number31.ie/

The Irish Times – Aug 15, 03 – Architect says Haughey adored Abbeville – By Christine Newman

Mr Charles Haughey adored Abbeville and the Kinsealy estate, the architect Mr Sam Stephenson said yesterday. Mr Stephenson did some work on the house when Mr Haughey bought it in 1969.

Yesterday, speaking on RT

@ConK wrote:

I don’t have any more of them. But they do exist. You can get to see them in the library on Pearse Street. It is very interesting. I wanted to see that one because I live in the field up from the big tree.

On one of the other maps from 1810, which you can get in the RIA on Kildare St, has a Belvidere House in north county dublin. With that spelling.

The Avenue in Dublin 1 has the two spellings on it, each with it’s own sign, facing each other on opposite sides of the street !!

Hi ConK, I was hoping to pm you regarding Dorset St & its environs, but I do not seem to be able to; by any chance could you pm me with your email address?

Many thanks

H