John66

I noticed on Sunday that many of the strips for the illuminated borders on the red sections are shattered.

Then you have all those housing estates littered throughout the country called Kennedy Park, or similar.

One thing I find rather annoying is the name of my local Luas stop; Blackhorse. It’s named after the Black Horse Inn, which is fine, as it has always been a major landmark for people driving in from the Naas Road, but changing it to a single word gives the impression that someone thought a name that sounds like a London Underground station might be less ‘common’. Besides, there’s already a Blackhorse Avenue at the other side of the city.

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before a Blackhorse Court apartment building makes an appearance.

The Irish Times said the square is open, so does this mean it is complete? If it is, I think it’s a major disappointment. By day it looks tacky, and by night it is at best unremarkable. Some of the stonework is nice though. The “red carpet” of resin-glass looks like someone just painted the ground red. What looked spectacular in the rendered image has zero impact in real life. At least that’s my impression. I read about one of her designs in the UK that used blue resin glass that turned out greyish, but I haven’t seen any pictures. Has anyone seen this design? I wonder if this material might have been considered unsuitable, and if the red paint is here to stay. At least the light sticks look ok at night, but overall, this is really unimpressive.

The hotel seems to be coming along nicely and the floor plan on the upper floors is taking shape. Still no sign of the cool stonework. I hope the theatre looks good when it appears.

@publicrealm wrote:

Sat night I attended a nice middle class concert in the city. Afterwards I spoke to a nice lady who coordinates services for the elderly in need on the northside of the City. She told me there are NO toilets or benches between O’Connell Street and Capel Street for these people to use. I referred to Wolfe Tone Square and she pointed out that it was great for older folk when it was new but they are now afraid to use it as it has become an anti-social hangout for louts and druggies. I was really ashamed that this planning neglect of the elderly had to be pointed out to me.

The issue seriously upsets me. The people who need these facilities are marginalised at many levels and all of our academic training as planners (sorry – I know this is an Architectural forum) demands our attention to this. I would honestly trade the granite paving.

.:(

This is a big issue. Perhaps it is to be expected that small pockets of seating are going to be colonised by the daytime drinkers. I wonder if placing plenty of seats in places like Henry St. and O’Connell St. would take some of the pressure off. Maybe seating in areas with high pedestrian traffic would be less intimidating.

In Fatima (the Portuguese version:) ) where a lot of elderly and sick people need to move around they have these cool little trains with a tractor pulling wagons behind it (sort of like the Zoo Train) . It would be great to see something like this in the centre of town running up and down pedestrianised streets, but in the real world it probably wouldn’t be practical -even if it works in the Zoo! Still, it would be nice to make somewhere like Grafton St. more inviting to people who have a problem getting around. The issue of access is so much bigger than wheelchair-friendly pavements.