Lotts
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How about a shed in the midlands?
Consortium headed by Pat McDonagh (Supermac founder) has lodged an inital plan for conference center and hotel in Athlone with westmeath co-co.
“So what will it be called?”
O’Connor Sutton Cronin (engineers of bridge) refer to it as Stack A Bridge.
[Stack A would also be a very good name for Stack A ! ]
Builders in dayglo jackets were on scaffolding taking measurements of the front of the woolstore this morning. Bet they have a plan FionaQ.
Still no sign of the bridge itself. But I notice (and should have mentioned sooner) that the first batch of Rachel Joynt’s glass cobble stones are in place. They are wonderful. Apparently there is to be nearly 1000 of them. They are beautiful round (~palm size) backlit glass blocks. They have blue and green swirls through them and little fish swimming through, and starfish in others. They look like little rock pools or maybe portholes tht you can see through into the river and sea below.
I had very high expectations as I love some of her other work, especially The Sea Urchin in Dun Laoghaire and The People’s Island an O’connel bridge / Dolier st (esp the little bird feet!) and am delighted that docklands has this addition. Offsets the famine memorial very well and will enhance the new bridge.
Come on the bridge!
The article had it right. Planning in this country is a shambles. The path of development we are on signifies a crass, ignorant and selfish society with no ideals left to aspire to.
Recently I was on a flight over Germany and was (as always) fascinated at the landscape, with rural towns and villages composed of clusters of buildings and the surrounding fields almost entirely unbroken until the next town. Down on the ground the high quality local roads that run between villages do not have houses along them and are all the better for that. Driving is a pleasure, driving through beautiful farmland scenery unspoilt by mcmansion after mcmansion and the associated gates and entrances.
At night the roads are not all floodlight the way they are here as the cars have headlights on them and people use these to see the way. So even though a motorway may be not far away you can still see the night sky. Which is nice. Something that we don’t have anymore in the city of Dublin, but something you should be able to expect if you are in the countryside.
The German use of land just seems so much more intelligent – and of course this is not limited to Germany. I noticed the same thing flying over the Netherlands – and this an area that we learnt of in school as being nearly all one big “conurbation” (and I remember thinking as we learnt this that god the dutch ruined their country!)
On a slightly positive point I’ve also noted that Ireland when seen from the air is not a total write off and there are very large areas that can of course be seen as rural. This may be what stira has in mind when saying that outside of Dublin there is nothing but countryside. The problem that you will see however is that every road in Ireland is a ribbon of development on both sides. And anywhere there’s a view it is spoilt by one off housing or holiday ‘vilages’. The result is that as you travel through Ireland outside of Dublin you find it increasingly difficult to experience the countryside. All the places that are accessible have been spoilt (not developed – spoilt). This did not need to be so and we could have looked to other countrys for example and plan development towards what we want or at the very least avoided the many obvious mistakes.
FIN – developer may well be driven by profit, but the market is not the only factor he needs to consider – he needs to address the regulatory framework he operates in and the law of the land. The sums are indeed skewed towards building crap inthe wrong place. This is where planning fits in and is where we are being let down with permanent damage to our counrty.
Not sure of the connection to wool. As far as I know Wapping Street dates from 1799 and the name is taken from the London street name. This area of Londons north docklands was first settled by Saxons, from whom it takes its name (apparently meaning “[the place of] Wæppa’s people”).
We should probably buy Paul’s book as I bet it’s in there (?)!
The Wool Store on what was the original Wapping Street is indeed a wonderful building. I for one will be very interested in anything you find out. Lets hope it gets preserved before the little cupola falls off.
A good starting point could be Margaret Gowen & Company who were the archaeological and historical architectural consultants for Spencer Dock development. They might have covered similar ground.
There’s a brief summary and picture of Woolstore on their site, See http://www.mglarc.com/projects/spencer.htm
Good luck
The pontoons (is that the arch word? – the legs of the bridge) are finished. They look really good, in pristine concrete with the water coming close to breaking over the top of them at high tide. The quay walls where the bridge will meet land looks ready too. Just the bridge sections needed now. Hope they arrive by boat, much more atmospheric than by big truck blocking the quays.
Bond is gone and their 100s of types of mineral water with them.
I can’t agree with you on letting this one go jimg.
Beresfort Place forms part of a great cluster of great architecture built over many stages of Dublins development – Liberty Hall, Irish Life Centre (rather than ILAC), Loop Line, Busaras, Phase 1 IFSC (Burke Kennedy-Doyle bit) and of course the customs house. Throw in the Amnesty sculpture and the luas and you really do have a greeat area from an architecture point of view. [There’s acually a sizable area of Dublin here without bad buildings!]The only downside is of course the traffic but that can be managed. the luas has already impoved to feel of the area and as soon as we get real about limiting car use we’ll have our city back. No point giving up on buildings just ‘cos there’s cars going by – the cars will not always be with us!
Really got to blame the County Council on this one. Seems that the new dawn that was meant to be announced by Antoin MacGabhann’s Donegal Co. Co. offices didn’t quite make it through to evidence on ground. (still love it esp : roof)
I note however that they have a wonderful online planning system where you can search and view all apps online and even view the plans.
http://www.donegal.ie/dcc/eplan/
I hope all other local authorities sit up and take note! This is good stuff!I’d love to know if there’s a record number of appeals and submissions to go along with the record numebr of applications or do people just not care and let their own communitys errode? Certaintly with the level of accesabilty to info via eplan there’s no excuse not to be actively involved in planning process.
“the last architectural vestiges of a cafe destroyed”
But this is a listed building – surely the architecture is safe? Windows too for that matter.
Actually to be fair that is really just along the roads. Get out and walk and you can find plenty of unspoiled landscape. Beautiful county. I havn’t been there yet this year but on my last vist, parts of Donegal felt like, you know that road in Galway from the city out by spiddel to cararoe, that type of thing and it felt like those same mistakes being made again. The only places I saw development being clustered were ‘holiday villages’. Maybe they are nice in the summer but the ones I’ve seen didn’t have adaquate heating for even a short vist in wintertime. [btw How are building certs issued? Is there a special category for holiday homes – and only have to be habitable 6 months?]
Hopefully this years glut of apps will avoid all the earlier mistakes.
What exactly is being proposed by savebewleys – The web site seems very aspirational but has no real proposal behind it. What is the plan that you want public support for? Is it that the national government povide a grant to subsidise this cafe (or all cafes in the area?) City council to do same? Or a grant to maintain the building? Building to be owned by City Council and leased out to higest bidding franchisee? Civic museum to relocate (with coffeee shop?). Reassess what aspects of it should be on protected buildings list ?
Is the campain just a load of people saying that they wished Bewleys didn’t close (ala all are in favour of motherhood) or is there something I’m missing.
Sounds very interesting. Is there a charge for the report? I looked on the antaisce website nd there’s no mention(!). Would love to read more.
I think the very fact that the monument was build only almost as proposed is telling. We compromised on every aspect of it (except the location i suppose) and ended up with a poor version of what should have been. The Jury were absolutely correct that this is a monument reflective of Ireland in Europe in the 21 st century.
Is this really going to be restored? I heard from an eyewitness that the broken portico was getting thrown into truck – ie : not carefully placed numbered and wrapped. Cast iron and glass is not the most robust material to be throwing about. More needless damage was caused in taking it away and it looked like it was being skipped rather than phase one of a sensitive restoration.
Can anyone verify?Amazing that nobody was killed or injured and lets be grateful for that.
But now who’s going to pay for this to be reinstated – I heard the news mention the City Council – but surely they don’t foot the bill? The drivers insurance must cover this.
They’re expensive yokes those classical examples of Victorian glass and ironwork – Todays indo reports Olympia architect Siobhan Sexton as saying that the intention now was to restore the canopy with the damaged pieces, but the cost was likely to be higher than the €100,000 estimate prior to the accident.
Anyone got a photo? All those camera phones and not a photo between us!If it goes ahead it will certaintly illustrate the need to get some of the most experienced private planning consultants (such as the former county manager) onto your pay-roll. There’s a lesson to be learn here for anyone attempting a development of this scale. And I guess it’s to not bother spending too much on architects and instead spend the cash on people who understand the planning process…
I was at a reading from that book, last week and (based on a short reading and discussion) certaintly the tone of the book appears hugely pessimistic, as I guess you would have to be if you look at the on-going destruction of Ireland. The Irish Times articles surprised me too. I think the ploy to “get the ear of” city officials is unlikely as the book seems to be complete except some tidying and illustrations. Maybe Frank was just in a sunny mood?
