notjim
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This is still moving forward, they have just applied for permission to refurbish the Laundry Building, to protect it and to fit it out so medical services can be decanted their while other works are going on.
http://www.ggda.ie/assets/GG_Laundry_Building_Information.pdf
. . . along with power walking and, how should i say this, big hooters. People aside; what an ugly plaza!
Isn’t it surprising that the cylinder isn’t glassed across the top; perhaps the whole cylinder isn’t articulated on the inside. Is the roof going to be used as a function area?
And why are your doing it Rory W? You could easily make the point you want to make while only referring to behaviour and not to cause, who are we to judge why someone develops a substance abuse problem? I agree that public places should be protected from off-putting anti-social behaviour; I think we can all agree on that without calling name-calling the people involved in this behaviour.
I was agnostic about this proposal when it was first mooted; I was mostly curious about the Gallery reuse of the Georgian on OCS. However, at the end of the summer I was in Stockholm and that made my mind up against it. In the middle of Stockholm they have a set of five very fine modernist towers, just the sort of buildings I like and probably the nicest buildings I saw in Stockholm.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/H%C3%B6torgsskraporna_stockholm.png
The problem is that they are built over a mall, a mall with open streets, but streets that are very enclosed and with overpasses, much as is proposed here, with high end shops and the like and it was the most deadening depressing un-urban space, the worst part of central Stockholm. The point is, the architecture isn’t enough, your experience of it from street level is not enough to compensate for a lifeless, contrived, streetscape, Not that the upper OCS proposal is anything necessarily anything special in that regard, but even it if was, mall-like streets are terrible and sad in a city context. The bumph about NY style shopping is so annoying in this regard, nowhere in NY is like this, though, oddly enough, a lot of NY, off the big avenues with numbers and names, is a tiny bit like what is already there, a lively mess.
According to the Times the Carlton plan has been changed, it seems for the better, some of the scale on the edge of the site reduced, the sky slope reoriented and the shape of the square on OCS changed to reduce the opening on to the street.
PLANS TO redevelop the Carlton cinema site on Dublin’s O’Connell Street have been substantially revised by Chartered Land to meet concerns expressed by city council planners – particularly about a “park in the sky”.
Responding to a request last June for further information on the €1.25 billion scheme, which would cover an area of more than five acres, the development company has reduced the overall height of several buildings and reorientated the proposed park.
As originally envisaged, this sloping park would have faced northeast on top of a building with a height of 50m. But under the revised plan, the building’s height has been reduced to 35m and the park reorientated to face south.
There has been a corresponding reduction in the height at the corner of Henry and Moore streets, from an 11-storey tower to a four-storey building comparable in scale with Debenham’s, although it would project outwards. In addition, a residential block on Parnell Street has been reduced in height from nine storeys to seven to address concerns raised by the planners and others about its potentially obtrusive impact on views from the Rotunda Hospital and Parnell Square.
High-level restaurants are to be relocated to ground level on the O’Connell Street and Moore Street frontages of the site. The number of restaurants proposed for Moore Street has been doubled with the aim of turning it into a “food destination” area.
But the principal revision by Dublin Central Architects – a partnership formed by BKD, Donnelly Turpin and McGarry NÃ Eanaigh – involves turning around the rooftop park and providing a “grand civic staircase” (supplemented by lifts) leading up to it from Moore Street.
The apartment building on which it would be laid out has been reduced to a maximum height of eight storeys, so as to protect sightlines from O’Connell Street and preserve the existing parapet lines of buildings along the west side of the street. The proposed staircase would rise from a new public space at the rear of four buildings on Moore Street, which were designated as a national monument because of their link with the 1916 Rising. The character of this street would also be “reinforced”.
Another significant change involves the splayed opening on to O’Connell Street which, at 35m, was regarded by the planners as too wide. Under the revised plan, it would be fronted by a “screen” of thin, paired columns topped by a flat canopy.
Michael McGarry of Dublin Central Architects said this contemporary portico was designed to maintain the continuity of the “wall” and was on a scale “echoing the great civic gestures, such as the GPO, that are part of the unique character of O’Connell Street”. Dominic Deeny, chief executive of Chartered Land, said the latest plans “take full cognisance” of Dublin City Council’s request for additional information and respect the council’s development plan and its future intentions on density and height.
“We have also taken the opportunity to address many of the observations made by third parties. I believe we have been able to preserve the integrity of our overall plan, while looking at how we are treating the historic nature of the overall site.”
It includes a total of 12 protected structures, including the art deco facade of the former Carlton cinema, which would be relocated 40m north of its current position to create a new public space off O’Connell Street that would be open day and night. The revised plans also see the preservation and restoration of the facades of numbers 43-45 O’Connell Street as well as the full conservation and restoration of number 42, which is the only original Georgian house on the street to survive intact.
Although parts of the site have been derelict for nearly 30 years, Mr Deeny said Chartered Land was “committed to delivering this scheme which will create a vibrant new urban quarter on O’Connell Street and reinstate it as the city’s premier thoroughfare”.
Subject to planning permission being granted, the scheme – called “Dublin Central” – would incorporate two new streets and three new squares under a “rainscreen” canopy as well as 69 apartments, 17 restaurants and more than 100 new retail outlets.
Chartered Land, controlled by low-profile developer Joe O’Reilly, is one of Ireland’s leading commercial property firms. Its portfolio includes shopping centres in Dundrum and Swords and a half-share in the Ilac Centre on Moore Street.
It also developed the new five-storey block of offices and shops beside the Gaiety Theatre on South King Street and is building the 2,000-seat Grand Canal Theatre in Docklands and two adjoining office blocks, all designed by Studio Daniel Libeskind.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1105/1225523373699.html
If you haven’t looked in a while the dit Grangegorman site has a much more detailed masterplan now, well worth a look:
http://www.dit.ie/about/grangegorman/
There is lots of it so I have only looked at the re-use and conservation section so far, it is fascinating and contains the fun factoid that the architecture school is to be located in the former prison.
plus the pain of missing the card at auction, there was a great OCS one I also missed.
I love these old, 1860s, stereoviews for the sense of space. Anyway, thanks re Kings Inn and back to topic.
I am sure I am being stupid and will feel stupid when I am told, but I don’t know, no, so I am putting it up as a question but admittedly don’t know the answer, though I am sure it is obvious and I am dumb or the card is mislabeled.
@onegallant wrote:
Is it possible to get pre-1916 plan of the internal layout the Freeman’s Journal, Evening Telegraph and Weekly Sport complex in Princes Street / Abbey Street?
Eamonn.as a tattoo?
Good question, the disappointing answer is that it is called the “Liffey Railway Bridge”
@ctesiphon wrote:
Of course, the same could be said for a Metro stop in the new College Green Plaza- imagine coming up where the underground jacks is into a traffic-minimised square… *sob*
How historic are those toilets, I know the cottage Joe Orton frequented was preserved as a monument to something, did the illustrious ever tryst in the college green underground toilets?
When I was young in Galway it was a standing joke to direct tourists to the public toilets by the weir, yes the ones where the urinals empties straight into the Corrib, by claiming they werea subway entrance, can we not play the opposite trick with the CG toilets and turn them into a disguised metro entrance.
(Here is a reference to my preserved cottage factoid: http://www.gmax.co.za/think/history/10/08-joeorton.html, it mentions “slated for preservation” which might be different from preserved.)
@GrahamH wrote:
A one-stop shop for admin is desirable, notjim, but surely not at this of all locations, especially if plans for College Green ever come to pass which directly relate to uses on Foster Place.
It is desirable to me but yes, only for selfish reasons.
TCD has leased the ground floor of the bank to a bar operator, papers signed about two months ago, it will retain the upper floors. Originally it was planned to use the banking hall as a one-stop-shop for admin, I am sorry this admirable plan was abandoned. I continue to regard the sale of the two Foster Place houses as completely inexplicable.
Denton while I applaud your pro-immigrant sentiments; it does seem a little unfair on the Chinese community, they are harassed by constant and unsympathetic fiddling with the visa regulations, it is almost impossible for them to get proper residency and they suffer continual casual and occasional severe racism and now we expect them to provide a tourist attraction!
In fact, international, Chinese communities, when they are given a chance to establish themselves, are extremely pro-active in supporting cultural institutions and providing cultural infrastructure, but we should not over-estimate the security of the Asian ethnic area on Parnell St, or anywhere in Dublin. In fact, Parnell St provides a stern lesson in this regard, before it was an Asian area, it was an African area and that was ended by official and un-official racism and xenophobia; the asylum-seeker population was forcibly dispersed and, for example, what is now the BOOZE-TO-GO on Georges St and Parnell was once Forum, one of Dublin’s coolest bars: Forum was forced to close after the patrons were attacked by thugs with pool sticks and the owner was deported.
In short, if official Ireland becomes less capricious about immigration legislation and a little fairer about long-term status and we are careful about combating racism and xenophobia, we will benefit from a Chinatown and an interesting and unusual Chinatown since our Chinese community is from midwestern China, not Shanghai, it might be on Parnell St, it won’t be on Moore St and it might be on or near Capel St. but the details of the North OCS development won’t be the deciding factor.
Pot Noodle: I understand your cynicism and actual DIT people seem to feel the same, but it is impressive how quickly the masterplan was produced relative to when the architects were appointed and, if you look at the DIT Grangegorman site you can see they seem to give presentations about it every few months and there is considerable progress from presentation to presentation.
