notjim
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Well it has a large atrium in the corner by broadstone for public use and the masterplan talks quite a bit about opening the facilities, playgrounds and the like, for public use. They also propose housing a public local library with the university library and there will be a school on the grounds.
I think we are too used to Campus Universities here, UCD wasn’t but they moved, really, or rather more typically, Universities spread beyond their original site and become mixed up with the neighbourhood. However, within their campuses Irish Universities are quite open, TCD is a major city center open space, UL and DCU have significant performance venues, TCD and UCC have public galleries, TCD has the science gallery, UL’s sports facilities get a lot of use beyond the university and sports grounds in the other universities are used by the public, unfortunately none of the Universities have opened their collections as museums, but all of them give reasonably unrestricted access to their grounds. The DIT plan seems to go even further in that direction, which is a good thing.
@johnglas wrote:
. Anyway, Grangegorman could be a great site and shouldn’t be held back by concerns about critical mass in some kind of academic supermarket
You are wrong about universities of course, but more’s to the point, you are right that there is not reason to link the two issues; its my fault and my point was that I was envious I certainly didn’t mean that the DIT Grangegorman site should be in some way dependent on merging universities.
lostexpectations: DIT is a university; CIT, LIT, WIT and GMIT are hard to tell from universities, they are different to TCD, but TCD and DCU are already pretty different, TCD and UCD are different, I agree that we have too many universities, but being precious about the title “university” doesn’t change that, merging TCD, NCAD and DIT in the University of Dublin would, on a superficial level it reduces the number of universities by one and, more, it creates greater permeability between technical, vocational and traditional university education, while, by keeping colleges within the university, preserving distinct teaching missions. It also has a chance of creating the critical mass needed for international competition for students at undergraduate and postgraduate level and for research staff. Already some of the best students go abroad for their primary degrees and most of the best go abroad for PhDs.
I don’t want to go off topic which is the Grangegorman plan and I think gunter has summed up it advantages, it takes what is successful about the traditional university model and expresses it in a modern way. I do believe TCD and DIT and NCAD should be merged inside the University of Dublin because it would help give an Irish university sufficient scale, it is good to have national competition, and that wouldn’t change, but the competition for the best students and the best researchers isn’t a national one, it is international.
Furthermore, it would be great to attack this dumb, and false, bimodal distinction between the ITs and the Universities, there isn’t a natural two way split, the different third level institutions are much more different from each other than this habit of dividing them into two groups implies, first, and second, while there might be some purpose in separating strictly regional institutions from national ones, there is no real point in separating vocational and technical institutions from universities. Merge NCAD, IT and TCD into the University of Dublin and then split them into a College of Engineering, a College of Art and Design, a College of Vocational Education and Trinity College, being the Science and Arts Faculties, oh and do something with business. NYU has merged with NY Poly in this way and U Manchester with UMIST, nearer home DCU is gradually reeling in St Pats, TCD is absorbing the Milltown Institute and who knows what will happen to Surgeons when the NUI collapses.
@gunter wrote:
This is going to make Trinity look like a mausoleum!
You’ll note elsewhere my belief that it would be in TCD interests to persuade DIT to merge into the University of Dublin, I guess this is part of why; it looks like a great plan. However, you will also note how trinity it is like, playing fields at one end, the rest made up of linked courts, courts and avenues are the secret to good university design.
I always find it so sad when people are proud of their spelling, it is such an outdated skill; it is like being proud of knowing Morse code or being good at ballroom dancing.
@spoil_sport wrote:
I’m tired of this “it’s better than what’s there” argument, what is arround it is pretty ugly, granted, but that’s like comparing it to the ugly person who hangs out with uglier pople to make themselves look good. While I cannot think of a good convention centre off the top of my head but it is essentially a place of gathering, like an auditorium, or a stadium, and I’m sure we can muster up a few god examples of those. Again I don’t buy the it’s beter than other version of its type argument, that dosen’t qualify it as good.
“how it fails relative to its function”I think you might have misunderstood me on this point; I wasn’t implying that its function excused ugliness, rather, that ugliness, in the sense of a certain awkwardness and brutality, helped express its function and that there was a virtue in that; further, I don’t think that its surroundings excuse a poor building, but, rather, that a certain corporate monumentality is normal to dockland reclamations and therefore, in this case, help establish a sense of this place. I think, while not beautiful in a lyrical sense, it is impressive, muscular, honest and still playful.
and I would agree with you that there is something impersonal about this architecture in particular!
spoil_sport: you are wrong to give up without actually having explained what is wrong with this building or how it fails relative to its function; a convention center built as part of a docklands redevelopment project. Which similar buildings do you think it fails relative too and how, would a different type of convention center building embody as compelling a narrative?
I enjoy the ncc for the reasons gunter and so on have outlined above, it is intellectual without being whimsical; I think it is honest and impressive without, perhaps, being beautiful, I do think it is unusually good for a convention center and unusually good for a building on the north quay.
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=824
control-k to get into your google search window and then “site:https://archiseek.com strawberry beds”
Amazing pictures and terribly sad; I love when churches are sunk like that into a streetscape, it so medieval, so atmospheric, so true to a folkish religion knotted up in quotidian demands of secular life.
@gunter wrote:
Does anyone know if there’s a High Street / Cornmarket thread? When I type that into the search box, it jumps around a bit comes back to the page I was on.
I have more pickturesI think this is the closest there is:
You will also notice that the taking road space to construct this fine temporary pedestrian walkway has not effected traffic flow on the bridge one bit: the footpath could be this wide!
Now is your chance: #7 Henrietta St on sale for 1.85 MEur! Let’s all chip in.
@igy wrote:
Has it? :/
Indeed; the expression “original erected without planning permission” would also be useful here.
@gunter wrote:
For the record, and since we’re swinging handbags here,
I thought exclamation marks where synonymous with smilies, no?
@gunter wrote:
Come on notjim, those swans are never gettin’ off the ground.
OK the sculpture has qualities, but flight isn’t one of them and anyway, it’s the whole assembly that doesn’t work. It feels like a cemetery, but there’s no graves. The new steps down opp. the gallery help, but it’s such a waste of an urban space.
“It feels like a cemetery”, exactly; my point was not that it was a good memorial but that it wasn’t Anglo-Saxon in that it typified the Irish memorial language of graves and legends.
Separately, I think the sculpture has a dynamics, bursting, quality which contrasts enjoyably with the heaviness of the material, I also think people are generally fond of, sentimental about, the whole ensemble because of its weird Ireland-in-the-60s atmosphere and because it is a relic of a time when Irish Republicanism could be celebrate in such a goofy, unthinking way. Certainly those of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s can’t help but feel a sort of envy for a childishness we were denied.
I think you are getting out of the habit of reading my posts before replying to them!
Archiseek credited with holding opinions; I was sorry no picture of the Dorset St sign was included.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0821/1219243766859.html
Opposition grows against advertising panel plan in return for bike rental
In this section »FRANK McDONALD, Environment Editor
ARCHISEEK, IRELAND’S architectural discussion website, has added its voice to calls on Dublin City Council to halt the erection of free-standing advertising panels on footpaths in the city pending a review and investigation.
Under a deal agreed by city council management without the prior knowledge of councillors, French-owned advertising company JC Decaux was permitted to erect 120 of these panels in return for a bicycle rental scheme on the Paris Vélib model.
Opponents of what Green Party TD Ciarán Cuffe termed a “dodgy deal” include the National Council for the Blind of Ireland, An Taisce and the Dublin City Business Association – mainly because of the obstruction of footpaths by the metal-framed panels.
The arrangement required JC Decaux to supply four rental bikes per on-street panel, amounting to a total of 480, compared to 12 per panel under the Vélib scheme in Paris, where the city council also receives an annual rental of more than €2,000 per unit.
The deal first became public in December 2006 after a contributor to the Archiseek website initiated a discussion under the heading “And you thought Dublin’s Streets were cluttered already”. Not even then Lord Mayor Vincent Jackson (Ind) was aware of it.
JC Decaux subsequently lodged 120 separate planning applications for the advertising structures with no environmental impact statement (EIS). For anyone to appeal all to An Bord Pleanála, the total cost of the fees involved would have been €26,400.
“Of the original scheme, fortunately only half managed to get through – thanks in many instances to appeals by conscientious Dublin citizens”, Archiseek said. “Any so-called ‘metropole’ unit that was appealed to the board was shot down 100 per cent.
“Since then, it has become apparent that the scheme is an unmitigated disaster and epitomises what-not-to-do when engaging in urban planning . . . Already some of the units have been withdrawn, having been blatantly unsafe and manifestly hazardous.
“Outrageously, this scheme has simply been dumped on poorer and working class areas”, Archiseek said. “No billboards for a southside dual-carriageway such as Donnybrook, yet plenty for North King Street and Dorset Street and also Malahide Road in Coolock”.
According to Archiseek’s Paul Clerkin, who described its statement as unprecedented, “these units were only removed following complaints from the public, and we believe others are a hazard to public safety – Parnell Street being one very obvious example”.
He said it was “a gross irony and disgrace that the first clients have been the Department of Environment lecturing the public about not despoiling their environment” – the billboards being the central vehicle of a €200,000 campaign.
Dublin City Council said it “completely refutes” Archiseek’s allegations, saying its officials had “implemented an open and transparent process to procure a suitable advertising agency which would provide amenities for the city in a partnership approach”.
After being awarded the contract in December 2006, JC Decaux applied for planning permission to erect 120 advertising panels, of which 72 were granted; under the terms of the contract, the level of amenities depended on the number of permissions.
“It was agreed that 450 bicycles would be made available at 50 stations located in the city centre”, the council said. These locations are now being identified and the city bike scheme will be launched during Mobility Week at the end of September.
It said there would be a “six-month lead-in phase” from procurement of the bicycles to installation of the stands, with the scheme being implemented “between spring and summer 2009”. So far, however, no charges have been fixed for renting the bikes.
“Dublin City Council has exclusive use of all JC Decaux advertising panels at no cost, for public information campaigns until August 31st”, the statement said.
“From September 1st, the city council will acquire 38 of these panels, also at no cost.”
It added that JC Decaux had “indemnified the city council with regard to public liability claims arising from accidents pertaining to the advertising panels”. It had also removed 50 large advertising billboards throughout the city as part of the deal.
© 2008 The Irish Times
