pragmatist
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interesting conversation…. sounds like some of the participants have quite intimate knowledge of the airport and/or the aviation sector.
the new paralell runway has permission from FCC… however DAA will be going back in to have the existing permission changed to facilitate A380’s
the new county development plan will likely safeguard an extension to the existing southern runway also
watch out for Air India if DAA can do the deal….. the plan is for Dublin to act as a scissors hub with flights from 3/4 Indian cities (Delhi, Ahmedabad etc) converging on T2, utilising the CBP capability and flying on to 3/4 US airports such as O’Hare, Newark etc
can someone please post a pic of the original scheme that was granted permission in 2003?
thanks in advance
Phil,
A few days ago I spent a very pleasant hour and a half having Sunday lunch at the pavilion. I would say there were about 200 other members of the “public” enjoying the fine weather at the cafes, restaurants and bar along its lenght. There were no barriers to access and the ‘public’ who werent eating or drinking were strolling happily by with prams or pets… I didnt sense any undercurrent of resentment or anti-privatisation angst and nor would I expect to.
Are you saying that the Pavilion development is some sort of capitalist trojan horse which has failed the “public amenity” test because commerce takes place on it to the exclusion of the masses? If so then you might as well argue that South Anne Street has failed the public because you have to buy a sandwich in Cafe Java before they let you sit down !!!!
If every site is to be turned into a gallery/museum/library/public open space etc then we will all become very bored indeed visiting one dimensional attractions. There is only so much culture that the “public” can handle – we all need a little retail and leisure from time to time…. !
What the current proposal for the Carlisle Pier offers is a diversity of experience, a balance of uses, and an invite to the public to explore the space. What the Carlisle Pier anti-privatisation lobby fail to understand is that a fixation on purely ‘public’ utilisation of available space does not make for very good Public Space’s……..
The Pier deal is essentially a PPP. If private finance does not get involved in schemes such as this ( as well as Greystones harbour, Fatima Mansions etc) then they simply wont happen. The various local authorities, semi-state companies dont have the resources to build them. Simple.
What the ‘anti-privatisation’ lobby want is a 100% publicly funded amenity. This aint gonna happen because the good people of DLR co. co. and their counterparts in every other county in Ireland are not going to stomach hugely increased taxes/rates/charges to facilitate non-commercial follies.
Once this was realised, the job of the harbour company was to make sure they achieved a balance between the public good and the requirement of the private sector to make a profit. Personally, I think they did a good job. They have (presumably) safeguarded the maintenance of the harbour going forward, they have secured a Nationally significant marine life centre, and they have ensured that the pier will be opened up as a promenade and publicly accessible space. All at a cost to the taxpayer of approximately €0.
What the trots cant stomach is that someone is going to make a profit from this. What they fail to realise is the benefits which will accrue – increased employment, increased commercial rates for the council, new public space, world class architecture, sustainable transport use etc, etc.
Its about time some of the sheep (sorry – politicians) who purport to represent Dun Laoghaire, got off their rumps and started espousing the merits of sensible developments such as the one proposed for Carlisle Pier.
Lots of councillors and would-be councillors will seek to make political capital from this issue – that is after all what they do….
Forgetting about who won or lost the competition for a minute, I am struggling to see where any ‘issue’ arises with regard to the redevelopment of the pier – it seems like a no-brainer…..but let me try to articulate my arguments in favour of redevelopment again.
Rezoning is happening in DLR because there is a housing shortage – its the worst county in Ireland with regard to providing homes for its population. This is mainly due to NIMBY-ism. Even if the apartments in the Carlisle pier scheme and DLR golf club are too expensive for many people, the respective developers will have to contribute (either on the sites themselves or elsewhere in DLR co. co.) a significant amount of social/affordable housing. No development in DLR means no new social/affordable housing because you can be sure that the council will not provide it on their own.
The current pier is not open space – its a hoarded-up derelict eyesore of a shed. There will be no reduction in public access but instead we will see an opening of the pier as a public amenity. It appears to me that people want public access along the pier but cant seem to countenance anyone making a profit for providing this access. There would appear to be a fine line between some peoples civic ideals and downright begrudgery
The winning design went through a rigourous architectural and commercial selection process (as opposed to a lot of the rubbish currently getting planning permission). The scheme is bound to go to an Bord Pleanala (as all major developments do) so the public will get the chance to examine the issue in all the detail it can stomach.
The DLR (and Greater Dublin) community gets a highly significant National Marine Life Centre, as well as a new public space and a landmark building all of which lead to commercial benefit for the whole community (Tourism, Jobs etc)
Finally, the same people giving out about the traffic generated by new schemes in Dun Laoghaire are probably the very ones who rightly lobbied for increased development densities to be allowed beside transport nodes. The Carlisle pier is beside a dart station for gods sake…
If this is “the straw that broke the camels back” then the camel would appear to be a very sensitive creature indeed….
regards
I notice that my response on the ‘crowd control’ red herring has been moderated into oblivion along with the original “contribution”……
Interesting – I wouldnt have thought such a mild (and well warranted) rebuke would have illicited such a reaction, but then again I am new to this board….free speech is a funny old game as Jimmy Greaves would say….
Phil,
the model was slighly deceptive as the surface of Moran park, as well as Queens road in front of the pier and the aforementioned plaza and new pier surface were all made of the same coloured perspex material. This I presume was done in order to allude to a wider (aspirational) connection with the town.
The drawings and 3D renderings at the exhibition showed a clearer definition of where the pier development began and where the existing urban fabric ended.
If you recall there was a rendered view looking from the obelisk on the Queens road footpath down along the new pier through the street seperating the 2 blocks. The foreground of this rendered view was the plaza (in front of the proposed hotel) and there was a glass balustrade around the aperture to Harbour road below. Unfortunately I dont have any images but perhaps Paul Clerkin could ask Heneghan Peng for the 3D renderings and site plan so that they could be published on this site?
regards
Phil,
I would imagine that the ‘preferred bidder’ negotiation window will allow the ‘linkage’ issue to be fully resolved. I think DLR Co.Co. owe it to the town to approach this imaginatively. For the record the Heneghan Peng scheme had a pedestrian ‘plaza’ at Queens road level (ie spanning Harbour road below) but did not cross “the main seafront road” instead stopping at the seaward side of Queens road. Regardless of this, the movement of pedestrians from the main town centre out onto the new pier will still have to be trashed out….
With regard to SOS, I am all for balanced debate but I get frustrated with scaremongering catchphrases like “privatisation of the pier”. The reality is that this eyesore of a pier has never been “open space” or accessible by the public and now will be turned into an amenity the like of which very few communities in the world are lucky enough to have.
By all means lets have quality public amenity within the context of the winning design but the SOS idyll of zero development, 100% open pier/promenade with a candyfloss stall and a statue of Marx at the end of it, is risible in the extreme and cannot be the starting point for the ‘other side of the argument’.
regards.
Phil,
With regard to public consideration (and the link back to the town), it would have been very difficult for any of the entries to elaborate significantly on any desire they might have had to re-integrate the pier with the town. This is due to the fact that the harbour company dont own any of the required land outside the footprint of the pier – thus any proposal showing any linkage would be purely aspirational.
This however didnt stop Libeskind showing a library in Moran park and a magical ‘skyhooked’ bridge over to it. This in my opinion was a cynical effort to sway the public vote and hence you saw the 47% approval rating for that scheme. Its one thing looking beautiful buts its another thing altogether to comply with the sites zoning, stay inside the red line, deliver a sustainable cultural attraction and give a solid financial return to the harbour company – all of which the ‘public favourite’ has obviously failed miserably on….
I too thought the Libeskind scheme had more ‘wow’ factor than any of the others on first glance, but thankfully common sense prevailed and a sustainable development has been chosen.
If 8000 people are asked to choose between a Lamborghini and a Volvo then no-one would be surprised if at least 47% chose the former. When the financial implications of their choices are explained to them (cost, maintenance, insurance etc) I wonder what the percentage figure would be then??????
I am sure the Richard Boy Band and socialist workers party will be protesting till the cows come home over this development but they should be cognisant of the fact that a derelict, hoarded up pier will now be made accessible to the public along its full length with great views along with various leisure and retail amenities.
I am personally looking forward to bringing my family along to a state of the art marine life centre or open air concert (on the floating stage), as well as utilising the hotel, retail and public space components of the winning scheme. Congratulations to all concerned.
Diaspora, here are the assessment criteria….
The four short-listed proposals will be evaluated by an Assessment Panel using the following criteria:
Quality of architectural design; Compliance with the zoning requirements for the Pier; Benefit to the community from the proposed cultural attraction; Nature and extent of public access to the redeveloped Pier; Timescale for the completion of the redevelopment; Financial return to the Harbour Company.
These are the criteria upon which the entrants based their designs. As you can see, ‘Architectural Design’ is only one of SIX headings for judging the competition and your guess is as good as mine as to what weighting each heading is given.
As I understand it you are saying that Architecture should be the most important criteria…..your opinion, fair enough….
Would you agree with me that if a scheme fails to provide a financially viable cultural attraction and fails to provide a financial return to the harbour company (but is nice to look at and has lots of open space) then it should not win ?
This is the crux of my argument….Architecture is important but sensible development needs to win out…
Originally posted by Diaspora
I would hate to see one entry get the pier design on a technicality.
Of course the developer wants to maximise floor area and as a result profit, thats OK once they can do it in a way that fits in well with the harbour and the town.
I would hate to see the judges find one entry best but that becuase it crossed the ‘red line’ rule that it was void.
The quality should be judged on three grounds.
1. Public usable space
2. Form
3. Materials and durability over time.If a design wins on these three criteria red lines are a trivial matter unless a design interfered seriously with an adjoining property.
Hate to burst your bubble diaspora but the red line is not a “trivial matter”.
The Libeskind design has increased the pier footprint by about 50% – this reclaimed land will require a foreshore license. This, in itself, is not a ‘dealbreaker’ although there is a huge risk that the harbour master will not grant this license, leaving the proposed design (and the site) in limbo for another 5-10 years. Do you think that unecessary risk should be taken lightly?
The real potential problem about the red line is that Libeskinds buildings stray onto and colonise the newly reclaimed land and, as such, the scheme potentially requires an amendment to the county development plan. Funnily enough, land which is yet to come into existence hasnt been considered for zoning by our esteemed councillors! Therefore construction on this newly minted real estate requires a variation of the current development plan……
concept architecture is all well and good but unfortunately (for Libeskind, Gehry, Hadid et al) all theory must ‘degenerate’ into reality at some point if anything is going to get built on Carlisle Pier…..
ignoring the brief and lacing competition entries with layers of tenous ‘meaning’ has been a brilliant competition winning strategy for Libeskind in the past. However, anyone following the WTC design debate will be aware that these ‘hooks’ which capture public imagination (or play on peoples emotions) usually turn out to be unsustainable, unbuildable or both……
see link to article for a solid rebuff to the developing cult of “STARCHITECTURE”
http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/research/publications/hdm/current/19_kingwell.pdf
Perhaps Im being overly cynical but the Emperor of Diaspora looks to be increasingly exposed down in windswept Dun Laoghaire.
Phil,
the harbour company didnt have Liebeskind draw up the original plans – heritage properties ‘took a punt’ and made a proposal to the harbour company which ultimately triggered the competition. Heritage have not built anything of this scale before and are best known as the developer of smithfield apartments. At least there is some cetainty that Laing O’Rourke, Pierse and Sisk can deliver the other schemes and are sure to have seriously scrutinised the costs/programmes involved. Heritage cannot be said to have the same capability as the above contractors and if I was on the assessment panel I would be worried about this given that theirs is easily the most complex scheme from a construction point of view.
The Carlisle Pier competition is a DEVELOPMENT competition as opposed to a purely architectural one. The winning scheme will have to be financially viable while giving an income stream to the harbour authority as well as keeping the public happy – I exclude Richard Boyd Barrett and his mates from ‘the public’ as they wont be happy unless a shrine to marxist ideology is placed on the pier.
Here are a few issues worthy of debate above and beyond the aesthetic ping-pong that this board loves indulging in…
1.
the SOM scheme appears to be twice as dense as the others. Do the supporters of this scheme want to write a blank cheque to the developers? We might get a funky rooftop walkway but it looks like the developers get about 300 apartments which would likely retail for half a mil each – you do the math…2.
has anyone noticed that the Liebeskind scheme extends way beyond the development ‘red line’ and is nearly twice as wide as the other schemes? Remember, the reason for the baths debacle was as a result of the winning scheme ignoring the site boundary hence allowing the losing shemes to threaten legal actions. Also, is it a coincidence that this is the only scheme without a contractor on board? Landmarks are great except when you have to pay for them (Scottish Parliament for eg) and the harbour company need to be really really sure that the scheme can be built for the budget proposed. Finally, can anyone see a ‘diaspora museum’ attracting sufficient numbers to be self financing? Again the harbour company want a viable cultural attraction, not an albatross around their necks.3.
The STW scheme is indeed boring but you can bet your last euro that its eminently ‘buildable’. The development mix seems appropriate also.4.
The HP scheme also has a sensible development mix and is a more attractive building than the STW scheme although i think the design needs some more development. I like the permeability of the scheme – its the only one that allows the pier to remain a pier.just to re-iterate, the Liebeskind and SOM schemes (and to a lesser extent HP’s design) will no doubt appeal visually to the people visiting the exhibition but he decision is not going to be based principally on design. The current public consultation is potentially cosmetic to a large extent as the assessors will be making a decision based on commercial considerations in the main. If Im right its a straight decision between the STW and HP schemes and if all other things are equal the HP design will win out cos its more attractive.
The real world is a harsh place…..
