PTB

Yeah, thats true. My mother told a story of the time when she boarded in a college in Youghal. There was an old blocked up door in a basement, and behind that there was reputed to be a tunnel going down into the ground, and then across the Blackwater estuary. It was reputed to have been used in the penal times to sneak a priest into Youghal. Doubtful stuff.

I also stayed in St. Kierans college in Kilkenny few years back for irish college. There was a Kilkenny person in the course (not a student of the school) who insisted that there was a tunnel there. We looked for it one day in vain in a bunker beneath the school. No tunnel, but we found a box full of recordings of the school choir from the 30s, a ride-on lawnmower and a postcard confirming Fr. Savage’s membership to the Irish watercolour painter’s scociety for 1876.

Thats a very surreal building. I like the way they’ve painted in where the building used to be. It reminds me of the times in cartoons when a painting is stolen and there is a lighter shade of paint outlining ths place where the painting was. I always thought that the building had been ‘stolen’ for years, part of some ill-concieved eighties road widening. As for why the building was never rebuilt, i’m not sure. Perhaps the building was derelict above the ground floor and that part was knocked. Maybe it’s laziness. Maybe the developers are still waiting for the builders to come.

Yeah, you can see that they havn’t gone with the same landscaper who plonks 2000 saplings at motorway interchanges. I say plonks rather than plants because many of them end up falling down and dying due to half-arsed planting.

Brilliant scheme indeed Mr Jackwade, though not without its faults

If your estate requires a 3 word name simply choose 3 words and join the first 2 together e.g Riverwood Court, Willowpark Grove etc.

Eg. St Patrick’sSt Joseph’sboro
Glenbally Glen.

No-one seems to have mentioned the Irish names which are just as crappily pieced together. A development in my locality is called Páirc na gCapaill even though the previous owner of the land tells us that there has been nothing but tillage on the land for the past twenty years. The main reason I don’t like them is because they seem far too fabricated, despite their attempt to be more ‘authentic’ than the more anglicised placenames

The Enviromental research institute came across awfully in thos photos. It looks like some kind of dilapidated soviet apartment block towards the end of the building.

Another question. Do these buildings go on to the RIBA longlist for the Stirling Prize.?

Liebeskind smacks of half-arsedness. He’s become a brand, with cities vying to get him to design a building for them. He’s starting to take up the ubiquity associated with the Hilton Hotels before they were everywhere. I suppose its what the cities want though. Frank Gehry once said something about how any of his clients nowadays would be very dissappointed if he produced something which didnt look like the Guggenheim Bilbao.

Personally I think that Zaha Hadid should be building this building.

@who_me wrote:

Perfectly. Closer to the ground = Better!

Hence if I had my feet on the ground as opposed to my head in the clouds, I’d be a lot sexier. Time to start looking around for some ground-floor penthouses too..

Have you tried cutting your legs off?

Like jungle said above ridership goes up dramatically with trams. They’re much more stylish, effent and quiet. They dont seem as proletarian as busses. Its like comparing horses to cows:

Horses: Seemingly intelligent and wise; quick; elegant and noble.
Cows: They look thick; Not very good over distance or jumps; Whatever the opposite of elegant and noble is.

Likewise:

Trams: Shiny, sleek, glide along the ground. Used by wealthy people
Busses: Shiny (after they’ve been cleaned,) boxy looking, tend to get off to a stuttery start before braking at the next set of traffic lights. Not used by wealthy people as much.

Scientists in their intellectual circles of thought have equated the proximity of the side skirts of a vehicle with the percieved beauty of a vehicle. Busses have a good foot between themselves and the ground. Trams seem to go right down to the ground. Another reason to love the tram. See, people are more inclined to like beautiful things. Ever wondered why Colm Meany never became as big a star as Tom Cruise after ‘Far and Away’? Its because Colm Meany looks like a cabbage (Although to be fair he got a Golden Globe nomination for The Snapper.) No-one would go to the Glucksman if it looked like a factory. No-one goes on holiday in Essen because it’s an industrial hole. No-one is sexually attracted to Jade Goody. Have I made my point?

For some reason those renders remind me of some surreal Orwellesque vision of the future.

Yeah, Wikipedia also calls Sligo a city in parts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sligo

It has more of a claim to being a city than Kilkenny, which is quite small. I actually remember an interview with some member of the Sligo Chamber of commerce saying in some newspaper thet while they weren’t actually a city they had the mentality of one. It seems that they have taken on much more than a city mentality.