quirkey
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…..taken from NAME AND SHAME topic on this forum……..
RE: BADLY DESIGNED BUILDING AND INTERIORS IN IRELANDIt seems that the general public in Ireland think that most of those quick build urban renewal and suburban sprawling residential developments are actually designed by architects (thereby generally downgrading the status of the designer in ireland).
Most of the time its a Cad operator who works directly for the builder, or if not then a completely overloaded engineer or Architectural technician who isnt allowed scope or time to have a chance to produce something of quality.
Maybe it comes down to the issue of the title of Architect again. Anyone who so wishes in ireland can call them selves an architect, and anyone can apply for planning permission (building permit). Planners ( also overloaded with work) have little power legally to refuse permission on the basis of bad design. Hence our vast quantities of absolute crap, builders and developers who get away with almost anything anywhere, those few who actually give a damn are powerless , and most real architects have to survive on relatively poor salaries.A change in planning policy… to give the planner more power or maybe make it that every design had to be passed by a fully qualified and experienced architect (like the process for public housing where dept of environment architects have to approve all design work).
The almost guaranteed increase in design standard would increase peoples awareness of how good design can improve their lives and therefore start to take notice of who designs what……
Or maybe actually the increase in design standard is the real ultimate goal and the general populus’s awareness should be a means to that end rather than the other way round !!!And part of that problem is that proper architects or interior designers are rarely employed for these things.
It seems that the general public in Ireland think that most of those quick build urban renewal and suburban sprawling residential developments are actually designed by architects (thereby generally downgrading the status of the designer in ireland).
Most of the time its a Cad operator who works directly for the builder, or if not then a completely overloaded engineer or Architectural technician who isnt allowed scope or time to have a chance to produce something of quality.
Maybe it comes down to the issue of the title of Architect again. Anyone who so wishes in ireland can call them selves an architect, and anyone can apply for planning permission (building permit). Planners ( also overloaded with work) have little power legally to refuse permission on the basis of bad design. Hence our vast quantities of absolute crap, builders and developers who get away with almost anything anywhere, those few who actually give a damn are powerless , and most real architects have to survive on relatively poor salaries.[This message has been edited by quirkey (edited 21 November 2001).]
knowing some of the people contributing to all these forums here i’ve come to notice of those few, the younger ones (particularly student members) somehow tend to have a more positive and open minded, maybe accepting veiw of a more diverse and interactive city / society.
Why is that ??its about us coming up with a list of the ten worst buildings !!
The ILAC centre has to in there surely ?? by Keanne Murphy Duff …… also the designers of the “PORTALS OF DARKNESS” as Frank McDonald puts it (the towers behind Tara street). I personally think those towers with their new external treatment actaully look good but they should have been at least 150% of their current heights (previous referrals I’ve heard include CANARY DWARFS)
Good to see how the work they produce has improved significantly since those olden designs (Varoius Superquinns + the Arnotts makeover are two pretty good examples)
Other Bad Stuff ???
We shouldnt really even have to mention Hawkins house i suppose.RE Central Bank Negativity
Same kind of thing happened with the Llyods building in london. If you look at the sketches and initial proposals for the building, the public were to have access to the building, using the Lower floors for shops cafes meeting places etc
But then at sometime after being use like this for a while, the corporate controlleres decided to remove this positive and humanising gesture.
Banks have traditionally been elitist, protective, outwardly negative…. having a tectonic phsychological sign… “KEEP OUT UNLESS YOU’RE RICH”
Yes we can be dissapointed at this degradation of the public realm within the city but……
Why should we be surprised at this move by the central bank ??And they still lock up that handball alley so that no-one can use it !
I actually think that the opposite might be the true solution ….. provide for and encourage these things in the most public of places so that their use is encouraged and forms a means of entertainment for passers by.
Imagine a rollerblading competition or game of basketball or whatever being held somewhere like wolfe tone park on a sunny
afternoon… the huge crowd that would gather around such an event…..
then you’d have a demand for ice-cream/hot-dog stalls etc etc a positive atmosphere can only but prevail.
If these things are provided in so called seccluded areas (as per usual) then they wont gather crowds, only smaller groups of people carrying out truly unsociable activities….
Maybe we need to re-evaluate what is UNSOCIABLE activity is in the first place.At what point does a few people just having positive and harmless fun turn into socially unacceptable negative behaviour ?
As for everything else in the universe ……it depends on the CONTEXT[This message has been edited by quirkey (edited 15 November 2001).]
TRUE the emphasis should be on informing the public…. but the thing is too many architects are either misinformed, too interested in magazine arch to let sustainability GET IN THE WAY or more often are just apethic about it. Architects are regular people too (underneath their black polo neck jumpers). If all architects understand and are interested, then thats quite a percentage of change from the current situation.
as i asked before (but then as general questions)
DO YOU RECYCLE YOUR OWN MILK CARTONS ? DO YOU HAVE A COMPOST PIT IN YOUR GARDEN ? DO YOU KNOW WHAT SOURCE YOUR ELECTRICITY COMES FROM ? DO YOU CYCLE OR TAKE PUBLIC TRANSPORT TO WORK ?
DO YOU WILLINGLY DESIGN A HOUSING SCHEME, OR INDUSTRIAL PARK FOR ANY GIVEN CLIENT (COS HE PAYS YOU LOTS OF MONEY) DO YOU SAY NO IF HE ISNT WILLING TO COMMIT TO ANY OF THESE THINGS THAT YOU ARE SO KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT.
(oops just noticed lots of lines in big text again, sorry)
But anyway how people change is by being shown, having a leading example. The average Joe of course isnt going to listen to some other mick or tom ranting on about this and that, future, polution bla bla bla if it isnt going to be easy for him to change or to do these things that are required.
What we really need are architects, , planners, politicians etc that have the balls (excuse the french) to stand for what they believe to be right ?????if the reconstruction of this area had been caried out more according to the group 91 plan in the first place, ther’d have ben no ned for gates in the first place.
In particular, the positioning of the new padestrian bridge, which was to lead to a new passage / mini street leading past the phot archive and into meeting house square. All or most of that padestrian traffic would now be passing through the square, and this constant movement and presence of the public would prevent or at least extremely reduce any level of negative activities currently tending to occur (hence the supposed need for these gates).During the summer last, i was working with an architect who was talking about a design for tiolet cubicles he did for a shopping centre. They had oneway mirrorsfor walls, so on the outside a reflection , but from the inside you could see everything around you….. the hunderds of other shoppers passing by in totalignorance of you being in what otherwise might be quite a comprimising position.
If thats not playing with peoples sence of paranoia then i dont know what would be.i guess it does depend on the school.
Technicians seem certainly more subject to this while less likely to be taught the specific science involved.
Its the cart before the horse thing again.
Maybe its another one of those things resultant from the fast , flash , magazine world we live in. A solution before the most appropriate solution.
Which is really more important :
a) Thought ,b) Time, c)Money d)Health, e)None of the above f) phone a friendMaybe its a thing to notice that it tends to be the architects with the strongest ambitions of social and cultural perfection. Those who desire or strive to create a self styled utopia. They see the things that are wrong with the world and realise that support of a particular style or mode politics is whats most likely to be their one chance at fullfulling these perfectionist dreams ………. is that one of the reasons Eco (or equality) warriors are seen as bad, dangerous or even evil ???
We have seen in history how those with utopian veiws of the future turn out to be menace.how about thinking of the issue from this point of veiw either…..
how the ISSUES of finance during construction of the sydney opera house caused political (societal) waves in australia, where subsequently Utzon hardly got paid and then the stigma of the whole thing meant he hardly got a comission for decades afterwards.
Some say theres no such thing as bad press, this case then must surely be closer to Censorship ???
Just because terrangi was a member of the fascist party for a while and designed that infamous h.q. building, does that mean he wanted to kill jews ??Yep thanks for the reference, but everyone in architecture should do like wise then. Every architectural debate / lecture / talk / writing /discussion seem to have a strangely wide and varied idea of what this is.
You see so many of the specifics of all these things as i’ve seen and read about to date more often than not contradict each other.
Take one of the most basic arguments of all for example, do you have a building with natural ventilation only ???? or do you have a mechanical ventilation with heat recovery ??? Natural ventilation has certain advantages such as reducing material imput etc but latter mechanical option can help save vast quantites of energy lost in ventilation heat loss (even when the minimal energy use of the fan is taken into account)
We know about the whole embodied energy issue how re-using building materials is more effective in terms of lifecycle costs……… but what about when you re-use windows, the total cost including heat energy lost through the old windows far exceeds total costs that would occur by using new (thermally efficient) windows.
It’s a huge complex issue….. some of the people reading this are experts in this field, yet some also know absolutely nothing.
Do we not talk about the small things, yes we can talk about things in W/m2/°k or sky radiance / daylight factors, dead (-) and live (+) heating loads and what ever else. But anyone who knows these things is already on the right path.
I assume this forum is a means of disscussion, spreading ideas, information, ideals, and maybe even stretch as far as ethics and how things should be, how they can be better and what is the way forward from this point in time.then theres the VEIW without veiwsof anykind, avenues without trees, heights in valleys, and then there’s t.v. names like Melrose court (wexford).
Its about time the’ve made this move to stop these things. It’d be nice to see it everywhere else too.ok here’s a question. (just to see what the phsyche – asumption – knowledge – opinion etc etc things are like)
What do you all consider to be a SUSTAINABLE city ?
Here are some possible starting points:
definitions
ideals
practical measures
small scale
large scale
society
planning
human activity
economy
comunicationssay (type) what you think. We can all learn from this !!
