Shane Clarke

Paul – I’d just like to back up your comments re the Irish Times and Frank McDonald. Although I live in London I really look forward to getting the Irish Times on Thursdays (as much for Frank McDonald’s articles as to boggle at the extradordinary poor vlaue and quality of the Irish housing market) and Saturdays. Would be nice to see FMcD’s work collected as a book actually. Provides a marvelous history of the development of modern Dublin – as of course does this web-site. Keep up the good work! Shane

All – Reading the article on-line in London – great idea although I thought that the area had been invisaged as a ‘digital-hub’. What’s happened to this? Also, it would seem utter maddness to have NCAD move out to Belfield given these proposals – surely DCC / John Fitzgerald should intervene and tie these two issues together. Any indicative plans? Does Guinesses have much spare space? Shane

All – Does anybody have any information on the ‘new’ Ballymun. I’ve not been up that way in the past few years (as I live in London) but have heard that the transformation is quite comprehensive and of decent quality – knitting Ballymun back into the city (with a traffic spawning Ikea into the bargin!). Any images? Also, does anybody know if the towers came down due to structural issues or as a ‘symbol’ of progress. A small fortune could have been made selling them off and reinvesting the money on the wider area. If memory serves some French bloke toke an environmental case to court against their demolition. Undersatndable: sustainability means startung and using waht you’ve got. Finally, PDLL the perception side of the debate could fill a book in itself. Cute Panda mentions that most of the original residents thought they’d gone to heaven – most of the early commentary on this and TV (RTE has a done a couple of programmes over the years on the area) images also take to the utopian stance. One has to remember that these estates – hundreds of them here in London – were built in that vane (is this the right spelling – vein?). Try, if you can, and get hold of this love letter to the tower block – amazing:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300054440/qid=1138878695/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/104-5465469-3955129?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Good luck! Shane

Jaz – What people ‘think’ will be of limited use for the production of a good thesis. Facts! If you dig I’m sure you’ll find that Ballymum ‘failed’ (you’ll need to define your terms) because of a negative cycle of multiple deprivation (Income – Employment – Health – Education …..), coupled with economic conditions that prevailed in inner city Dublin areas from the 70s through 90s and exacerbated by poor to non-existent management and maintenace of the area and the built environment. Architectural determinism (tower block produce poverty!) is a very hot potato and needs careful handling. Look at the Barbican in London – an extreemly successful large scale, tower blocked, residental neighbourhood. That said there is more and more research on how design effects performance (widely interpreted. Two useful starting points for estates are:
– http://www.spacesyntax.com/
– http://www.csiss.org/classics/content/41
– http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0948096004/104-5465469-3955129?v=glance&n=283155 – uses some rather dubious reseach methodology! Interesting book though. If you do read the book there is a particular concentration on the ‘notoriuos’ Mozart Estate in Westmintser. I’ve since worked there since the revamp. A somewhat transformed place. Still, design only goes so far.
– http://www.sustainingtowers.org/

cheers, Shane

PDLL / Thomond Park

Folks – A good old fashioned healthy barny there. I’m firmly on Thomand Park’s – sustainable side – of the argument – so I won’t rehash the points – but PDLL makes some excellent points in reply. Particularly:
– the need for these questions to be founded in impartial research);
– the often unquestioned aesthetic and metropolitan bias of architects and urbanisms;
– a need for an historical understanding of settlement patterns in the Republic (including the reason for late urbanism due to ‘missing out’ on the industrial revolution);
– the need to place this historical perspective within a sustainable vision of the future;
– the long standing failure of politicians – planners – local authorities etc. to provide attractive urban (village … town … city) environments to attract the middle classes (pejorative = bourgeois) who are the basis of all successful cities;
– the unsustainable dominance of Dublin within Ireland in population, cultural and economic terms etc.

Sustainability is something everyone and their brother is happy to sign up to – witness all political parties. FF = development that can be sustained! The devil is in the detail and there is an enormous onus on those of us who do believe in sustainability (economic – environmental – social) to set out the long term case for implementing its consequent demands to a public (and political class) that instinctively (naturally) thinks in the short term (this generation as against future generations). I was disappointed in Frank mcDonald’s recent book ‘Chaos at the Cross Roads’ for this very reason – the balance of the book is far too much a litany of environmental and unsustainable practice as against a positive acoount of what sustainability is and how it might be played out in Ireland. An arrogant superciliousness will just entrench the view that being an urbanism is nothing more than enforced fashionable coffee drinking on glass walled apartment balconies!

For those that want a succinct account of sustainability I would recommend Richard Roger’s ‘Cities of Small Planet’. (And please don’t take that recommnedation as patronising!).

regards, Shane

I’m in complete agreement. Inadequate though it is the central bank is sited in the only effective city plaza that we have in Dublin. Perhaps we can add Smithfield in the near future but to fence the central bank sounds farcical.