wearnicehats
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@Bluetonic wrote:
You also must be blind and/or a liar. NONE of the pitch is blocked from the lower back row.
I may have been blind drunk. or maybe the upper black bit was my eyes closing – it was a GAA match.
@Bluetonic wrote:
I would love to see a photo to back that ridiculous statement up.
buy a ticket and take one yourself? I am quite tall though
@Blisterman wrote:
Can’t be much worse than Stamford Bridge.
This was the view I got when I went to a match there, in a season ticket seat as well.
there’s a similar view behind the posts on the first tier of croke park
@spoil_sport wrote:
I was there, have to say, from my position, it was only obscured if you were standing up. Though, while technically not obscured, I will say that the truss has a huge presence, and fills the rest of your field of view. It seems to be vastly over-structured for the purposes. The truss hangs down in front of you, and what’s worse, cranks in the most awful places, where a curved or at least more faceted profile would have been better. The bird’s nest stadium, ignoring aesthetics +scale, is essentially the same form, but seems to have a much more elegant structural solution (if you look closely, in the midst of all the random diagonals, there is actually a very simple repeating structural configuration) However Landsdown seems to be based on a modified version of Thomond Park, which worked there to architectural effect, moving the trusses above the roofline, and using the arched form effectively, in Landsdown it seems to be a more haphazard collection of bits. Also I really cannot understand, apart from aesthetic effect, what the louvered cladding actually does, it certainly didn’t provide any shelter from the wind when standing on the top tier.
you’ll get a better view on telly. then you only have the match to slag – it is the match you’re going for right?
@reddy wrote:
Yeah yeah , the Irish are always begrudging etc etc. we’ve heard that before a million times on this site whenever somethin is criticised.
The fact is its ridiculous that with the amount of time, skill and above all money invested in this project that every seat doesn’t have a perfect view. No excuses.
Its a massive improvement and an achievement to get it built at all expecially on the same site.
Still doesn’t excuse the feck up of the structure.
it’s actually not uncommon for stadia to have more seats when they open than they’re “supposed” to have. You’ll find that additional seats are squeezed in wherever they can be in an as-built scenario. I think you’ll find that the seats described as having a restricted view are outside the original seating plan.
@PVC King wrote:
Got an e-mail back from the site in question stating that he had never practiced in Dublin; there is a good article in this for a journalist either tracking the guy down to a fairly unsalubrious part of the M25 connurbation or highlighting the risks of bloggers linking a common name with an entirely innocent party.
well, either the person who emailed you is lying or a vary lazy sunday times journo took his info off this site. Half page article on this very topic on page 5 of the Sunday Times news section.
May 31, 2009
Fake architect opens design practice in UK
David Grant, who was exposed by an RTE documentary, claims to have 25 years’ experience in the industry Colin Coyle
David Grant, a businessman who falsely claimed to be an architect and who was exposed by an RTE Television documentary, is now operating an “architecture” practice in England.Grant, who remains the subject of court proceedings with Dublin city council, is running Inspire Design in the East End of London. He is described on the company’s website as having “over 25 years’ experience in architecture, design, property development and planning applications”.
Dublin city council won a judgment against Grant earlier this year in relation to a hostel that he operates at 7-10 Upper Gardiner Street, and is awaiting a final order in relation to the case.
Grant pleaded guilty in 2007 to allowing dangerous buildings on Upper Gardiner Street to be used as a hostel for 170 people, including children. The council sought to have Grant jailed after it emerged that the Georgian building had been turned into a hostel without planning permission or a fire safety certificate.
Grant committed to selling two properties he owned in the city centre to pay for remedial works on the hostel, which still operates today under the name Celtic Inn.
Two years later he is still trying to sell both properties to fund further works at the hostel. He is seeking ¤1.195m for 7 Adelaide Road in Dublin 2, which he also operated as a hostel before it was gutted by fire in 2005. Earlier this month he secured planning consent to convert the fire-damaged building into 12 apartments.
The property’s asking price has been dropped from €2.5m since it first came on the market almost two years ago. Grant is also trying to sell his former Dublin residence, 61 Haddington Road in Ballsbridge, for ¤1.25m, reduced from €1.6m when it first came on the market two years ago.
Grant left Ireland following a Prime Time investigation, which revealed that he set himself up as an architect without formal qualifications. After attracting clients through a series of newspaper advertisements, Grant applied for planning permission for hundreds of infill homes in “corner sites” and side gardens in Dublin.
It later emerged that up to two-thirds of his applications to one council were rejected — three times more than the average. Grant claimed afterwards that his business had been “wiped out” following the broadcast of the documentary.
In 2003 Grant was ordered by a judge to pay a homeless man €250 every month to meet the cost of accommodation after he illegally evicted him from a bedsit in the building at Upper Gardiner Street that he had recently purchased. After removing the epileptic from his accommodation, Grant and construction workers demolished the bedsit.
The businessman was also previously the subject of an exposé by a Scottish newspaper. In the 1990s he operated as a landlord in Glasgow. A number of students lost deposits after Grant “rented” property to them that was already occupied.
On the website of his London business, he claims that he has been “consulted as an expert and written articles” in Irish newspapers. He failed to respond to calls or e-mails last week.
@ac1976 wrote:
From DCC website:
Dublin City Council are delighted to announce a new and exciting selection of outdoor markets in city centre locations the first of which is the Friday market at Smithfield.
Located in an attractive tree lined area close to the Luas line the market offers a fine selection of foods with an international flavour as well as jewellery and beauty products. There is also a seated picnic area.Hours of business: Friday 11.00am-6.00pm
there is also another indoor market on Sundays:
http://www.irishfarmersmarkets.ie/smithfield.htmlI know a lot of people are unemployed these days but I don’t really understand the economic sense of putting on a market between 11am and 6pm on a Friday
with regard to the “irish farmers market” on the sunday, stalls include
Soul Bakery Bread
Cabbage Patch Vegitables (sic)
Speciality Cakes & Breads
Olives & Organic Cheeses,
Nuts and Sweets
Crafts, Paintings, Photographs
Jewellery
Multicultural Foodsfarming’s certainly diversified these days
@GrahamH wrote:
Lovely glossy sheen there alright!
Truly, I want to like the NCC. It is important to feel affection for a public building. I agree with reddy about the striking view from O’Connell Bridge – a view vista is born in the city. Very surprising to see it glinting beneath the Loop Line Bridge!
But so very sadly, this is where the love affair must end. I visited the site over the weekend for the very first time since construction began. Never have I been more sorely disappointed with a piece of architecture. Aside from the drum, which holds obvious – if popular – appeal, the building as a whole is the most spectacularly ugly concoction to land in the city since Robocop on Dame Street. It is so breath-takingly, staggeringly bad in real life as to make one wonder why the Emperor has no clothes. Is nobody else actually seeing this?! Really, get down there and have a look at what is unfolding before our eyes!
A gigantic, immensely arrogant, dusty pink, stone-clad leaden block, topped with swoopy parapets plucked from of the worst Miami beach residential architecture of the 1980s, barely punctuated by random, minimal flush bands of windows employed as postmodernist racing stripes. This host box for the poor unfortunate drum has translated so spectacularly badly from concept into real life (though it must be acknowledged a number of people here did point this out long before now), that it is nothing short of an embarrassment to the city as a supposedly prized civic building. At least Mansfield’s stuff out on the M50 is shameless, even comforting, in its ignorance; the NCC by contrast – which has PPP written all over it – has no such excuse.
I love the drum: obvious but fun and civic-minded, but the rest is well, I really don’t know what else to say…
What would be the icing on the cake now would be a chic 30-storey plus slab block rising out of it! The last thing this yoke needs is further complication. Such a disappointment. Here’s hoping most delegates will arrive along the quay and look up at the imposing projecting barrel – one of its few virtues.
if they’re selling the naming rights Heinz might be interested
RTE news – Monday, 30 March 2009 11:28
The Automobile Association has joined growing opposition to the introduction of a car ban on College Green in Dublin.
The restriction is being sought by city planners as a way of easing congestion and improving bus services.
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey and Energy Minister Eamon Ryan have criticised those city councillors who oppose the bus gate at College Green scheduled to come into effect from July.
AdvertisementHowever, the leader of the Fine Gael group of councillors, Gerry Breen, has predicted it will be rejected, especially as the postponement of Metro North works mean it will not be strictly necessary.
City centre retailers say restrictions on private cars would damage business at a time of economic difficulty.
Now the AA has also come out against the plan.
Spokesman Conor Faughnan, who is a member of the council’s transport committee, said there would not be enough improvement in Dublin Bus services for it to be justified.
The transport committee is due to vote on the plan on 16 April
this has probably been shown before but I’ve been spending the last day before returning to the sinking ship that is architecture by surfing
put dublin into the search box. I would post some great shots here but I’m not sure it would be ok copyright wise
This is a particular old shot:
apparently the chimney of this place is in the oval development?
@ctesiphon wrote:
For what? The 10th anniversary of the original march?
we could march in an ironic fashion
@darkman wrote:
Its original. Im not really interested in this particular project’s merits. I just think its refreshing to see new ideas.
in a first year esquisse kinda way.
as an aside, please please please can “journalists” stop comparing the height of things to liberty hall – drives me round the twist. When did that kip become the measuring stick for all things “tall”
second high profile scheme in a week to overturn the inspector’s report. Makes you wonder why the inspectors bother
@StephenC wrote:
Oh come on ctesiphon! Its a ridiculous choice for such a low order use. And what does it say for all the other grand plans on OC Street if such a promient site cant attract a major retailer.
.major retailers rely strongly on footfall which the habitat site doesn’t really have. What it does have is access to large numbers of soap dodgers who have a lot more use for affordable groceries than they do for 4 pieces of wood tied together with string for €999.99
re the split – is there any reason why the split in habitat was half and half ie could lidl not just have a vertical circualtion zone and then drop immediately to dame street level? – be crap for suffolk street’s frontage but hey ho dat’s progress
Ok we can summarise this as follows:
Hold a competition, appoint a winner, decide you don’t like it after all, have another one, change the brief, ignore the original parameters, accept the general consensus that Hadid’s scheme is the best and appoint a different starchitect who’s fees are being paid by the “client”. oh, and make it 1/3 taller than you were allowed to while you’re at it.
That’s what you want – consistency, competency, fairness and integrity. Rock n roll
@jdivision wrote:
Enjoyed it and Le Corbusier did come across horrendously.
It was sad the way it all worked out for her but don’t forget that, at the time, it wasn’t a particularly feted house and it was sold on to someone else and Corb only painted a few murals on the walls. You could argue that it was in a pique of jealousy or you could argue that he was using an influential client to flog his own wares. It’s a pity he didn’t do it more on his own blandness.
I find all that designing everything down to the doorknobs a bit overwhelming. I did like some of her furniture though – the black and chrome sofa; and the coffee table that converted into a writing desk in particular.
Irish Examiner – Saturday.
Any pictures of this? Who’s the architect?
Work starts on €120m complex of 22 courts
Details of the new 22-courtroom facility to be housed in an “iconic, round†building were announced by the Courts Service yesterday.
All existing criminal courts in the capital will be relocated to the complex in the largest investment in court buildings in the history of the Irish legal system.
The 25,000 sq m round building, which will be located at the corner of Parkgate Street and Infirmary Road, near the Phoenix Park, is being built under a public private partnership at a cost of €120m
It is understood the deal will be worth €290m over the 25-year term of the contract to the successful tender, Babcock and Brown — the Australian investment firm which owns Eircom.
The Courts Service said the new complex was designed to improve security, privacy and comfort for all users of criminal courts.
Legal professionals, gardaà and prison officers had increasingly been expressing concern in recent years about security levels at the Four Courts building, where most high-profile criminal cases for murder, rape, robbery and drugs offences are heard.
A number of cases involving dangerous criminals have been transferred in the past 12 months to the more secure surroundings at Cloverhill Court, after efforts were made to intimidate witnesses and jury members.
The new facility will house sittings of the Court of Criminal Appeal, the Special Criminal Court, the Central Criminal Court as well as criminal cases at circuit and district courts.
The transfer of criminal courts to a new section of what has been dubbed Dublin’s Legal Quarter will also facilitate the creation of extra courtrooms at the existing Four Courts building for civil matters.
The Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray said the new complex would be “the first State building of such monumental proportions to be built since 1922.
Speaking at a ceremony attended by Justice Minister, Michael McDowell, the Chief Justice said the design of the building would enable judges to improve case-management and speed up the listing of trials.
Courts Service spokesperson, Brendan Ryan said a major need for a dedicated criminal court complex had emerged in recent years.
@ctesiphon wrote:
Care to elaborate, wearnicehats? For example, are you referring to the ‘reverse graffiti’, to graffiti on hoardings, to graffiti on stonework, or to all of the above?
Vandalism, pure vandalism? I can’t agree. It’s far too nuanced to be dismissed so simplistically.
…
I don’t see any nuance in painting pictures on things that don’t belong to you. I recently completed a building with a very expensive stone cladding. The day after pc some local “artist” had added a very nice moniker to it – something that cost a great deal of unnecessary money to remove. If they had sprayed on some stencil art, should I have been ecstatic? perhaps the client should have put it in his marketing brochure to show how public spirited he is. Vandalism is the deliberately mischievous or malicious destruction or damage of property. It’s against the law. It causes distress and unnecessary expense to ordinary people. You can dress it up with any poncy name you like. Perhaps I should get away with drunk driving because I drive a funky car or was drinking a particularly trendy drink at the time. Perhaps burglars should be ignored provided they rearrange people’s furniture in an avante garde manner before they flee. You can’t stop people doing it but don’t try to condone it as some kind of new movement. Tell you what – why don’t all the supporters of it open up their houses – allow the lads to spray away to their hearts content on your gable wall.
