BTH

Strangely the mirrored glass on Riverpoint works really well because it’s all the one thing (plus the form is really quite beautiful) – the mariott has so much going on in it’s facades that the mirrored glass really jumps out at you which I think looks a bit tacky. Plus it has that pretty nasty roofscape that really shouldn’t have been mirrored as well. It just draws attention right up there above the quite elegant parapet line.
On the Sarsfield Bridge Hotel – I presume it’s a late 80’s early 90’s structure and thus very much of it’s time in terms of ambition. It’s most certainly not the worst building of this era around, at least there appears to be some attempt at proportion to the opes! Just look at the crap to the right of it for really low quality architecture.

I’m not for a moment getting into the quality debate but my word – the Mariott looks like something thrown up in the early 80s in that pic… all that mirrored glass, very Dallas (as in the tv show – tacky!!)… i know it’s a bit better in the flesh but thats a particularly awful angle – especially with the lovely solidity of the warehouse in the foreground…

Gunter, in many ways I agree with you – the site is absolutely ripe for being opened up and made permeable. The glass roofed concept could, in the right hands, be marvellous – in fact that is the one element that dosen’t hurt my eyes when i look at the model and renderings! (How they are going to get glass to span such enormous areas between supports is another story entirely – EFTE cushions? They can look ok but never as elegant as clear glass.

We already have a pretty good example of exactly the type of development this site needs up in Belfast. Victoria Square, as covered on other threads, is pretty successful – the glass roof is spectacular, the way it knits into the fabric of the city centre is exemplary and almost effortless seeming and although I find some of the slightly more po-mo pastiche elements a bit over the top (and the dome is so over the top its coming down the other side!) I find it an enjoyable place to be, really feeling like a piece of city rather than an open ended mall. They drop you into a lower level at each of the three entry points but it’s handled as a grand, urban stair the full width of the street rather than a bitty collection of escalators. it’s worth a look as it’s as good a precedent as you’ll find for the challenge of the site in question.

So really its not the concept that I disagree with at all, I just know that such a concept can and should be executed with much more skill and grace than what we are being presented with here. And really, even though the absolute basic concept of this proposal is welcome it wouldn’t stop me from dumping the entire thing in the bin and starting over again. Instead of having the public spaces and main circulation at the extremities, have it in the middle. Instead of placing a landmark (and useless) tower where it has the most possible negative impact on existing streetscapes, place it at the core of the site where it becomes a destination and focal point. Draw people into the site, make it subtle, create drama, an experience, something to discover rather than something that screams it’s presence from every approach. The power of moving through spaces which first contract then expand, creating a sense of relief is tried and tested and could work well here, narrow openings in O’Connell and Henry St, even archways through existing buildings which can widen into a proper, sheltered haven mid block. Instead here the new streets start huge then narrow down as they get to their junction point – the effect of which will clearly mean that as soon as people get into the core of the development they will feel like they are being spat out again.

Most importantly instead of a bizarre hybrid of boring glass box / ugly sub deconstructivist wallpaper plastered over every available facade, how about actually designing some buildings to sit in these new streets and spaces? They can be exciting, contemporary, they can relate to each other, they can be linked together and accommodate the sky-ways and balconies. But variety is what will make this scheme work, not the language of the shopping mall where all you do is create a frame for shopfronts to fit into. This site is providing an opportunity to create something of real urban quality, where the bottom line should not be maximizing retail space. There is a chance to create a proper piece of city here not just a glorified mall. I hope the officials of Dublin see sense (despite whatever vested interests that they may have) and demand something of much higher quality than what we have been presented with.

Anyway, Im getting too into all this, I should be worrying about my own bloody projects!

@cubix wrote:

This gets the thumbs up from me,its taken 11 years for this to sorted and to hear people talk about alternatives and more analysis just amazes me.Can we have just one development in dublin city centre thats a little bit different/exciting without people whinging.

As one of the people “whinging” about this proposal I have to ask, are you really prepared to let any old sh*te be thrown up on this site just so that something/anything happens? What you may see as being “different/exciting” I and others see as being poor design, poor urbanism and being just plain wrong for the location, hell wrong for any location with some of those revolting elevations… I’d rather see nothing happen for a while, perhaps the scheme going to an international competition (as it should have in the first place for such a major element in Dublin city centre) than to end up with what I see as a 2008 equivalent of the monstrous St. James’ Centre in Edinburgh. Just my opinion but having finally got a look at the scheme application and model properly I feel very very strongly negatively towards it.

I just wrote an absolute rant about the above images provided by Gunter but decided to delete and just leave it at this for fear of sounding like a lunatic! This proposal is monstrous in just about every way it could be. The renders and model display some of the most obscenely tacky and inappropriate design I’ve seen. I’m no traditionalist, I love modern, innovative architecture but this is as far from that as can be. How can anyone think that this would be a good thing for Dublin?

@Peter FitzPatrick wrote:

So another slating based on what we have so far ? hang on there bth, we always knew there would be a street through from O’Connell to Moore & Henry Streets, so the opening is wider than envisaged, its hardly an earth shattering development.

I’ve seen enough to be personally repulsed. A street is obviously required to open into the new development but how come Henry St. the second busiest commercial thouroughfare in Ireland, can make do with a standard 8-10m opening in the line of O’Connell St? In a quest for a “grand” entrance this proposal deems it necessary to open a gaping hole in the streetscape that will destroy any sense of enclosure that Upper O’Connell St. currently has whilst unnecessarally destroying perfectly decent buildings and shifting around facades like pieces of stage scenery. I repeat. Insanity.

Oh that’s so disappointing – I had really high hopes for this Mateus building but clearly it’s been cost engineered almost beyond recognition. The penthouse floor is revolting and the lack of deep reveals completely destroys what could have been a very strong, sculpted facade. Now the ground floor just looks almost tacked on and gimmicky since everything else has become so standardized. I wonder have the plans been brought back to the standard hotel bedroom layout as well, or will the ground floor rooms still have their crazy sculpted ceilings. I wouldnt be surprised if a bog standard fit out were just slotted in now since they seem to have had no problem completely destroying the design concept of the exterior…

Just to clarify, neither of us were talking about removing the external gable that can be seen in the large image I posted above. I realize reading back that it sounds like I was justifying shearing the whole top off the front block!! Rather it’s the three blank ends to the old sheds that will be stranded amid all that glazing that I could happily lose. They can be seen in the shot from across the river above. Personally I think they look ridiculous, tokenistic and take away from the elegance of the front facade when seen from across the river.
And for your information Johnglas, I’m VERY historically sensitive. 😉 I just also happen to have strong opinions as to what is worth retaining and how to balance conservation with an end result that will be visually harmonious. In this case taking away the gables would just be tinkering – it’s going to be a fancy glassy lump with a nice old facade wrapping around two sides and nothing more exciting anyway.

On a more positive note, great to see that big things CAN be built quickly in this country.

Nuns Island / Cathedral carpark

Here’s a few pics of the area we’re discussing –
1: Looking towards Nuns Island from Cathedral carpark – NUIG Engineering Department and County Library visible

2: Back through carpark to uninspiring “backside” of Cathedral

3: From Nuns Island towards Cathedral – reasonably elegant 1960s engineering building on right

4: Nuns Island with Bish school on left and old Bish on right.

It’s a very interesting area – lots of potential.

CologneMike,
Not sure if you mean the little vernacular building on the corner in front of the newbuild in the image you’ve reproduced – It’s actually part of the scheme and houses the box office and admin for the Cinema. From the plans it looks like you can enter the scheme from either the main road side (up the ramp) or through the old carriage arch into a tiny courtyard between old and new where there’s a choice of entering directly to the cinema foyer or up an external staircase directly into the bar area (charmingly named “sitting room” in the plans!). One unfortunate element of the scheme is that the big picture window overlooking the main road at first floor levels just misses catching a view between the city museum and the buildings across the road towards the Claddagh – instead it’ll be staring directly at a particularly nasty apartment block.

The new office builfing is fairly suited to its location as Merchant’s Road is all large scale office blocks creating a bit of a canyon of a street. I really do think that the ground floor and basement (if there is one) would be a great spot for a bar/venue that might compliment the emerging cultural quarter. It’s down as retail in the plans but i can’t really imagine people coming to shop here so far from the main core of Shop St / High St. As for it being glass fronted johnglas, not sure how familiar you are with Galway but the fact that it’s not some lumpen, punched-windowed post modern nightmare comes as a bit of a relief! Some decent quality well executed corporate style design wouldnt do this particular location any harm at all!

To be honest I wouldnt be too worried about anything detracting from the Cathedral in Galway, it’s already enough of a monstrosity! I do however think that whatever goes on the Fisheries Field should be a little lower key and be more connected to it’s site than an “object” iconic building. Nuns Island is the great forgotten area of Galway. its got lovely character in places but some utterly revolting new developments either in planning or completed. Its an exciting area, a lot of sites are either about to be released or are coming up for decision on. The Bish school wish to move out of town, the NUIG engineering school is relocating from it’s agglomeration of old industrial buildings to the main campus, the cathedral carpark has huge potential. The whole area could be transformed with a bit of forward thinking – my personal vision would be to make it the cultural core of the city (somewhat at odds with what’s happening at Flood St), to create better linkage back to the Shop St area via a footbridge and thus create a whole new route from shop st, via nun’s island to the cathedral, university and on to the hospital. Sort of an “institutional spine”. It’s the thing about Galway that sometimes frustrates me – so much potential, so little vision…