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Was interesting to see the internal shots of this – a friend lives across the street and I walked past Cambridge House, several times a week for years, and it always intrigued me.

Did it sell?

Any further thoughts on the painting location Gunter

Its just the entrance to the RAC garage as far as I know; only bicycle lanes of 20m in length get a name!!!

Dawson Street will not blossom until Luas gets done; its like a dark cloud hanging over the retail environment given the RPA’s track record delivering phase 1 – with particular reference to contractor management. EIB stimulus will certainly form part of the landscape in the next 12-60 months; the dot joining process up to Broombridge must form part of this.

Starting at Dawson Street there is a real opportunity to follow the Luas Route through to the top of O’Connell Street as a leisure focussed retail lung with Luas and Bicycle access only; no confusing people with Luas down Marlborough Street; Route 1 is the only gig here.

As for 37 – Gaucho Grill pulled a lease on this stretch; no doubt the superior FXB are relieved that their trade will not cannabilised…

I see the operational rationale of having maternity, childrens and adults hospitals together if that is possible. I am not familier with a simlar tri-location in any traditional City Centre location elsewhere but it may be a good opportunity to set the bar far higher.

What I do not see a rationale in is the creation of 1,400 car spaces at a ‘City Centre Location’

What I would like to see happen

1. A design emerge that has no more than 400 additional car spaces; all of which would be a sub-basement level and for which a lease would be offered to the private sector or NPRF so that income streams could assist meet interest costs on the wider project.

2. A park and ride facilty arrangement somewhere on the M50 intersecting with a future Luas line (served by bus in the interim) for routine appointments where people from outside the GDA can locate easily; clearly wandering around Hardwicke Street looking for parking ain’t ideal.

2. A building envelope that respects its context and is of a decent architectural quality.

3. Fierce lobbying to get the Luas lines to Ballymun (and beyond) as well as IE commuter serves at Broombridge way up the agenda to ensure that sustainable commuting is available for its workforce.

There is a great opportunity to deliver a centre of excellence in healthcare; there is a further incentive to build a highly labour intensive building by people many of whom are far too over qualified to build anything comparable in this climate.

Please do not mess the next application up; get your ducks lined up and shoot to score to a converted crowd.

@cheezypuf wrote:

The interior looks bright, modern and clean – everything you don’t want in a library :). Shame the furniture looks so cheap. Did they run out of money. Some more books would have been nice too. It feels like a combination between a waiting room and an Internet cafe.

Not convinced it is too bright; many libraries are quite bright; the exterior scrubbed up really well;

From an ecomic perspective the NBA made perfect sense when private practices were quoting super crazy prices to politely disuade instructions to ensure their staff got roughly 4 hours each evening to go home to eat, shower and sleep.

Clearly the private sector is a lot leaner, hungrier and under utilised than it was 5 years ago. The NBA should be privatised and shouold have to compete with that part of the tax base that paid for its inception but is now crippled by its very existence. One would hope to see far more Fumbally Lane type collectives springing up to win this type of work. Unlike white elephant Metro’s building and or renovating dilapidated schools and health centres is highly labour intensive at every stage of the process from survey to design to construct to snag and the skills are out there and on the construction side already costing the government money…..

Let the dail architect lead the way on this….

@wearnicehats wrote:

Peter – people buy what they can afford. If they aspire to extend then good on them. Nothing wrong with an extension – without them the AAI would have no awards to give out.

Extending or aspiring to extend your home is not the issue, how you could take that from my original comment is bizarre.

My simple point was that I do not understand the logic of buying a period residence, only to completely gut the interior, and further, I don’t think home owners should be allowed to entirely erase the inside of a period dwelling unless the place has been officially condemned as beyond saving.

If it has been condemned, replica’s should obviously be true to the original, and whatever can be saved, like perfectly sound shutter boxes, should be.

The decision to flatten the place in this instance seemed to be hatched between the builder & QS on the basis that it was quicker, cheaper, sure it’s tiny, and now we’ll have a free run through with the wheelbarra.

DB arrived back after a week to see the result, claiming he should have been informed, and he should in fairness.

You’d like to think however, that the value of the existing structure should be the basis for architect/client discussion from the outset, obviously it wasn’t & Dermot didn’t seem to be long getting over the shock of the demolition either.

@wearnicehats wrote:

But don’t be so arrogant to think that someone who has bought a house can’t knock the arse out of the back of it.

The arse was knocked out of the entire house, that is the issue. Home owners have every right to extend from the rear, but with this type of residence, at least make an effort to work with what you have.

There was an article in property week last week confirming they will open but didn’t confirm a date; they know it will do very well based on their enormous concession sales in department stores. As it is a pure destination they could open on Killarney Street and people would travel, it will I suspect act as the catalyst to transform, the non-pedestrianised section of Grafton Street.

Love the stair case …