Colossal buildings on Smithfield's west side upset the design balance of the area, says Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

Smithfield was meant to be Dublin's version of Piazza Navona in Rome. At one stage, it was even being trumpeted as the city's "major space for the 21st century". But that's not how it is turning out. The place is far from finished, and what's been built there does not give it any coherence in urban design terms.

The scale of Smithfield now ranges from three-storey, brown-brick 1980s social housing at its north-eastern end to the eight-storey bulk of the Fusano Properties scheme along the west side. With its squat 13-storey tower, this colossus has even visually consumed the 12 giant lighting masts that put Smithfield on the map.

Fusano - a consortium led by property developers Paddy Kelly, Joe Linders and John Flynn - bought the 2.6-acre Duffy's scrapyard site for £8 million (€10 million) in 1998 and later acquired a further parcel of 1.3 acres that included the old Smithfield Market. Permission was then sought for a massive mixed-use development.

Designed by architects Horan Keogan Ryan (HKR), its centrepiece was to be a 23-storey residential tower with a plaza in front. The "rather monolithic" block, as partner-in-charge Jerry Ryan explained, was to be broken up by new lanes linking Smithfield with Queen Street, including a curved street, later named Thundercut Alley.

Although HKR argued that the tower was a modern interpretation of the campanile so characteristic of Italian piazzas, An Bord Pleanála ordered that it should be omitted "to respect the visual prominence of the former Jameson Distillery chimney" (directly opposite Fusano's site), to which an observation deck had been added.

The tower was reduced to 13 storeys, but otherwise retains roughly the same dimensions and elevational treatment, including super-sized windows. Its squat form, capped by an overhanging pre-patinated copper roof, is oddly redolent of those churches in the city with unfinished spires, such as St Catherine's, on Thomas Street.

The plaza in front, which was obviously designed to offset a much taller structure, was retained - another odd feature, with little obvious purpose, since it is an open space off a much larger public piazza. So far at any rate, the retail units at ground-floor level are vacant, so there is nothing to enliven the area either during the day or at night.

From the outset, the developers pledged that the anchor of the entire scheme would be a new cultural facility, occupying 6,000sq m (64,580sq ft) of space. There was talk of a children's museum and a flexible theatre and even of the prospect of re-establishing the Lighthouse cinema on the site, but these ideas never materialised.

At one state, the possibility of reversing Senator Donie Cassidy's wax museum into the cultural space was mooted, but this received a frosty reception from Dublin City Council's planners. Now, some of it is to be converted for the council's motor tax office and the rest is being marketed as the "Smithfield Cultural and Conference Centre".

The failure to deliver a major cultural attraction in Smithfield Market (as the scheme is called) must be measured against the fact that this has been one of the most profitable developments in Dublin's inner city; the first tranche of 220 apartments were all sold off the plans within seven hours in September 2002, generating a total of €120 million.

One-bedroom units sold for between €320,000 and €410,000, two-beds went for €400,000 to €550,000 while three-beds fetched €500,000 to €750,000. By June 2004, the starting price for one-beds had risen to €360,000, with corresponding increases to €445,000 for two-beds, €525,000 for three-beds and €775,000 for penthouses.

Altogether, there are 480 apartments in the completed scheme. In fairness, most of them are larger than average, with minimum floor areas for one-beds of 46sq m (495sq ft), two-beds 70sq m (753sq ft) and three-beds 86sq m (925sq ft). Most apartments have balconies while the penthouses have generous terraces.

Communal areas are attractively landscaped, to a design by Mitchell and Associates, and the entire development has been very well built by Crampton's.

Extensive use was made of pre-fabricated units, which are interspersed with brick fronts to create more varied elevations to Smithfield, Haymarket, Queen Street and North King Street.

The scheme includes two office blocks, a newly-opened 78-bedroom Comfort Inn, a supermarket called Fresh and replacement flats for retired soldiers whose original home on Queen Street had to be demolished to make way for it.

However, the cafés, bars and restaurants that were meant to be part of it are nowhere to be seen. The promoters had promised residents "an entire lifestyle on your doorstep, extended by the possibilities of the city and beyond". There was to be an eclectic mix of restaurants and stylish bars - "a unique mix of offerings, ranging from food to culture to entertainment and leisure in a family-friendly development", according to Paddy Kelly.

In November 2003, his son Chris said: "We are hoping it will emulate the New York example where everything - from your launderette, hairdresser and your masseuse - is only a block away, and that people will live, work and socialise within the same area". On another occasion, London's Covent Garden was cited as the urban model.

However, just like Docklands, there has been a time-lag in Smithfield between the arrival of new residents and the provision of local amenities.

Last year, a 2,650sq m (28,520sq ft) unit in Smithfield Market was leased to Blue Ribbon Health and Fitness Club; its facilities were to include a 20-metre swimming pool, gym, spa and juice bar.

Incredibly, the lower end of Smithfield - through which Luas runs - remains unfinished six years after the rest of it was re-paved in an award-winning scheme by McGarry Ní Éanaigh Architects. It also has a redundant stone-clad structure, which served briefly as a plug-in point for open-air concerts.

The only real entertainment available in the area is the annual Christmas ice rink or the seriously indigenous and pre-existing horse fair, still being held on the first Sunday of every month.

Otherwise, the plaza attracts an assortment of winos, or juvenile offenders on their way to the Children's Court, handcuffed to prison warders.

But the real problem with Smithfield is the enormous contrast in scale between one side and the other. The east side was conceived in the early-1990s at a more modest level and even had one floor lopped off by the planners, whereas the west side is a swaggering product of the Celtic Tiger era and at least two storeys higher than it should be.

The gas braziers atop the 24m (80ft) lighting masts are lit now only on rare occasions, having served their purpose of attracting development to the area.

Arguably, they should be taken down or perhaps even relocated to the east side of the plaza, to offset the gargantuan scale of Fusano's contribution to urban design in Dublin.