Will Dubliners end up living in city centre tower blocks over 25 storeys high? Emma Cullinan reports.
The pressure is on for Dublin to embrace high-rise buildings.
A 32-storey tower near Heuston station, designed by Paul Keogh Architects, was recently granted planning permission. Meanwhile Candourity Ltd, a subsidiary of Treasury Holdings, has lodged a planning application for a tower of equal height on Barrow Street, Dublin 4, overlooking Grand Canal Dock. This has been designed by Anthony Reddy and Associates.
Nearby, the owner of the Bolands Mills complex, Sean Kelly, is expected to seek permission for yet another tall building. Along the river, the U2 tower is in for detailed planning permission; a 27-storey tower on the South Circular Road, designed by Gerry Cahill, is also in for planning; while a consortium headed by Denis O'Brien is appealing planning refusal for its 26-storey building in Donnybrook, designed by de Blacam and Meagher. There are also plans for towers at Tara Street Station, Britain Quay and Sir John Rogerson's quay.
Traditionally, towers have marked the power bases. The maestros of San Gimignano in Tuscany, Italy clustered an amazing number of towers onto the small hilltop village, all trying to build higher then their neighbour to show who was the mightiest. A true "mine's bigger than yours" scenario. Church spires, too, have indicated where the power lies in the city, then it was over to the financial institutions and now, it seems, the power of Ireland's residential property market is finding expression in high apartment buildings.
It's no coincidence that tall buildings have been proposed on the site near Heuston station and Barrow Street, as these places have been earmarked in several different documents relating to high-rise buildings in the capital. The Dublin Docklands 2003 draft master plan highlighted the Grand Canal Station and confluence of the rivers Dodder and Liffey as suitable for a landmark building (as well as the area around The Point). The Heuston area was suggested in a 2000 report by London-based consultants DEGW on high buildings which concluded that Dublin should remain as a reasonably low to medium rise city.
Tall buildings (more than 50m high) should be the exception and could be positioned in transport hubs, such as Heuston as well as Spencer Dock and the south docks, where clusters of higher rise buildings could be situated without compromising the inner city skyline.
DEGW's John Worthington, author of Managing Intensification and Change - A Strategy for Dublin Building Height, made a number of points about high rise cities which appear to have been taken on board by the powers that be. "High rise" and "tall buildings" are relative terms, he says. "In a city quarter of predominantly one or two-storey buildings, those of three to five floors could be considered of significant height." DEGW identified four key heights: low-rise (up to five floors or 15 metres); mid rise "groundscrapers" (up to 15 floors or 50 metres); high-rise "skyscrapers" (up to 40 floors or 150 metres) and super high-rise (above 150 metres).
Worthington's contention is that high-rise buildings have a role to play in intensifying and signposting cities. "Used sparingly, they can become landmarks to navigate an increasingly complex urban landscape and provide spectacular views both for those who live in and visit the city, and those who actually inhabit them."
"I wasn't a supporter of the Spire but now that it's there it does mark the centre of the city," says Dublin City councillor Kevin Humphreys (Labour). "So areas can be defined by landmark development. Such a building at The Point, for instance, would draw the eye down the Liffey telling people where a shopping and recreation area is, as well as marking the gateway to Dublin for those arriving by boat."
The notion of having some high-rise buildings, as signposts and gateways (such as the one at Heuston marking the entrance to the city of Dublin from the west), seems to have become the accepted idea - it turns up in the docklands master plan, for instance. Yet there is a history in architecture and planning of ideas becoming accepted, with everyone paying lip service to them, and yet ignoring them in practise. It's a case of everyone singing from the same hymn sheet yet with a few distinctly out of tune.
The authorities seem to agree that the addition of towers to a historical city such as Dublin needs careful planning, yet will that happen in practice? This planning needs to take in the city as a whole. While tall buildings will help to house a fair number of people, these alone can't solve the housing needs of our growing population.
While such apartments can accommodate a few hundred people, the population of Dublin is set to reach 1.8 million by 2011.
To meet their housing needs requires higher densities of building in the urban fabric, both in the centre of Dublin but also on the outer reaches where there can be as few as six dwellings per acre. The question for a city facing the prospect of tall towers is "who is responsible for them?" Will it be down to developers to propose certain schemes or authorities to plan carefully and choose who will design the buildings?
"Today, we are learning the need for a clear vision that can be delivered incrementally," says Worthington. "A vision with humility and recognition that local communities need time to assimilate change, whilst developers are looking for speedy outcomes. We would advocate a planning policy that recognises the need for a clear long-term vision, a firm planning framework, tempered by appropriateness."
As well as planning where high buildings will go, it also makes sense for such prominent buildings to be well designed. Once it's been decided to opt for a tall building on a site, it can often be the case that "the taller, the better". Shorter, fatter buildings can look ungainly while slender towers with a small footprint will be less likely to overshadow neighbouring areas, or deprive them of sun: both requirements highlighted in the docklands master plan. However, such slender towers are more expensive to build.
Humpreys favours architectural competitions for such buildings, something raised in the Dublin Docklands Development Authority master plan. The U2 tower, a new pedestrian bridge and the Clarion Quay apartments designed by Urban Projects, a consortium of architects comprising Gerry Cahill Architects, Derek Tynan and McGarry Ni Eanaigh, were all competition winners, and it would be good to see other high-rise buildings procured this way.
"We have a legacy to protect," says Humphreys, citing Trinity and Merrion Square as examples. "Some of Dublin's existing apartments are pretty cheap looking.
"The view out may be fascinating but those on the outside have to look at these buildings. We need to plan how our city will look in 20 years' time. We don't want our grandchildren asking us how we let it get into such a mess."
