PLAN FOR 'MINI-MANHATTAN' IN DUBLIN'S LIBERTIES

Frank McDonald, Environment Editor


Planning permission is being sought from Dublin City Council for two of the tallest buildings yet proposed anywhere in Ireland - and both of them would be even higher than the Spire in O'Connell Street.

The two glazed towers are the key elements of a Digital Hub scheme by Manor Park Homes (MPH) for a 2.5-acre site on Thomas Street in the Liberties, between St Catherine's church and the Guinness Hop Store.

Designed by award-winning architects deBlacam and Meagher, the tallest of the towers would be 171 metres (564ft) high, making it nearly three times the height of Liberty Hall - the city's tallest building.

With a helicopter pad at roof level, the proposed tower would rise 47 storeys from a podium, which in itself would be four storeys high. It would contain a 360-bedroom hotel, with 80 serviced apartments on upper floors.

The second tower in this "mini-Manhattan" project would be 124 metres (409ft) high - three metres taller than the Spire - and would contain 33 floors of offices designed to accommodate digital technology companies.

The podium on which the towers would stand is envisaged as a lively space, animated by having creches, bars and restaurants opening onto it. Its centrepiece would be a circular landscaped area, with walkways.

On the Thomas Street frontage, a series of five eight-storey blocks would be inserted between protected historic buildings. Their design echoes deBlacam and Meagher's award-winning Wooden Building in the west end of Temple Bar.

A stone staircase, six metres wide, would lead up from the street to the podium level. Beneath the podium, a brick-vaulted gallery - 140 metres long - would extend right through the site, and would be lined with food courts and other retail outlets.

According to Shane deBlacam, the scheme was inspired by Aurora Place in Sydney, Australia, which was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. It also consists of two tall towers and "lifts everything else in the city around it", he said.

"There's no reason why Dublin shouldn't have a skyline like that, with slender towers sticking up to great heights. The history of architecture is about putting buildings on a hill" - a reference to the fact that Thomas Street is on a ridge.

Asked why they had departed so radically from the relatively modest heights envisaged in the Digital Hub master plan, Mr deBlacam said its densities were "at the lower end of what Dublin could take" and this was about "real regeneration".

MPH's planning consultant, Stephen Little, said there was a "tradition" of tall buildings in the Liberties, citing the nine-storey Guinness Storehouse as a precedent. The Digital Hub was also part of a strategy of moving the city centre westwards.

Alan Sherwood of TDI Consultants, who have been advising on the scheme, said it had been tailored to the needs of firms employing up to 20 people who wanted offices with small floorplates in buildings with "soul".

On the central issue of its soaring heights, John Moran - MPH's development director - pointed out that the city council's planners had granted permission for a 12-storey tower in nearby School Street, "so we're not the ones who broke the glass".

© The Irish Times



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Awww.

Good one Ireland... looking bloody huge! lol..

Decent...

Wow, great news for my homeland! ...well, one of my homelands anyway :)

From that second picture it makes the tower seem massive!!

:cheers:

Looks like Dublin will get a tall 500ft+ tower before crummy backward-looking Birmingham now (I read that "Building" magazine article in May about the city blowing its chances to compete for its "Premier League City" status and found it a most depressing article). At this rate every smaller city in the UK and Ireland (Leicester, Nottingham, Hull, Southampton, Reading, etc) will have proposals for tall towers that will be more than 160m high! ;)

Wow, this would be great for Dublin! I hope it goes ahead!

i dont think Ireland is quite ready for such a tall building yet. It's like putting a mile high building in London.

Exactly the same height as Beetham Manc.... Spoooky

Yes except this one seems to be 171m roof height and not just to a glass sail

The tallest tower looks like a little like 225 South Sixth in Minneapolis, esp the crown:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/225_South_Sixth

i dont think Ireland is quite ready for such a tall building yet. It's like putting a mile high building in London.
It's about as likely to be built as a mile high in London aswell.
Unless the design is absolutely spectacular then I say don't build it, otherwise the public will hate it and reinforce their hatred for tall buildings. The way most people (that I know anyway) think is that Ireland shouldn't be "polluted" by these international monstrosities.
The good thing though is that the developer has some balls to propose this and hopefully this will encourage other developers to propose buildings with more daring designs rather than the blandness that exists now

this is a start but i doubt it will be realised, at least in this form. to get so far through the plannign process with something so tall requires great design. this would look totally out of place in dublin and the design just isnt good enough for it to be a landmark project by itself.

It looks like a good design

But i don't like its location, it looks almost too central.......i think tall buildings in Dublin would be best placed in the Docklands

what is this going to do for dublin?

Exactly the same height as Beetham Manc.... Spoooky

Great news for Ireland

171m is also the roof height of the Ian Simpson designed La Lumiere tower in Leeds as well. What's with the fixation for 171m towers? More than coincidence, perhaps 171m is the current height where economies of scale are maximised for residential towers. Any higher, costs rise with complexity, lower, the costs are greater per square footage?

Actually after reading I've lowered my estimates from 0.5% to 0.1% of this getting built. That's because it's not even in a zone designated for highrises.

The Irish context shows just how little skyscrapers have to do with modernisation or development as Ireland has just been through one of the most dramatic economic transformations in history without building any.

except that since 99 dublin has built its second and third tallest and has the fourth tallest under construction and then there's the dublin spire. you were saying phillip?

BTW, if there's anywhere screaming for some height it's the docklands. Look at this pic:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v219/Dublin1/Dublin%20Archiseek/SouthDocklands1.jpg

except that since 99 dublin has built its second and third tallest and has the fourth tallest under construction and then there's the dublin spire. you were saying phillip?


Hardly skyscrapers though are they??.....i don't know the details, but i can guess they are mabey 13/14 storeys at most. And they are of very little importance to the overall economy of Ireland.....unlike the skyscrapers in The City and Canary Wharf.

And the Spire is very uninSPIREing (;) ) and does nothing for O'Connell Street......it looks like a lamp post.

skyscrapers are a relative term. in the irish context they are skyscrapers. urban development is of primary importance to the riish economy and one reason it is so successful. guess where ballymore are from?

Never thought this result would happen :|

Digital Hub planning app (http://www.dublincity.ie/swiftlg/apas/run/WPHAPPDETAIL.DisplayUrl?theApnID=4035/06&theTabNo=2&backURL=<a%20href=wphappcriteria.display?paSearchKey=274181>Search%20Criteria</a>%20>%20<a%20href='wphappsearchres.displayResultsURL?ResultID=355638%26StartIndex=1%26SortOrder=APNID:asc%26DispResultsAs=WPHAPPSEARCHRES%26BackURL=<a%20href=wphappcriteria.display?paSearchKey=274181>Search%20Criteria</a>'>Search%20Results</a>)


Why did the developer even bother proposing this in the first place, to rock the boat? Well, it didn't shake it in the slightest bit.

actually guys, im looking at updating the dublin section of skyscrapernews. its getting a bit out of date again... what projects are missing. actually there's this but i dunno what it is -
http://www.archiseek.com/content/attachment.php?attachmentid=2456&stc=1&d=1151951926

i see the players square tower has been reduced to 11 floors, anyone got any info on that?
http://www.skyscrapernews.com/buildings.php?id=1339

there's also a 12 storey at dolphins barn... and so on. what's missing these days?

I think that's the tallest building in P. Elliott's part of the Digital Hub; the first I heard of it was in the planning application for Manor Park's part - see the elevations you can download in the documents section.