Time to rethink the Croppies Acre Park

It’s a tale of two cities.

Actually, the Croppies’ Acre Park and St. Stephen’s Green might as well exist in parallel universes.

During the recent hot spell Stephen’s Green was packed out with people enjoying the sun in a well-maintained and manicured park. Across the River Liffey, beside Collins Barracks the Croppies’ Acre Park was empty, bar a few adventurous city dwellers that had ignored the padlocked gates and hopped over the wall to sit on the grass and enjoy the sunshine. Oddly enough, both parks are managed by the Office of Public Works (OPW). Stephen’s Green is doing fine, but the Croppies’ Acre could do with, well, a little love. 

How did this happen? The OPW blames anti-social behaviour for their decision to close the park. I suspect the problem runs deeper than this. The Croppies’ Acre Park was poorly designed and has been badly managed. It has often run into controversy. Back in 1997 the National Museum wanted to provide a car park for visitors to Collins Barracks, and targeted the park for coach parking. Thankfully the National Graves Association (NGA) and others lobbied hard to stop this from happening. The future of the park seemed safe, but was it? The sculpture that commemorates the Croppy Boys dominates a large section of the Park, and has sterilised much of it. It consists of a stone spiral and flat slabs arranged in a geometric pattern on the grass nearby. The rest of the park has some trees and planting, but has always had been underused and poorly accessible. Even when the park was open to the public, there were only two entrances, close to the Eastern boundary. Along the Luas line a wall restricts access and visibility of the park itself. Tourists walking towards the city centre from Heuston railway station are mystified as to why there’s no entrance to the Park close to one of Ireland’s busiest train stations. The ground may well be ‘sacred’ as Matt Doyle of the NGA described it, but it should be reopened and provide more activities for Dubliners and visitors alike.

Over the years there have been proposals to increase activity in the Park, such as the imaginative proposal by architects Douglas Carson and Rosaleen Crushell  to provide some  5-a-side football pitches, but this was vetoed by the OPW's with their spokesperson Neil Ryan stating that it would be inappropriate, given the site's history as a mass grave. This was a bad call. Parks need activity, and football and monuments can happily co-exist in a park this size. Lots of families and dog-walkers use the small park nearby on Arbour Hill where the 1916 leaders are buried, so why shouldn't the Croppies Acre Park be more accessible and used by the general public? It's almost two hectares or five hectares in size, and thousands of people live nearby. It's also quite a walk, more than eight hundred metres or half a mile  from the Croppies' Acre gate to the nearest patch of grass in the Phoenix Park. For much of the twentieth century the Park was used for football. I'd imagine Wolf Tone's brother Matthew whose remains are said to buried in the Croppies' Acre would have welcomed a bit more activity.

Much of the OPW’s presence in the park over the last few years consisted of a security guard based in a graffiti-covered container who took it on himself to roar at kids who (naturally enough) walked along the parapet of the park wall. Meanwhile (and despite the OPW presence) a certain amount of rough sleeping, drug-taking and street drinking established itself in the Park. At the time of writing in June 2013 we have the worst of both worlds: a park that has been locked by the OPW, plus the anti-social behaviour.

Urban parks are a crucial part of what makes cities tick. They’re central to making urban settlements livable, and fun. They attract families and provide an outdoor space for those who live in small apartments. If we can’t get parks working well, we’re in deep trouble in our cities and towns.

Maybe we can look to the Netherlands to find a solution. Back in March I visited the Noorder Park in North Amsterdam. This park had  previously suffered from anti-social behaviour. Street drinkers had taken over a section of the park and nearby residents and tourists were afraid to visit. Rather than closing down the park the city adopted an innovative approach. They built a small pavilion that acts as an attractive neighbourhood centre. When I visited on a chilly Sunday in March the street drinkers were gathered, cans in hand around an outside fire and inside young mothers sipped herbal tea while their children played nearby. In one corner there was a singer with his guitar with an audience of mixed backgrounds and ages. Nearby an artist was sketching a visitor’s portrait. I was told that the cafe operator was concerned about security for her €5,000 coffee machine, but that the guys outside take it in turn to mind the pavilion overnight. Certainly on my visit there was peaceful co-existence between everybody there.

The crucial factor in all of this though, is that it doesn’t run itself. The City of Amsterdam employs a bright sharp manager who makes sure that the pavilion is well-run and maintained. She makes sure that there are enough old wood pallets to fuel the fire; schedules the singer-songwriter to be there on Sunday afternoon, and liaises with social services if one of the down-and-outs needs care. I wouldn’t be surprised though, if she was paid less than the bored security guard who used to be holed up in the drab security hut in the Croppies’ Acre. Not only does she manage the building, but she is a critical link between social services, the Parks Department, housing agencies and the police. This level of joined-up thinking is exactly what we need in Dublin.  A short video made to mark the fifth anniversary of the park pavilion shows the vitality of the area.

Here in Dublin we need  the same sort of imagination to re-open and improve the Croppies Acre Park. Some thinking outside the box  is required from the Office of Public Works, An Garda Siochána, the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, Dublin City Council and the Department of Social Protection. All these agencies need to move outside their comfort zone. New entrances could be provided, and sections of the wall might be replaced with railings, or lowered in height. A Park Manager should be appointed, and maybe a cafe building provided similar to the one in Amsterdam. This  could lead to a more attractive park, and a brighter future for the down-and-outs, visitors and residents who might use its facilities. It could be a flagship project for social inclusion and regeneration.

The OPW need some fresh thinking when it comes to managing some of their urban parks in Dublin, or perhaps the City Council should take over. I suspect they could both learn from the example of North Amsterdam. I’d be happy to make the introduction.

Save Moore Street

Save Moore Street.

Not for the houses that the leaders of 1916 occupied in their last stand after leaving in the GPO, but for the vibrancy of the economic activity that immigrant and Irish retailers and visitors bring to the area, and the wealth of the existing built fabric and heritage that is threatened by demolition.

The phone shops; the vegetable stalls; the French Bakery and FX Buckleys the butchers. For many a stall or a small shop on Moore Street is a step on the first rung of the economic ladder. It all gives  a buzz that doesn't deserve to be eliminated by the Celtic Tiger 'Dublin Central' project. It would be the ultimate irony if tax-payers money were to be used through NAMA to give this destructive project a new lease of life. The drawing of the scheme shows the profile of the project set against the existing O'Connell Street looking west. It is over-scaled and represents a dated approach to revitalising an area.  Perhaps the most bizarre part of the whole proposal promoted by developer Joe O'Reilly and designed by architects  BKD, McGarry Ní Eanaigh and Donnelly Turpin is the north-facing park proposed for the roof of the shopping centre. It is all just plain wrong in its shape and size. It is grossly over-scaled for the area, and involves the demolition of too many buildings.

It reminds me of the Skidmore Owings Merill proposal for a central bus station in Temple Bar from the early 1980s that would have demolished dozens of buildings on both sides of the River Liffey and replaced what was then a bohemian quarter with, well, buses. The Dublin Central project seeks to replace a vibrant quarter with, well, British High Street shops.

When you walk along Moore Street there is a lot of under-maintained buildings, but that's mostly due to the urban blight forced on the area by developers. If the cement blocks were removed from the windows of the upper floors of these buildings they could be refurbished to become artists' studios or living spaces that would increase the footfall and life of the area. Many of these buildings date from the mid-nineteenth century. Some look even earlier.

Dublin City Council needs to take enforcement action against the unauthorised surface car parks that have been springing up off Parnell Street. It also needs to reconsider the support it is giving  for comprehensive redevelopment that failed in the 1960s, and that is set to fail again if it continues to facilitate a deeply-flawed redevelopment proposal. If there is a building to be demolished in the area, it is the City Council's  own cleansing deport which an architectural travesty with a blank ground floor facade covered in advertising at the corner of Moore Street and O'Rahilly Parade. Perhaps it could be replaced with a decent indoor market that could give budding entrepreneurs an affordable stall and a roof over their head to sell their wares. 

Last Autumn my students in the Spatial Planning degree programme carried out a conservation inventory of the buildings in the blocks bounded by Upper O'Connell Street, Parnell Street, Moore Street and Henry Street. They showed that there is  a wealth of heritage and economic activity in the area that deserves to be protected.

Moore Street has a long and fascinating history. Barry Kennerk's new Book "Moore Street the Story of Dublin's Market District" is a great read that documents the history of the area through the eyes and words of traders and local residents. Street trading has deteriorated in recent years. That's partly due to the lure of supermarkets and shopping centres, but it's also due to the neglect of the street by the city council. It has not just turned a blind eye to the creeping dereliction fostered by developers, it has encouraged speculators in their plans.

The area  deserves a decent future. Retaining and refurbishing 16 Moore Street and the adjacent buildings could be the first step in  what needs to happen. The link to 1916 needs to be cherished and celebrated as we approach the hundredth anniversary of the 1916 Rising. However I'm not convinced that another museum is required. Maybe a 'Living Over the Shop' project would make more sense. Minister Jimmy Deenihan is the decision-maker on this one. A Committee of Dublin City Councillors recently called for the 1916 buildings at 14-17 Moore Street to be retained, but they need to go further.  The entire neighbourhood needs to be refurbished rather than demolished to facilitate another Shopping Centre. Comprehensive redevelopment is not the solution to regenerating this part of the City. Maybe an architectural competition could be held to come up a carefully considered master-plan for the area. 

Thirty years ago in Berlin they coined the idea of 'soft' urban renewal in Berlin. Essentially it means refurbishing old buildings in co-operation with the local community, and filling empty sites with well-designed, but not over-scaled buildings. Moore Street could have the buzz of Camden market and a thriving residential community. All it needs is a bit of imagination, and a change of direction from the City Council.

Soft urban renewal is what we need.

Re-Forming Dublin

That was enjoyable - a lunchtime conversation about the city and how we can design systems and services which unlock or enable rather than curb or control.

The week's events are being run by PIVOT Dublin, an loose gathering that brings together the four Dublin Local Authorities and others to ensure that design issues are given a decent airing. They're taking place down in the Filmbase building down on the Curved Street in Temple Bar.

Here's some notes that I used for my contribution:

1. Knowledge is power. Let’s spread the knowledge through transparency and openness:
Years ago a copy of the Dublin City Council Yearbook and Diary was crucial to effecting change. Once you had a copy of it you knew who was in charge of particular parts of the City Council and how to contact them. These days we use the web, but many Local Authority websites are just awful, starting with Dublin City Council. The general public simply want to know who does what, and how to contact them. We need a simple organogram for the Council that gives us the name, contact details and the responsibilities of the key players. It should be simple and clear, visible on the home page of the Council, and updated regularly.

The Dublinked site is a good start, but we need to go much further. Once we know who does what we then need to make all the information available. When Bloomberg was mayor of New York he said:
“If you can't measure it, you can't manage it” and I tend to agree. Every public authority, be it Dublin City Council or the OPW should put every land holding that they control up on the web in an open-source format so that we can start to think about what public lands and property (that’s your land and our land) should, or could be used for. Think about that huge site between Smithfield and the Four Courts that’s lain vacant for fifteen years. It could be a city farm, or allotments. The All-Ireland Research Observatory (AIRO) is doing some of this kind of work, and widgets like FixmyStreet.ie will also be useful, but we could go so much further in involving citizens in the future of their city.

2. Our democratic power structures need to change from the top down
I’m a city boy and I believe cities deserve more powers. Dublin was badly divided twenty years ago into Fingal, Dublin South, the City and Dún Laoghaire Rathdown. That doesn’t reflect real city. A city of a million people, or closer to two needs a voice. The four Dublin Councils need to be divided into smaller Councils that have a more coherent civic identity, around about ten in all. We need a metro-Mayor and a a Dublin Metropolitan Assembly to make the strategic decisions for the entire metropolitan region. Instead of four councils we need closer to ten. We need to give the Mayor powers of transport and planning at Regional level. Currently we have revolving-door members in each Council every year. That means in five years we get twenty different mayors for Dublin. That can’t be right. We need one mayor who serves a five year term, and if you don’t like what she does, kick  her out. Look at the experience of Pasqual Maragall in Barcelona, Georges Frêche in Montpelier or Rahm Emanuel Chicago. Strong and vibrant cities have great mayors.

3. Make decisions based on evidence, and involve the public:
Let’s place power at the appropriate levels. In some cases we need to devolve down and in others we need to regionalise up. Big city problems like water, waste, energy and transport need a regional focus. For Urban village issues like new parks and playgrounds, taming the traffic, civic spaces and libraries let’s let a new Clontarf or Dundrum Council make the call.

Back in 1969 American Sociologist Sherry Arnstein came up with the idea of the a ladder structure to measure the degree of citizen participation in decision making. The eight rungs look like this:

1. Manipulation
2. Therapy
3. Informing
4. Consultation
5. Placation
6. Partnership
7. Delegated power
8. Citizen control

Most of the time in Ireland we’re at 1 or 2 on the ladder. On a good day we get to 3. We need to find our way to 6, 7 and 8. It’s time that we moved on. Planning can be done on a collaborative basis at a local level using Local Area Plans that we can all buy into. Let’s give some power down and see what happens. Electronic involvement is a useful tool, but don’t let it take over. I’d still like to see a notice board with an agenda on the railings outside City Hall. Collaborative structures that harness the energy of the Occupy movement, of the Irish idea of meitheal point to better ways to involve everyone in decisions.

We had a great discussion this lunchtime, ably chaired by Ré Dubhtaigh. Evelyn Hannon from Dublin City Council argued that the Council provides the theatre, but we all have to put on the play. It was a good metaphor for the role of citizens in their city.

Re-Forming our systems isn't easy, it requires courage and conviction from those in power. In the last Government the legislation providing for directed mayors almost became a reality. Let's try and ensure that Phil Hogan delivers on a directly elected mayor for Dublin, and a radical shake-up for our current system of local government which currently often divides rather than unites communities.