Changing Climates, Changing Communities

“The three-tongued glacier has begun to melt.

What will we do, they ask, when boulder-milt
Comes wallowing across the delta flats

And the miles-deep shag-ice makes its move?”

Seamus Heaney,  Höfn 2006

Thanks to St. Patricks College in Drumcondra for asking me to speak, and to Seamus Heaney, a man whose heart beats in time with the earth itself. His poem about the Höfn glacier in south-east Iceland is a reminder of the impact of climate change on a vulnerable world. I have a few images over on Slideshare to accompany this.

Just over a decade ago, in November 2002. I was living on Millmount Avenue, close to St. Patrick’s College, with my young family. I was working late, writing an article on Thursday 14th November. I failed to notice the first few texts from my partner, and by the time I noticed, the tone had become urgent: “Come home quickly”. I cycled back from the city centre through stalled traffic and heavy rain. The Tolka was flowing thick and fast under Drumcondra Bridge. As I turned down Millmount Avenue I realised that the road was under water, and shortly after I arrived into the house, the water gushed up from under the floorboards, until there was the best part of a metre of brown flood water throughout the house. We escaped with our young family over the back wall, passing our six week old child over the back garden wall to the waiting Guards and Civil Defence.

At that time I wrote “It was no act of god, but an act of man” that caused the flooding. Those floods were no doubt as severe as they were due to unplanned development upstream removing the natural soakage of wetlands close the Tolka’s banks. As we look ahead to your lives, there is no doubt in my mind that the acts of man, manifested through climate change will change our world in ways that we cannot even imagine. Thankfully in the case of the Tolka a brush with danger led to action to reduce the risk of future flooding events.

Today I want to address three facets of imaging the future
I wish to pay tribute to great men and women; I want express my grave concern that the wake up calls on climate are being ignored and I want urge you to take action.

John Tyndall was a Physicist from Co. Carlow. He published important works in the area of heat, sound and light, and demonstrated the greenhouse effect which is the foundation of much of the current work on climate.

Charles Keeling was an American scientist. He worked at Scripps Institute and at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. His seminal work on the increase in carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere alerted the world to a changing climate. He charted the seasonal variations in levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. He noted that in the Northern summer months, plants and trees absorbed greenhouse gases, but not enough to stop the increasing upward slope of their concentration.

In recent years many women have blazed new trails in tackling climate issues: Gro Harlem Bruntland, the Norwegian Prime Minister defined sustainability, Christiana Figueres, as the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action, and Mary Robinson in the field of climate justice. They all have all assisted our understanding and response to a world where the climate is changed.

Speaking recently at World Economic Forum in Davos, Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund stated that climate change not debt or austerity is "...the greatest economic challenge of the 21st Century." She went on to say in unscripted but sobering remarks to her audience that future generations would be "roasted, toasted, fried, and grilled."

It is easy to map the rises in sea level that will be a consequence of melting ice. It’s more difficult to predict the storm intensities and surges that can cause devastation. The North Sea Flood of 1953 that claimed the lives of thousands in the Netherlands and the UK led to a massive investment in flood defences. The 2005 New Orleans floods were a wake up call for the US, as was the recent Superstorm Sandy. In Ireland considerable flood relief works took place since the flooding of 2002. Will it take a massive climate related event before the causes, rather than the consequences of climate change are meaningfully addressed?

Outside of Ireland the consequences of a warming world are devastating. Rapid changes in habitat are killing off species, and decreasing biodiversity. There are increased movements of environmental refugees from vulnerable regions. However, the economic consequences are harder to predict.

No-one knows for certain what will happen to the world’s economy when vast agricultural regions lose their ability to grow traditional crops, when river basins lose their precipitation, or when voices are raised in anger.

No-one knows how the impact of a warming world of changing climates will impact on our children. We do know that there is a moral imperative to take action, to take action internationally, nationally and in our own lives.

In June 2012 the Secretariat of National Economic and Social Council published an Interim Report “Towards a New National Climate Policy”. At an institutional level it is important to note that NESC’s mission is to advise the Taoiseach on strategic issues relating to the efficient development of the economy and the achievement of social justice. NESC has a history of producing reports with strategic, long-term analyses of key economic and social development issues affecting Ireland. Although the Environmental Pillar is represented on the Council of NESC, their terms of reference have not changed to recognise the increased importance of the environment in recent years. This needs to change because NESC simply does not have the capacity, the understanding or the mandate to prioritise environmental issues.

NESC states: “Our starting point was that action on carbon emissions must be consistent with Ireland’s economic recovery, employment growth and stabilisation of the public finances”. All of these points are important, but if NESC fails to acknowledge that much of the life on the planet is under threat, then their understanding of the challenge will be flawed.

NESC reframes the Climate Change Challenge in Chapter Three by stating: “The opposite of compliance is thinking for ourselves.” At best this implies that a fresh approach is needed to tackle the issue, at worst it means that this Government has simply not been convinced of the need to take the issue seriously. The Reports states that we should explore tax measures that: “rely less on taxing ‘goods’ such as labour and enterprise, and more on taxing ‘bads’, such as environmental damage and resource depletion.” This is all well and good, but the train has left the station and it is time we caught up and got on board.

In November 2012 the World Bank published an important report “Turn Down the Heat -Why a 4° Warmer World Must be Avoided” The tone and the content is in marked contrast to the NESC Report. The World Bank states: There is no certainty that adaptation to a 4 degree world is possible … The projected 4 degree warming simply must not be allowed to occur. In his forward to the Report Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group says “This report is a stark reminder that climate change affects everything. The solutions don’t lie only in climate finance or climate projects. The solutions lie in effective risk management and ensuring all our work, all our thinking, is designed with the threat of a 4 degree world in mind.”

The World Bank has sounded the alarm, but the response from NESC is lagging. Where is their enthusiasm, and the resolve that is so desperately needed?

This domestic complacency needs to be dismantled. It does not involve false choices between the environment and the economy, it must be about both. One of the first ways that this can be achieved is through meaningful national legislation to set targets, for Ireland, for 2020, for 2030 and beyond. The 2009 Renewables Directive 2009/28/EC otherwise known as the “20 20 20 Directive” sets binding targets for greenhouse gas reductions, renewable energy but not energy efficiency, and that’s where the gap lies. An absence of targets is a failure to commit.

Action must take place at all levels. It can take place through the political process, but also through people’s lives, their studies, and through the organisations that inspire and guide them.

Internationally, the Conferences of the Parties will continue to meet every December. Can meaningful agreements be negotiated? It may be too late. The world population continues to rise, with global numbers equivalent to the city of Cork being added every day.

At European Level, the Commission and the Parliament have engaged with the challenge more clearly than other organisations, however the EU emissions trading system lacks sufficient ambition, and thus the current carbon price is too low. Mapping developed at European level through ESPON the European Observation Network for Territorial Development and Cohesion shows the effect of climate change through applying physical, environmental, social, cultural and economic criteria to different regions around Europe.

At National level, legislation and sectoral action is required. We need targets, sectoral allocations and realistic timetables. Last month the Irish Farming Association President John Bryan said “(the) IFA favours sectoral plans, as opposed to meaningless target-driven legislation, as a means to addressing the climate challenge.”

Targets are needed because evidence-based decision-making requires them. We already have clear figures for the amount of energy used in Ireland, and the emissions associated with them. We know the relative costs of different abatement measures in the Irish context. This sets the scene for choosing from the set of measures that are available to us today, not at some distant future date.

Without targets, without limits, we have nothing. A Bill with no targets is like a budget without the figures, or an emperor without clothes. In 2005 while in opposition, and in 2010 while in Government the Green Party produced legislation that contained targets and timetables for reducing our emissions. Had either of these bills been passed they would have given the certainty that businesses, communities and the planet so desperately need.

At regional level local authorities and other agencies can cooperate to take action. Dublin City Council has a climate change strategy that is up for renewal this year. It needs to be talked about and be seen as an integral part of the city’s strategy, rather than viewed as an add-on.

Within communities, there is significant scope for change. Traffic calming, a better bus service, community gardens can all help reduce emissions. However it is crucial that we move beyond the “unplug your phone charger” response. Real change requires a more involved grasp of the issues, and often a more fundamental response. There is a strong role for the media to educate and lead on this issue. It was heartening to pick up a current issue of the Sacred Heart Messenger magazine and read suggestions for calculating carbon footprints and carrying out carbon audits.

In my own life I try and fly less, drive less, and eat less meat. I spend more time in the neighbourhood where I live. These are all good things. We need to talk about them more.

Politicians like to give hope, I want to give you hope, so let me imagine a low carbon future. It might consist of quieter roads and streets with less motorised traffic, and more sounds like children’s’ footsteps and bicycle bells. It would contain warm homes both old and new that generate, rather than consume energy. There would be communities where bonds of friendship and connectivity exist that were unthinkable in a time where the car was king. There could be new neighbourhoods, carefully planned of terraced homes, tall trees, sunny courtyards, leafy play areas, and bustling cafes. On the bog of Allen 200 metre tall wind turbines connect to a pan-European grid. That could be our future. The alternative is more akin to that depicted in Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and is best avoided.

I remain gravely concerned at the inertia within our political system, the failure to show leadership on climate on the world stage, and the locked in climate carbon emissions that spell death and devastation for many, particularly in the developing world.

Policy rhetoric has been and still is almost entirely detached from climate reality. Scientific consensus and political consensus are worlds apart. As the singer and songwriter Paul Simon once wrote “I would not give you false hope, on this strange and mournful day”

Long journeys begin with small steps, but unless you know your destination you are doomed to failure. Targets for 2020, 2030 and beyond should be enshrined in Irish law.

We have entered the Anthropocene, a period where vulnerable coastal cities are flooded, fertile lands submerged, and crops fail. Many regions will have to stage a managed retreat from low-lying coastal towns and countryside. The 1% of us who can afford to fly and drive regularly will be responsible.

The young will not forgive what we forgive. It is time to act.

Liffey Life

The river banks of the River Liffey deserve to be more than just roads for commuter traffic. That's why I'm proposing that we widen footpaths and provide a decent cycle route running between the Phoenix Park and Dublin Bay. 

Here's the text of a talk I gave in October 2012 at a City Intersections event in the Little Museum of Dublin. It probably reads better if you have a look at my PowerPoint presentation  which can be viewed over on SlideShare. I'd welcome your comments.

 It’s not that often that Dublin looks like Tokyo, and that’s probably why I love this shot I took of the Liffey Quays from O’Donovan Rossa Bridge at the bottom of Winetavern Street. The moon was rising in the East, and O’Connell Bridge House, one of Architect Desmond Fitzgerald’s worst mistakes looks almost appealing by moonlight. I was standing close to where the áth cliath or ford of the hurdles was that gave our city – Baile Átha Cliath as Gaeilge.  

Colm Lincoln’s book “Dublin as a work of Art” is really a story about the author’s love for Dublin and specifically the Liffey Quays. He states:

“The Liffey, with its long line of quays, has been central to the development of Dublin. It was to the quays that maritime trade came and the battle over its displacement – as bridge construction shoved port activity relentlessly further downstream – resulted in some of the city’s important characteristics: a sequence of cross-river axes and a long and distinctive river front punctuated by a display of great monumental architecture.”

James Joyces’s Finnegan’s Wake also discusses the Liffey. He flirts with the river from the opening lines to the finish. In a lovely opening line he commences:

“riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay.”

Of course Eve and Adam’s is the church off Merchant’s Quay, so his book starts near to where  Dublin began, close to where the Scandinavian settlers drew up their long-boats twelve hundred years ago.

Half a million people live in Dublin, almost two million dwell in its functional urban region or “travel to work area”. I want to focus on the inner city, between the Phoenix Park and Dublin Bay. I believe that the Quays have been neglected and that radical action is needed to restore the Liffey Corridor to a state that we can be proud of that allows it to function as the front room of the city, and the nation.

Dublin Bay is a crucial part of the image of the city. It’s not as accessible as it should be: the Port, the sewage plants, the power plants, the dumps all act as barriers. They conspire to block us from welcoming the sea into the city. When we talk about the city we need to talk about the old city and the inner city. Twenty five years ago the centre of Dublin was hemorrhaging its population and the inner city’s population was down to 65,000 people. The blunt instrument of tax incentives introduced in 1986 helped reverse this trend and thankfully the city centre population grew dramatically through the nineties and noughties.

If the Bay is the bookend to the east the Park is the bookend to the west. Again, the relationship to the city is flawed. The city car pound was once located at the crucial meeting point of the Park and the city. Now it’s the Criminal Courts. That’s not the perfect civic building, but it is a new landmark that marks the transition from green leaves to brown brick. The River is the unifying link, and I suggest that a few improvements in linkages, places and spaces along or close to the river could improve the image of the city and our sense of civic pride. I also believe that we need a Liffey Boulevard on the Quays to make it easier and more pleasant to walk and cycle between the Park and the Bay.

I’ll start at the Phoenix Park, the fionn uisce or clear waters of the royal deer park that celebrates a 350the anniversary in 2012. I’ll work downstream across Diageo Land, and The Gut before finishing close to the Hotel that Pigeon sisters ran for cross-channel ferry passengers in the early Nineteenth century.

Dublin’s changed a lot in the last twenty years, and not just in terms of the built environment. 

Many of those who come to Ireland for work or education have settled close to the Liffey Quays. Polish, Nigerian and Chinese voices are common on Dublin streets.

Fionn Uisce

The Phoenix Park is the People’s Park of Dublin. It is well used in every season. In recent years car parking seems to have encroached more on the park, despite attempts by the Office of Public Works to curtail through traffic. I love this view of Dublin from the Magazine Fort, with domes and spires in the distance. The trees have grown since the Eighteenth century, but the city and the river can still be glimpsed through the trees.

The Magazine Fort can be the start or the end of the Liffey Boulevard.  It’s a neglected empty monument and could happily accommodate a bike shop, café, museum or other activities. It apparently even contained a bakery during the emergency. The complex deserves to be reused and more closely linked to the city. It could even have a pedestrian and cycle link across to Lutyens’ War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge.

Diageo Land

Back in the early 1980’s when I started studying architecture in UCD we undertook a fantastic project across all five years of the course studying the Liffey Quays, and produced a book edited by Gerry Cahill that contained our proposals. One of the projects was for a new public Square at Heuston. In some sense that has come about, with the restoration of Dr. Steven’s Hospital as the HSE Headquarters and the Luas stop outside the rail Station. In Parisian terms it’s more Place de la Concorde than Place des Vosges because of the traffic, but it works.

I look at this view from my bedroom, and will never grow tired of it. It is stunning in all weathers. The Liffey lies just below and it never ceases to amaze. One morning I looked down and saw ten footballs in the mud, just beside Seán Heuston Bridge that carries the Luas beside the station. In the Netherlands about 40% of train passengers arrive by bicycle and a large multi-storey bike park is provided outside the main railway station. I feel we should copy their example, and provide the same in the Liffey outside Heuston.

The brightest signs on the Quays tell us how many car parking spaces are available. Personally I’d prefer to know more about the weather or cultural events, or not have the sign there at all in an age of smart phones and in car navigation systems.

Funny things happen on Wolfe Tone Quay. Here’s a shot I took in October 20111. The river is on the right, the Quays on the left.  The Civil Defence depot is also on the left, and their entrance was blocked by the floods. The following day the Quays were magically silent as engineers inspected the damage. The crack in the quay wall restricted traffic by one lane for several months afterwards. There may have been some traffic delays and increase in Luas passengers, but I guess what it showed was that we can take a lane of car traffic off the Quays without the economic life of the City grinding to a halt, and that’s probably a good thing.

Let’s get back to Diageo. Don’t get me started on Arthur’s Day. I’m fond of a drink myself, put painting the town black? Here’s a view looking across the Thames at the Tate Modern, a fantastic conversion of an old power generation station into a modern art gallery. Here’s a view looking across the Liffey at the Guinness steam plant. Well, you can guess the rest.  Ideally I’d like to get visitors out of the Guinness Store House, into the Tate Modern, Dublin, and then allow them to walk gently downhill and across the new footbridge across the Liffey and the Croppy Acre past the Luas stop and into the Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks. It’s the total tourism experience: St. James’s Gate, the Tate and Irish history in one afternoon, plus a Luas to take you back to your hotel.

Scooter Island

Scooter Island or Ushers’ Island has seen better days. Sure, it’s got a Calatrava Bridge, but where doesn’t at this stage? The river frontage could do with more than a facelift. Here’s Moira House that was the Dublin home of the Earls of Moira. Had it survived the twentieth century it would have celebrated its 260th anniversary this year but it was demolished in the 1950s. The gate piers remain. We can do better than this. St. Pauls on Arran Quay graced the cover of the UK Architectural Review in 1973. The cover said “Thainig an A.R. go dtí Baile Athá Cliath.” Inside Brown and Wright argued:

“Without question it is the quays which give topographical coherence to Dublin. They are the frontispiece to the city and the nation: grand yet human in scale, varied yet orderly, they present a picture of a satisfactory city community: it is as though two ranks of people were lined up, mildly varying in their gifts, appearance and fortune, but happily agreed on basic values.”

Thankfully the road plans drawn up by the London consultants didn’t get the green light, but most of the Georgian buildings were lost and replaced by Zoe pastiche.

This view of the TOP Petrol Station is the “Chuaigh an A.R. as Baile Athá Cliath” shot. If you look across the river from St. Pauls you see this:, a monument to the first phase of urban renewal tax incentives from the 1980s. For a time it even graced the cover of a Dublin Corporation brochure urging you to invest in Dublin. It would be fair to say it hasn’t aged well.

The footpaths along the quays are often microscopic in width. However a wider footpath and bike path would still allow for a car lane and a bus lane to be placed on Arran Quay. It is time to reallocate road space. Ironically the City Council seems to have the budget to completely repave vast swathes of footpath at the moment, but appears not to be widening footpaths.

There’s a pleasant widening of the Quays at the junction of Arran Quay and Church Street. Road engineers have grabbed the space to fit in more traffic, but perhaps a small plaza could be provided. Apologies for the graphics, I failed my Photoshop class, but I suspect you get the gist of it.  Further along the Quays the magnificent setting of the Four Courts deserves a wider footpath on the river side of the Quays, as well as besides the building itself.

There’s a problem in how we manage and plan public space. Architects often restrict themselves to individual buildings. Planners fret about the relationship of buildings to each other. However the most important job of all – planning the space between buildings – is left to road engineers who often simply don’t have the training to mediate between the different functions that this space must perform. They all-to-often strive to maximise the traffic carrying function of the space, not realising that the economic and social functions of public space are equally important.

Now that I’m on a roll about civil engineering I need to mention left-turn filter lanes. I’ve counted about eighty of them between the canals and they all need to be removed. They destroy the public space of the city, converting meeting places to highways. If you maximise the traffic carrying capacity of a road the vehicles will speed up as they round the corner and economic life and social interaction will lose out. 

All the these right-turn filter lanes have to go, and  let’s start with the ones along the Quays. Then we can slowly but surely reclaim the street.

It can take you three pedestrian light phases to cross the junction at Christchurch. That is wrong. I want to narrow the road so that it becomes a civic meeting space rather than a traffic junction. Even on New Year’s Eve the Gardaí hustle you off the road once the bells have struck twelve. I want to narrow the carriageways so that tourist and Dubliners can feel that the city is their own. People are more important than cars. Here’s how the Architectural Review saw Christchurch back in 1973. I wouldn’t copy that, but I think we need to reduce the traffic carrying-capacity of these junctions so that people’s voices can be heard.

O’Connell

I was never a fan of Charlie Haughey, but I do credit him with saving Temple Bar. I sat in a crowded CIE Hall back during some 1980s election campaign when Charlie had the wit and conviction to say that Temple Bar would be saved. That didn’t stop the rise of the super-pub, but at least many of the buildings and streets were saved and many of the cultural uses that grew up there are housed in well-designed new premises. Another rogue, Mick Wallace was responsible for the Quartier Bloom off Ormond Quay, a charming part of Dublin where Italian is the second language. I like the locks on the Ha’penny Bridge. I’ve no doubt that some official will remove them, but they’re a bit of fun that adds to the interest of passing over the Liffey.

College Green is oozing with potential, has some spectacular buildings, but is currently a traffic nightmare. The first thing I’d like to do though is take a chainsaw to the ungainly trees that are blocking the views of the Old Bank of Lords (now the Bank of Ireland) and the front of Trinity College.

The next step is to replicate what has been done in many London Square in recent years. Restrict the car traffic and liberate the pedestrian. Then we can all breathe again.

Often Roman towns had two main roads at right angles to each other; the Decumanus and the Cardo. If the route from Parnell Square down O’Connell Street and through College Green and Grafton Street to Steven’s Green is our Decumanus than the Quays must surely be our Cardo.  O’Connell Street Bridge currently seems to have at least eight, or possibly nine lanes of traffic running across it. It deserves to be a civic space. Let’s tame the traffic, perhaps down to four lanes and give space to the pedestrian in this important civic space.

Given that the city doesn’t cherish O’Connell Street Bridge it is no surprise that O’Connell Bridge House sports a large alcohol ad. Once as I walked down the boardwalk and English weekend tourist stopped his mates to shout. “It’s a pub and it’s ten floors high”. Whatever about our English visitors we clearly have an alcohol problem, an image problem and a public space problem.

I’m interested in our definitions of public space and place. In Irish law I can only find references to public spaces in the road traffic acts, and public spaces in the criminal justice legislation. Curiously in the road traffic acts a public space is somewhere that you can have access to with your car. That speaks volumes about our relationship to the city.

The junction beside Liberty Hall is particularly poorly designed. The combination of cattle barrier-style pedestrian enclosures and indecipherable road signs requires some long hard soul-searching by the city fathers and mothers.  It could be better.

I took a photo of Bachelors’ Walk on the North Quays on St. Patrick Day, fully pedestrianised for, maybe an hour and a half. Why not do this once a month on a Sunday afternoon so that we can look again at our city rather than rush through it.

Aldo Rossi the late Italian architect and urbanist said:

“The city is the locus of our collective memory… There is something in the nature of urban artifacts that renders them very similar – and not only metaphorically – to a work of art.”

Works of art deserve to be treated with respect.

The Gut

The Gut refers to the stretch of water where the Grand Canal and the River Dodder enter the sea. The development in Dublin’s Docklands over the last twenty years has led to significant civic improvements. The walkways and cycle lanes along the campshires as the Quays are referred to East of Matt Talbot Bridge are a magical change in how we view and use the waterside. Last summer I there were kayaks for rent and my ten year-old son and I had a wonderful adventure paddling between the Beckett Bridge and the Jeanie Johnston Tall Ship. We saw the city from a whole new angle.

Fergal McCarthy’s temporary island installation was great addition to this stretch of the River. It made people laugh, smile and rethink their perception of the space between the Quay walls. I want more of these. Back in 1982 my brother-in-law Brian Vahey a stage designer also placed a temporary island in the River Liffey. His was a wooden pyramid with mementos of the old Theatre Royal inside. He moored it near Burgh Quay close to Hawkins House which replaced the Theatre. That was one of my first introductions to the River as I acted as caretaker for his island, waiting for the drunken shouts once the pubs had closed.

Sir John Rogerson’s Quays grinds to a sudden halt on the South Quays just before the Gut. There have been various proposals to bridge the Gut over the years. I would like to see a simple structure for pedestrian and cyclists that would link the city to the bay. Once this happens, the new walkway and cycleway that I’m proposing on Liffey corridor would inevitably find its way down to the Pigeon House chimneys, close to where the Pigeon Sisters ran their hotel back in the 1800s. A final stop might be the remnants of an old fortification, close to where the infill of the bay has created a new beach. Reflecting the Magazine Fort the wall could be adapted to house a tea rooms, visitor centre or other activities. Pedestrians could continue down the Great South Wall to where the city meets the Bay.

A few years ago I published an earlier version of this proposal as part of a Green Party cycle plan for Dublin. Many of the ideas were included in that proposal.

Now what? Well, it’s a good time to be talking about the Liffey Corridor. The Dublin Bikes scheme is set to expand towards the end of 2012, and that means that something must be done with the Liffey Quays to make them more pedestrian and cycle friendly. Perhaps the Tate Dublin and bridging the Gut will never happen, but it’s part of debate that’s worth having. 

There’s an argument to be had as to whether a cycle lane should be beside the quay wall, or closer to the building edge. Should there be one wide cycle lane on one quay or a lane on both quays? Should the traffic flow on the Quays be reversed again, or made two-way? Multi-lane one-way streets are bad for the life of the city. Would a lower 30kph speed limit obviate the need for a separate cycle lane in the first instance? Perhaps. Certainly wider footpaths would make our Quays more livable, and create enjoyable places.

In the meantime I’m hoping that these ideas will contribute to the debate. Let's end with a line from Joyce:

"Whish! A gull. Far calls. Coming, far! End here."

Thinking outside the Square(s)

On 4th October 2012 I took part in a Pecha Kucha debate about the future of Dublin's Georgian Core. The debate took place in the old Green Street Courthouse in central Dublin and was chaired by Fintan O'Toole. It was part of the Open House weekend that's been run by the Irish Architecture Foundation over the last few years.

I worked with Gavin Daly from NUI Maynooth on the presentation. You can see the full set of slides over on Slideshare, but here's the accompanying text that should be read in conjunction with the visuals. That first slide shows Mountjoy Square in Dublin 1.


1.
That’s Mountjoy Square a few days ago.
His Mum warned him against middle-aged men with cameras.
Mountjoy Square’s fun, it’s got a creche, table tennis, football, basketball.
It’s got a gutsy Lower East side meets Spanish Harlem feel to it.
Thanks  Gavin for his input. He’s studying in Maynooth, but lives close to Mountjoy Square.

2.
Affluence and Disadvantage, You’ll find rich and poor on both sides of the River
That’s from a map produced by those bright people in AIRO, Maynooth.
The problems of Inner Dublin don’t all stem from Inner Dublin.
Outer City people make decisions about Inner Dublin.
They don’t live here, they don’t want to live here, and that’s part of the problem.

3.
It’s funny the way planners zone the space occupied by buildings or empty sites.
But not the spaces between buildings.
It’s lashing rain, but in the distance, two old fellahs are having a chat on a bench.
I like that about Dublin.

The Problems of the Georgian Core include the following:

-Outer cities and  inner city

-Uncertainty, vacancy, transience

-Poor definitions of public realm in Irish Law

-Wrong experts control outside space

-Over-regulation, patchy enforcement

-Dominance of vehicles and traffic

-Green spaces lack diversity and public input

4.
Shrinking Cities, there’s a lot of them, from Detroit to Leipzig
On the right is  Ireland’s GDP over the last few years, an upside-down Nike swoosh.
No-one really know if Dublin will expand or contract
We need to prepare for both.

5.
That’s the An Taisce –Buildings at Risk study on Facebook
Some of the buildings are owned by the Council.
The Council.
Fire Certs, Protected Structures, Mains Drainage. The List goes on…
Whose job is it in Dublin City Council to say:
“I’m from the City, and I’m here to help.”

6.
That’s Parnell Square, but it’s not a Square, it’s a roundabout, it’s a traffic gyratory.
Streets are the places where old Ireland meets new Ireland.
We need to talk, but we need to be able to hear ourselves.
The new Public Realm Strategy is great, but who’s in charge?
I’m worried that the Roads and Traffic will continue to call the shots.
Wider footpaths can make a big difference.
(It’s crazy that) Road Traffic Act, 1961 defines a Public place as any street, road or other place to which the public have access with vehicles whether as of right or by permission and whether subject to or free of charge.

7.
Only one of the four junctions on Fitzwilliam Square has pedestrian signals. Not this one.
You can wait 50 seconds for a 5 second green phase.
I watched the guy with the bag wait for 5 minutes.
Someone needs to call the shots.

8.
At Merrion Square, mews gardens have become car parks.
Your home can be overlooked 24:7, Not for me thanks.
Digging up tarmacadam isn’t cheap, but a tax on surface car parking
Could make a world of a difference.

9.
There’s no crossing from the Oscar Wilde statue to his former home
Sometimes I stop and watch Americans dodge the traffic,
How about a pedestrian signal there, and from the National Gallery straight to the Park.
Maybe a coffee kiosk by the playground where you meet your friends and watch your kids.
Little things on a low budget could make a world of a difference.

10.
You can see the Ghost buses from here…You actually can. They’re the purple blur in the distance.
Our buses have some of the most stunning views in Dublin.
It’s time to remove city centre bus depots. It’s time for Dublin Bus to move on.
Mountjoy Square, Broadstone, Grand Canal Dock, and Conyngham Road.
This  could be a city farm at the centre overlooked by own door offices.

11.
This is Container City in London’s Tower Hamlets.This is a scheme from across the water, old shipping containers re-used.
It could be Mick Wallace’s empty site on Russell Street.
Or the Dublin Bus Site that stretches down to Summerhill
If they work, great, if not there’s always an angle grinder
Empty spaces, under-use, parking gnaws away at the soul of the city.

12.
There’s a lot of under-use in the Georgian Core.
Here’s the Pioneer Club on Mountjoy Square.
At Merrion Square the Apothecary’s Building lies vacant.
Could we think the unthinkable?
Could the city lend vacant buildings to people like you?

13.
In Leipzig, Germany, there were lots of empty old flats and buildings in the 1990s.
There, the City Council tuned them over to homesteaders.
“Guardian houses” allow homeowners and renters to use vacant houses.
No rent, but you pay the utility bills.  In return you renovate.
It saves old buildings, reduces vandalism and ongoing decline.
We need some ‘Guardian Houses’ in Dublin.

14.
It’s 350 years Dublin Corporation drew up leases for St. Stephen’s Green:
Beaux Walk, Monks Walk, Leeson Walk, French Walk are highlighted
In 1732 the Walks were described as ‘wide and smooth’ .
Let’s make some more Walks.
One less traffic lane is one more walk.

15.
Now What?
Here's what we need to do:-Define the public realm
-Re-think who is in charge
-Co-ordinate Local Authority leadership
-More public space less traffic
-More green stuff, less parking
-Land-banking, temporary uses
-Help out homesteaders

There’s no much money, but there’s creativity to beat the band
A vacant lot drags everything down.
How about some grass, a bench and an apple tree?
Maybe new laws are needed, or maybe we just need more resolve.
“Try again, fail again, fail better”
Let’s take that chance. 

Thank you

The upside to green living

Here's a piece from the Irish Times that I wrote in response to an article from Seán Byrne’s entitled “Green living may mean cold comfort for many”...

...Anyone who has spent time in a traffic jam might quibble with his suggestion that fewer car journeys imply a reduced quality of life. Similarly his view that a green lifestyle requires a loss of recreational showers is hardly that onerous. Showering with a friend is a time-honoured way of saving water, but installing a low-flow shower heads may suit those of a more puritanical leaning.


On a more serious note, a radical shift to reducing carbon emissions is crucial if we are to reduce the negative impact that our Western lifestyles are already imposing on developing countries. Climate change is already happening and it is the vulnerable in the developing world that are paying the price for our excessive consumption. There are many advantages to more careful consumption and travelling closer to home. A simple lesson from the Celtic Tiger years is that quality is worth more than quantity. Holidaying in Ireland can boost Ireland’s employment, and if you are travelling abroad, ‘slow travel’ by train and ferry can allow you to leave Dublin Port in the morning and arrive in Northern France by early evening without the stress of air travel. I highly recommend it. Communities that plan for walking and cycling generally have a higher quality of life than those built around the voracious needs of the private car. As an architect and town planner I know that we can design buildings and communities that require only a fraction of the energy that what was built over recent decades. There’s also significant scope for increased employment in retrofitting and upgrading existing buildings, and providing sustainable alternatives to increased car ownership and use.


Byrne suggests that driving may be more energy efficient than walking, but anyone concerned at rising hospital admissions due to obesity cannot ignore the importance of regular exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle. His extract from Timoney’s study is more appropriate to a school debate than a paper of record. His suggestion that wind energy requires ‘vast tracts of land’ ignores the fact that most of the land around wind-turbines apart from the turbine bases and access roads can be used for other uses such as grazing or food crops. Of course Government has to carefully approach the use of subsidies in the path towards a low-carbon economy. High subsidies for energy produced from photovoltaics may have distorted the energy market in Germany and Spain in recent years, but it did encourage investment in renewables in these countries. Proper life-cycle analysis is required of sustainable technologies, but the evidence shows that Government subsidies can speed up the adoption of experimental technologies into the mainstream. In the Irish context, the pay-back for solar water heating in new homes can be less than a decade. An easy-to-use calculator is available on the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s website.

Generally the private sector is better at choosing winners, but carrots are required as well as sticks, and pump-priming new areas of economic activity by the State can be worthwhile. The success of sustainable construction in recent years has resulted from a combination of European Directives; Irish Government regulation and grant-aid; and entrepreneurs prepared to put their money forward. I am proud of the role that the Green Party played during its time in Government to further environmental initiatives, despite the economic challenges that we also faced.


A greener lifestyle may involve less variety in food, but as I write I look out to a small urban garden where I grow vegetables such as artichokes and broad beans, and fruits including apples, plums and pears. Of course I eat imported food, but it’s worth bearing in mind fair trade, food miles, and carbon use when you purchase.


Tackling climate change is a deadly serious issue. Weather extremes of recent years have impacted most on poorer communities in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. There is a growing consensus that climate change is contributing to this instability. We have a moral duty to reduce our environmental impact on the planet, and in doing so to assist the most vulnerable on the planet.

Ciarán Cuffe is a lecturer in Planning at Dublin Institute of Technology and a former Green Party Minister of State