Cork Developments

[Bennyton]

I've come across this fella on YouTube, some really amazing updates, fairly regularly.

Kinsale - Cork greenway Pt 1

Kinsale - Cork greenway Pt 2

 

[Bennyton]

And this guy:

He's got some really fantastic ideas for the city.

 

[How bad boy]

And this guy:

He's got some really fantastic ideas for the city.

Some of it really pretty low cost and cheap. I admire his dedication to complaining about ugly poles, painting and lighting, he's not wrong.

One of the biggest problems is that in Ireland (and the UK), medium rise of 6-8 stories is just considered a bit weird.

 

[Bennyton]

Some of it really pretty low cost and cheap. I admire his dedication to complaining about ugly poles, painting and lighting, he's not wrong.

One of the biggest problems is that in Ireland (and the UK), medium rise of 6-8 stories is just considered a bit weird.

It's just really weird, it takes all the land, and blocks all the light.

And for the people in them, the view is still shit.

 

[How bad boy]

It's just really weird, it takes all the land, and blocks all the light.

And for the people in them, the view is still shit.

Have you ever lived in the centre of a continental city?
I've lived in a couple, in that sort of accomodation, can be very nice.

It takes far, far less land than low rise and at that height it doesn't block as much light as you'd think. You can get surprisingly high population density without it feeling overcrowded .It's also massively cheaper than high rise.

Do it right and it's amazing.
Nuremberg:

Rennes

Barcelona

Barcelona Cerda blocks (those square patterns of apartments) house about 700 people each in a block about 100x100.

You don't need the front to be ugly and if you step it up in height back from the street, it makes a huge difference to the light

 

[rebs23]

Have you ever lived in the centre of a continental city?
I've lived in a couple, in that sort of accomodation, can be very nice.

It takes far, far less land than low rise and at that height it doesn't block as much light as you'd think. You can get surprisingly high population density without it feeling overcrowded .It's also massively cheaper than high rise.

Do it right and it's amazing.
Nuremberg:

Rennes

Barcelona

Barcelona Cerda blocks (those square patterns of apartments) house about 700 people each in a block about 100x100.

You don't need the front to be ugly and if you step it up in height back from the street, it makes a huge difference to the light

You wouldn’t be allowed build those in Ireland due to Apartment Design Standards for new builds and Fire, Access and Conservation regulations for older buildings.

 

[Bennyton]

You wouldn’t be allowed build those in Ireland due to Apartment Design Standards for new builds and Fire, Access and Conservation regulations for older buildings.

Our implementation of apartments is almost universally shite.

Some of the ones I've lived in in London were lovely, but the ones I see going up in Cork at the moment are like from a previous generation.

 

[How bad boy]

You wouldn’t be allowed build those in Ireland due to Apartment Design Standards for new builds and Fire, Access and Conservation regulations for older buildings.

Why not? What exactly in those buildings is not compliant with the standards?

Incidentally, the Nuremberg ones are from the late 40s/50s due to, er. the unpleasantness.


There's a really great example from just outside Paris, Le Plessis-Robinson:

The Transformation of Le Plessis-Robinson

Le Plessis-Robinson is a suburb of Paris with about 30,000 inhabitants. The town has become a sort of parable of a possible alliance between...

benedante.blogspot.com

What it was:

Some of the replacements

5/6 story buildings but built around walkable neighbourhoods with a bit of thought going into both the look of the buildings and the neighbourhoods.


Looks to me like a nice place you'd want to live in...

 

[rebs23]

Why not? What exactly in those buildings is not compliant with the standards?

Incidentally, the Nuremberg ones are from the late 40s/50s due to, er. the unpleasantness.


There's a really great example from just outside Paris, Le Plessis-Robinson:

The Transformation of Le Plessis-Robinson

Le Plessis-Robinson is a suburb of Paris with about 30,000 inhabitants. The town has become a sort of parable of a possible alliance between...

benedante.blogspot.com

What it was:

Some of the replacements

5/6 story buildings but built around walkable neighbourhoods with a bit of thought going into both the look of the buildings and the neighbourhoods.


Looks to me like a nice place you'd want to live in...

Apartment standards in Paris are 35 m2 and 50m2 for 1 and 2 bed. Means you can construct and develop/fund far more cheaply. Fit more units into a building that costs more or less the same to build.
Also daylight sunlight, 25% balconies etc. Looking at those buildings you can see straight away they wouldn’t comply with Irish regs.

 

[How bad boy]

Apartment standards in Paris are 35 m2 and 50m2 for 1 and 2 bed. Means you can construct and develop/fund far more cheaply. Fit more units into a building that costs more or less the same to build.
Also daylight sunlight, 25% balconies etc. Looking at those buildings you can see straight away they wouldn’t comply with Irish regs.

I really don't think the solution is ugly shitboxes.

I mean, sure, horrendously ugly square soviet-style boxes are much cheaper to build.
And it's not difficult to increase the square meter size of apartments. The current minimum for one bed apartments in Ireland is 37m2.

Govt to consider reducing minimum apartment sizes

A reduction in the minimum size of studio apartments is among the measures that Cabinet will consider next week to encourage developers to build more apartments.

www.rte.ie

Ireland fundamentally is not lacking space and I seriously doubt the issue is the materials costs of buildings.


People are far, far less likely to object to buildings if they actually look nice. Modern looking concrete+steel+glass buildings generally look terrible (there are exceptions), they're usually only built that way cause they're cheap.

I would suggest that is not a good long term trade off, soviet blocks and 60s council housing estates housed loads of people cheaply, but with the aesthetics of a burnt out skip. That's a cost to society that lasts, but at least the developers made a few percent more profit so tis grand...