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As a platform for new and archival journalism, TYPE was established to add to the national conversation on architecture, planning, urban design and landscape architecture. As part of this, the article series Working Hard / Hardly Working endeavours to discuss and draw attention to design features in our everyday urban environments; calling on contributors to identify two examples of a design move - one which works well, and one that hardly works at all. While typically the series title was applied by holding two spaces in direct comparison, this article instead considers that much of our building stock is working hard, while not really working at all. As is explored in this essay, a space can be manifested using typically successful design principles, with a dedication to the experience of the end-user, but through the barrage of time, modernity, and reality, can still become a less than successful space to be in. Casting an eye across Irish towns and cities, this contradiction is palpable in many a built form; from the Georgian terrace to redundant mid-century office blocks and social housing flats. And what frustrates those of us with affection for the built, is that many of these buildings hold such potential. However, with an obligation to make all built form accessible, insulated and fire-proofed, the task of refurbishment can become insurmountable (i.e. too expensive). The knock-on effect on our urban realm is that this refurbishment doesn’t happen, and the building persists and struggles to work hard for its inhabitants, while ceasing and ceding to work at all. Nowhere is this more apparent than the flats of St Michan’s.
Completed in 1934, the St Michan’s scheme – known also as the Greek Street flats – is embedded within the north-inner city of Dublin. Found a block north of the Liffey, the St Michan’s social housing apartments are four-storeys tall and contain 112 flats divided across three blocks; two west of Greek Street and one east of Greek Street. The scheme is understood to be one of the first of twenty-something social housing blocks designed by H. J. Simms as Dublin Corporation Architect in the mid-twentieth century. According to minutes from a meeting held by Dublin Corporation on 14 August 1931, the approval for flats to be designed and erected on Mary’s Lane was granted. The record highlights that this type of building – four storeys tall and approximately 80m in length, with two circulation cores – was hitherto unknown and “not manufactured in the Free State”. This tiny record – just another note among thousands in the many dusty green leather volumes of the archive shelves – signifies the architectural heritage and importance of the Michan’s blocks. While the flats in the twenty-first century have become an emblem of built apathy and slow dereliction, this does not reflect the intent of the 1930s. These schemes represented an ambition to provide high-quality, liveable city homes to replace the squalor of tenement Dublin. St Michan’s flats (recorded as Mary’s Lane flats at this time) were the first of its kind in the republic – something reflected in its simplistic ornamentation and crude construction. Following widespread slum clearance, the flats represented a new way of living. St Michan’s are just one of the many original ‘Simms blocks’ that are falling into dilapidation – in dire need of considered refurbishment and attention. For the purpose of this article, the flats were analysed under the headings of space, access, and services.
Only through knowing the intersection of our buildings’ historical, geographical, architectural, cultural, urban, and sociological heritage can we assess and value our existing building stock. Looking at plans and sections alone, the obvious conclusion is that the 1930s flat blocks are no longer fit for purpose. However, assessing the building as a series of stacked homes / refuges / dynastic legacies, it is clear that they work very hard indeed. An expectation that our spaces should serve us was a standard set by the architects from the scheme's inception. Through drawing, anecdote and archive, we know that Dublin Corporation, with Simms at the helm, asserted that these stacked homes should be equal to their two-storey terraced neighbours. Skirting boards throughout were insisted upon. Every flat had its own WC with a small window. While the hearth continued to act as the focal point, each flat was equipped with a separate scullery. Measuring under 6sqm, this represented a psychological move of the place of the kitchen within the home from a secondary, ‘serving’, room to an everyday space with light and functionality. While it is clear that these flats represent an endeavour to provide homes of value (sections drawn of the Cook Street flats scheme from the same time depict detail such as fold-up counter tops and coat hooks), where the corporation failed the residents was in understanding the size of families who would reside in the flats. As opposed to the three or four-person units the flats were designed for, families were more likely to have eight or ten members. This is a problem that persists today. The flats are too small for the number of occupants they hold.
The plan above is a survey of a resident’s apartment. Joanna lives here with her two adult daughters. The plan closely represents the suspected original layout – two bedrooms and a scullery off a main living room, with the 1930s coal shoot and WC converted into a bathroom and shower. There is no space for a dining table. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, Joanna’s girls completed a Leaving Cert and third-level degree sharing just the small make-up table in their bedroom. Even the depth of the walls is paltry: next door drilled straight through when hanging a painting. Storage is a limited luxury.
At each level, the flats are accessed by a gated deck off a central stair. Delineating the brick facades, the external decks are a quintessential feature of these blocks. Typically there are four doors per deck. They are a fundamental extension of the floor plan; used to store bikes, buggies, and laundry. The decks act as private outdoor terraces for the residents who have bedecked the walkways with compact outdoor furniture, and, most importantly for the residents, they enable the community to monitor the comings and goings of the scheme. Visting the flats, no sooner have you turned the corner when you are beckoned from one height or another. Their children grow up as children of the flats, loved and looked after by many – not just direct family members. This passive surveillance allows for both the casual monitoring of the children playing below, and secures their private world within the city.
Yet, using these decks is a daily drudgery. The drawing above depicts an occasion where baby was enjoying the view, as he was precariously lifted over a clothes horse. Having a baby in a Michan’s flat involves lugging a buggy up and down the four storeys several times a day, navigating the bikes and laundry. There are no provisions for limited mobility.
From surveying Joanna’s flat, the room that frustrates its family the most is their tiny bathroom. A shower has been added to the original WC by eating space from the master bedroom. However, the head height is too short to fix the shower head to the wall, and so you must hold it aloft when showering.
There is no storage and no space – the girls stick a leg out onto the sink to shave their legs. Worst of all is the noise that travels – if someone in the flat below is having a rough time, you know about it. The single waste pipe runs vertically from the top floor to the bottom. If there is a plumbing issue or problem on one floor, there is a problem on every floor. It is the same for the drainage in the kitchens. The services to Michan’s were not designed to cope with everyday modern life. The washing machines cause water to come back up into the sink – a resident explained that she can’t leave while her washing is on as she spends the spin cycle running to and from the kitchen sink, emptying buckets of water down an external drain. There is only a countertop fridge, with just a freezer shelf. Even an air-fryer can’t succeed in Michan’s; it blew the sockets and almost went on fire.
What links this essay to all other pieces in this Working Hard / Hardly Working series is that there are but a few minor moves that will take this building from hardly working to one which is a successful home for its residents. Flats could be amalgamated or extended to create a suitably sized apartment [space]. The whole building would be dramatically improved should the pipework and electrics be re-done [services]. An elevator would make the scheme navigable, and an extension of the deck would only enhance the precious external space already enjoyed by the residents [access].
The architectural principles of the building are strong – the flats were designed to have minimal internal corridors, are all dual aspect, and with a maximum of four doors per deck access, they hug the street edge to create generous interior courtyards. These buildings work hard for their residents, and in turn, they the residents do the same for it. You cannot leave the flats without feeling the depth of pride towards the homes and communities made. The residents who live here overcome daily physical obstacles in order to maintain their flats. And through this careful care, the home-makers also act as cultural custodians. But they can only do so much; the building cannot continue to work so hard. The Michan’s scheme and others of the same age need to be refurbished: for the residents, for the city, for our environment, and for our architectural heritage.
Working Hard / Hardly Working is supported by the Arts Council through the Architecture Project Award Round 2 2022.
1. E. Conroy, “No Rest for Twenty Years”; H.G. Simms and the Problem of Slum Clearance in Dublin, M.Sc.Arch Thesis. University College Dublin, Ireland. 1997.
2. E. Rowley (ed.), More than concrete blocks : Dublin city’s twentieth century buildings and their stories. Vol. I, 1900-40. Dublin: Dublin City Council with UCD and Four Courts Press, 2016.
The innermost tip of the estuary is where the wild Atlantic Ocean meets the River Shannon, the body of water that shares its name with Ireland’s first new town. Building work on this new community began in the 1950s, with Shannon emerging as a symbol of the excitement and optimism, seeking to manifest the ambitions of the newly established Irish Free State. Envisioned as a ‘‘city of tomorrow", it attracted industries and factories from England, the United States and Europe, encouraged by the development of the nearby airport and Ireland’s first free trade zone in the nearby industrial estate. Architects Downes, Meades, and Robinson, along with town planner Frederick Rogerson, designed the town’s housing and infrastructure.
I live in the Cronan Estate, at the end of the terrace, in a four bedroomed home that my grandparents moved into in January 1975. The most exciting part of Cronan is the layout and urban design. Architects traveled to Europe and England, looking at examples of innovative post-war housing developments, inspired by the seminal Garden City Movement that emerged in the early 1900s. This movement imagined built up urban centres surrounded by green belts, providing inhabitants access to nature while also dividing different civic spaces. Inspiration was also gathered from the Radburn Design developments, first implemented in New Jersey in the 1920s, taking an approach to planning that separated pedestrians and cars, creating distinct zones within housing developments with defined uses. This division of spaces is achieved by having the fronts of houses facing onto a shared green space while the backs are used for more functional purposes. In both of these examples there is a clear division, separating the green areas from the more functional built environment.
Following these principles, in the Cronan estate, houses enjoy large green spaces at their fronts, with parking, roads and access installed to the rear. The front, the focus of the estate, is carefully designed so that it is working hard. The backspace by comparison is hardly working, a leftover space that over time has had to compensate for changes in use and increased spatial strain. This layout of greens along the front allows one to walk from one side of the estate to the other without crossing a road. This is replicated in many of the original estates in Shannon, creating a meandering pedestrian green band, with very few roads between. Through this well planned out organisation, these spaces flow into one another, as if the houses and greens naturally sat in perfect harmony from the beginning of time. They are working well, and for me, while growing up, it would have seemed inconceivable for the estate to be laid out differently.
The low garden walls are the perfect height for my neighbours to sit and chat. When I dig up my garden at the start of the summer, people stop to chat, to talk about their own gardens; there is a pride in maintaining their fronts. Neighbours and local groups come together to maintain the greens, planting trees and flowers. The trees fill the views from my living room, allowing me to watch the seasons changing from within my home.
The communal front areas are an extension of the home and gardens of the people living here. They provide a safe and inner sanctum, meaning that people feel at ease leaving their children to run outside. This outside space is working hard, and is an important space to the people of Cronan. When I was a child I would play at the front, sometimes running back through the alleyways, my feet clanging the metal manhole covers as I ran between the front and back of the houses. Lying in bed at night, I still hear the sound of someone travelling that same route, with the same loud clanging of the metal manhole echoing into the silence of the estate.
The backs of the houses by comparison are hardly working, serving a more functional purpose, providing access to the roads and parking. The patchwork of well considered green areas and walkways along the front are a stark contrast to the backs that are formed by leftover space rather than intentional planning. The roads slink their way through the estate, allowing for cars as a mere afterthought.
The back is where you park your car, unload groceries and dry your clothes. Neighbours work on their cars and people might sit outside on summer nights drinking. This space has many uses and functions. Between arguments over parking and the most direct route to the pub, this space is noisy and overused causing the backs of the houses to struggle to contain the noise leading to its overspilling.
Part of the problem lies with the limited space designed for parking in the 1970s, with an increasing number of cars crammed into the small space. This is reflected in the changing materiality of these backlands over time. When the estate was in its infancy, small green spaces were peppered across the back with beech trees. Green was interwoven with the practical use of the space for parking and access, linking the two spaces through its shared materiality of the front. These spaces have been replaced with tarmac and concrete, strained by efforts to provide room to accommodate everyone.
This once vibrant public space has been sterilised. Still, it holds the potential to work hard to serve the needs of its residents each day. A return to its previous state is still possible, however, green spaces beside parking have recently been tarmaced over due to them being viewed as untidy. If these could be replanted with grass and trees, this small change would unite the front and backs again. Planting along the alleyways would further enforce this link and also help to improve biodiversity. These small changes would return the spaces to the original vision of the planners and architects of Shannon and in turn improve the quality of spaces for everyone, it would lead to a space that is able to work hard again.
This essay focuses on Shannon New Town, exploring its history from the development and conception by architects to the personal and social history of Aoife’s family. Comparing two spaces within the housing estate of Cronan, highlighting the architectural and social significance, as well as the broader social importance within Shannon.
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Two cities, both alike in dignity: one vibrant, revelling in its love of watching and being watched; the other smug and staid - watching and watched but neither advertised. This article takes its inspiration from Dublin and Paris, though equally it could be London and Rome. One is on the continent of Europe: full of piazzas and long balmy evenings attracting walkers and maunderers. There are buzzy bars, café’s and bistros and the city feels like one large open air exhibition of sociability. The other is not continental, though might sometimes fancy it. The Victorian obsession with manners is still being shaken off and the idea of openly advertising your curiosity is too vulgar for words.
A recent trip to France and Italy left me feeling full and satisfied; not just because of the good food but the good cities, where sociability is prioritised resulting in safe, happy and diverse places to meet. In this article I wish to look at the importance of celebrating and observing the social life of cities, in essence: people watching. It is no coincidence that le flâneur, a wandering observer of urban spaces, is a French term with no direct translation into the English language, or that the Italians have a specific word for an evening stroll which is taken to both exercise and socialise—to look at others and be looked at: La Passagiata.
The value placed on people watching is most obvious in Paris where café’s and bistros on boulevards and squares offer row upon row of chairs, all facing outwards allowing their sitters to simply wait and watch the world go by. It is a form of urban theatre with the prime spots being those at the front - a ville spectacle. A city that encourages people watching does more than just enabling nosiness, it allows for moments of connection between human beings and in so doing, generates an understanding of the importance of great public spaces in cities. A great public space is a democratic space, [1] a forum for strangers to interact but more than this, it reduces isolation and increases social support. Affection between human beings can, depending on the space, increase in public rather than decrease. In turn, these moments of affection and closeness ‘draws upon and contributes to the richness of public life’. [2]
The ‘English Pubs’ or ‘Irish bars’ in Paris offer an interesting study into the difference between these countries’ when it comes to public life and how it is viewed, or, as is most often the case, not. In all that I witnessed, these spaces of libation and meeting were lined with seats and benches facing not outward but inward, toward each other. Though this article is not about the seating arrangements within the hospitality industry, I do believe this to be a microcosm of a wider social issue: countries that are yet to value the beauty and importance of people watching, a spectator sport that should not just be limited to meetings of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). The café culture of Paris, where residents are encouraged to sit and linger over their coffees on streets and sidewalks, has extended into other realms of public life and planning. Its residents no longer need the excuse of coffee to enjoy the city from a vantage point: it is a city that espouses this ethos at every turn, offering public seating and places for lingering in abundance. ‘Whereas cities were once dominated by necessary activities, cafés brought recreational life into play with a vengeance’, [3] streets are for staying rather than merely passing through.
In his checklist for convivial public spaces, Jan Gehl lists twelve qualities that public spaces should strive for, one of which is ‘opportunities to see’. [4] Gehl is an architect and urban designer who understands the importance of the human dimension in cities stating that ‘the quality of a dwelling and city space at eye level can in itself be decisive to everyday quality of life’. [5] Thinking of Dublin city, where I lived for many years, I struggle to think now of its truly public places - spaces where people can gather and socialise, people watch and exist; where the enjoyment of the city and its urban spectacle are afforded without paying a premium for a coffee or a drink. At the heart of this issue, is a capital with a disturbing lack of public seating, squares and places of congregation. Two obvious examples that come to mind are Smithfield square - so large in scale it results in a dwarfing of any human form - and Portobello Harbour which has now, controversially but unsurprisingly, become the front yard of NYX Hotel.
In recent years Dublin has also become a city that has seen a decrease in public perceptions of safety. According to a poll conducted in 2023, residents of Dublin felt less safe in the capital than in 2016. [6] An increase in Garda presence could be one answer but is there also an argument for ‘eyes upon the street’? [7] Jane Jacobs’ great cry for safety in cities could be as relevant in 2025 as it was in the 60’s. To achieve this we need cities that encourage people onto the streets, to enjoy and watch. So, in the name of happier, safer and more human cities let us facilitate, not inhibit, our natural gregariousness and curiosity.
Promoting people watching in cities may be more important than we think. In this article Phoebe Moore looks at two cities and their differing approaches to public places and curious eyes.
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When determining whether a space is working, in terms of accessibility, we often look towards details such as ramps and widened dimensions. However, for autistic people, atmosphere is perhaps an unexpected yet key element in whether a space is working hard or hardly working. Bright lights, uncomfortable textures, and certain sounds might deter autistic people from using a space so as to avoid becoming overstimulated and potentially having a meltdown.
The need for spatial alterations to facilitate the needs of autistic people is recognised in Ireland. Yet, the solution is often a momentary change of use in an existing building. For example, supermarkets (a typology notably found challenging by autistic people) often host quiet evenings, one night a week, when the usual bright fluorescent lights are dimmed and noise levels are controlled. Even Shannon Airport (the example I use for a building that is hardly working) has a sensory room which creates a space for autistic people to re-regulate themselves. However, these efforts are surface-level solutions for a deeper spatial issue. They highlight how unaccommodating these spaces are outside of limited quiet hours and singular rooms, and could be argued to be reminiscent of the spatial othering historically faced by autistic (and other disabled) people relegated to spaces parallel to the rest of society. [1]
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The Living Bridge on the University of Limerick campus, designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects, is – perhaps unconsciously – an example of a public space that works hard for autistic accessibility. Spanning a particularly wild stretch of the Shannon River, where cormorants dry their wings on small islands and swans fish under trees that seem to almost float in the current, the bridge twists and curves from the main campus to the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. Upon stepping onto the bridge, two floor textures become apparent. On one side of an ebbing and flowing walkway, an aluminium surface gives walkers an extra spring in their step with a muted clunking sound underneath (which may appeal to sensory seekers). Meanwhile, a parallel path in a soft aggregated material seems to absorb force, muting the sound of walkers, joggers, and cyclists. Two alternative sensory experiences are available for bridge users to choose from or swap between.
The bridge is experienced almost as a series of rooms, with each stretch of ten metres or so offering a new view and a soft change of direction, resulting in a snake-like motion from one piece of land to the other. These bends provide a sense of privacy in what would otherwise be a long stretch of public land. This may be reassuring for autistic people due to their difficulties with social situations. The Living Bridge allows pedestrians to weave past each other almost on happenstance, thus avoiding anxiety about interacting with strangers.
In a similar vein, the concave wooden benches dotted along the perimeter of the bridge provide a sheltered resting space for the public to pause as they either relax or regather themselves with the help of the surrounding calming landscape. It has been noted that some autistic people may use their built surroundings to ‘ground’ themselves when overstimulated.[2] The slight nested nature of the benches with overarching glass sheets provides a momentary respite for someone overwhelmed by the bustling nature of a transitory space.
Lastly, the lighting on the bridge is coloured and soft. Positioned under the bridge, on the floor, and on the below-waist-level railing, the lights are in stark contrast to the bright white overhead lights often found in public space and are instead reminiscent of the colourful dark lighting often found in sensory rooms.
As previously mentioned, Shannon Airport has a sensory room. However, the spaces outside of the sensory room create the harsh environment which warrants the need for a separate accessible room in the first place. Vast empty spaces feel like interior fields and provide few opportunities for tethering an overwhelmed body to the comfort of a hard and secure surface. Fluorescent overhead lighting is almost startling as it beams not only from above but reflects off the white polished floors below. Loud and regular announcements on the intercom are discombobulating. A sense of intense interiority is formed by the lack of windows, creating a claustrophobic space which does not signal any relief from what might be read by an autistic traveller as what is colloquially termed a “sensory hell”.
In essence then, the atmosphere of a building can be seen as an essential element in determining whether a space is accessible or not (or rather, working hard or hardly working) to people with certain socio-sensory disabilities such as autism; perhaps best described by poet and art writer, Lisa Robertson: “...the entire body became an instrument played by weather and chance”.[3] Thus, in the case of autistic people, the small subtleties of the lighting, acoustics, textures – all the things which constitute atmosphere – can play the body like an instrument, leaving them overstimulated through no fault of their own.
The need for spaces accessible to autistic people has been increasingly recognised through the emergence of sensory rooms. In this article, Anna Blair takes a look at Shannon Airport and Wilkinson Eyre's Living Bridge, arguing that in one, accessibility is considered, and in the other, there is still work to be done.
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