ESB should go back to drawing board with office plan

WHAT amadán advised the ESB in drawing up the parameters for an international architectural competition which includes an entry threshold based on turnover and an adjudication process which totally misunderstands the fundamentals of the design process?

If the ESB is looking for competently designed buildings to replace their building stock in Fitzwilliam Street in Dublin, there are well-established processes in place, eg, advertising seeking competent firms to undertake such work, selecting a firm following interviews, short-listing, etc.

Under any of these processes, the ESB would get from the architectural profession a reasonable and efficient building, and there are buildings all over Ireland that are testimony to this.

However, the ESB has decided (on advice, presumably) that an international competition is the way to go.

This would be wonderful were it not for the selective criteria they have applied and the aberrant adjudication process they have conceived.

The entry requirement of an annual turnover of €2.5m is not only downright exclusionary but it also fails to understand what an open competition can achieve.

In the adjudication process, the ESB has decided that there could be up to three winners, with provision for the ESB (in its wisdom) to pick parts of each winning design to be included in the overall building.

To my knowledge this has never occurred before and one wonders how much does the ESB understand about the design process and the making of buildings. The judgment of Solomon comes to mind.

Should design quality and excellence depend on your company’s turnover?

If yes, then the following buildings — all products of open architectural competitions — would never have seen the light of day: Sydney Opera House, Pompidou Centre (Paris), La Grande Arche (Paris), the Great Library of Alexandria (Egypt), the Grand Egyptian Museum (Cairo) and the extension to the National Library in Stockholm. Incidentally, the Egyptian Museum project was won by a young, dynamic architectural practice from Dublin.

There are many more examples.

This is a pivotal time in the remaking of our country.

Times are tough for everybody and my architectural profession is no different than any other, with more than 50% unemployment.

This was surely an opportunity for the ESB to show vision and foresight, another “Ardnacrusha moment” for a new departure for architecture in this sensitive area of Dublin.

It would appear this is not to be and that the ESB has gone the route of mediocrity.

John P Clancy

Parsonstown

Batterstown

Co Meath