Urban Horticulture- an incremental approach to unlocking latent urban landscapes for re-inhabitation
An inner city neighbourhood reveals new opportunities for re-inhabitation/enriched living environments in Irish towns and cities. A close reading of historic modes of living and existing city fabric reveals a range of untapped conditions and ways to expand existing living/working infrastructures, promoting long-term resilience of communities; a tool kit for ‘gardening’ our inherited plots and building stock in a process of pruning, grafting, and companion planting: a kind of urban horticulture.
National
Ireland
The Liberties, an inner city neighbourhood of Dublin (with potential to apply to other neighbourhoods and other Irish towns and cities)
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As individual(s) in partnership with organisation(s)
First name: Marcus Last name: Donaghy Gender: Male Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: Architectural Practice; Donaghy + Dimond Architects Nationality: Ireland Function: Urban Design, Building and Landscape Design, Exhibition Design (Practitioner and University Lecturer) Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 41 Francis Street Town: Dublin 8 Postal code: D08 KP38 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 1 416 8132 E-mail:info@donaghydimond.ie Website:https://donaghydimond.ie
First name: Dr. Alan Last name: Mee Gender: Male Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: Urban Design (Practitioner and University Lecturer) Nationality: Ireland Function: Consultant: Architect, Urban Design , Local Planning and Development History (Practitioner and University Lecturer) Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 3 Reginald Square Town: Dublin 8 Postal code: D08NP83 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 1 454 0878 E-mail:alan.mee@ucd.ie Website:https://people.ucd.ie/alan.mee
First name: Prof. Finola Last name: O'Kane Gender: Female Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: History of the Designed Landscape Nationality: Ireland If relevant, please select your other nationality: United States Function: Consultant : historian of the designed landscape Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: UCD Architecture, Richview Town: Clonskeagh, Dublin Postal code: D14EO99 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 1 716 2752 E-mail:finola.okane@ucd.ie Website:https://people.ucd.ie/finola.okane
First name: Will Last name: Dimond Gender: Male Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: Architectural Practice; Donaghy + Dimond Architects Nationality: United Kingdom Function: Urban Design, Building and Landscape Design, Exhibition Design (Practitioner and University Lecturer) Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 41 Francis St Town: Dublin 8 Postal code: D08KP38 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 1 416 8132 E-mail:info@donaghydimond.ie Website:https://donaghydimond.ie/
First name: Beibhinn Last name: Delaney Gender: Female Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: Architectural Practice; Donaghy + Dimond Architects Nationality: Ireland Function: Urban Design, Building and Landscape Design, Exhibition Design (Architectural Assistant) Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 41 Francis St Town: Dublin 8 Postal code: D08KP38 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 1 416 8132 E-mail:info@donaghydimond.ie Website:https://donaghydimond.ie/
First name: Joe Last name: Moran Gender: Male Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: Architectural Practice; Donaghy + Dimond Architects Nationality: Ireland Function: Urban Design, Building and Landscape Design, Exhibition Design (Architectural Assistant) Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 41 Francis St Town: Dublin 8 Postal code: D08KP38 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 1 416 8132 E-mail:info@donaghydimond.ie Website:https://donaghydimond.ie/
First name: Noah Last name: Brabazon Gender: Male Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: Architectural Practice; Donaghy + Dimond Architects Nationality: Ireland Function: Fabricator: Urban Horticulture exhibit Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 41 Francis St Town: Dublin 8 Postal code: D08KP38 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 1 416 8132 E-mail:info@donaghydimond.ie Website:https://donaghydimond.ie/
First name: Nicholas Last name: Howden Gender: Male Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: Architectural Practice; Donaghy + Dimond Architects Nationality: Ireland Function: Fabricator: Urban Horticulture exhibit Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 41 Francis St Town: Dublin 8 Postal code: D08KP38 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 1 416 8132 E-mail:info@donaghydimond.ie Website:https://donaghydimond.ie/
First name: Petra Last name: Keane Gender: Female Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: Architectural Practice; Donaghy + Dimond Architects Nationality: Ireland Function: Fabricator: Urban Horticulture exhibit Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 41 Francis St Town: Dublin 8 Postal code: D08KP38 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 1 416 8132 E-mail:info@donaghydimond.ie Website:https://donaghydimond.ie/
First name: Dr. Ellen Last name: Rowley Gender: Female Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: History of Architecture Nationality: Ireland Function: Consultant: Architectural Historian Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: School of Architecture Planning and Environmental Policy, Richview Sch of Architecture, University College Dublin Town: Belfield, Dublin 4 Postal code: D04 V1W8 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 86 393 2844 E-mail:ellen.rowley@ucd.ie Website:https://people.ucd.ie/ellen.rowley
In response to a national housing crisis we carried out a research and design project investigating a defined inner city neighbourhood of Dublin to demonstrate how new opportunities might be found for (re-)inhabitation and enriched living environments within the grain of Irish towns and cities.
The neighbourhood of the Liberties situated on the fringes of the historic core of Dublin was selected for its varied pattern of settlement and ever evolving use and demographics, the consequent layering of infrastructure and variety of living environments and housing/building types within a low-rise but densely occupied urban context; a range of conditions and opportunities that may be seen as typical of Irish urban situations of different scales.
Through an examination of historic occupancies and a close reading of existing city fabric we reveal a range of typical and particular conditions that are currently untapped and develop proposals to expand existing living and working infrastructures and thereby contribute to the long-term resilience of communities; a means or tool kit for ‘gardening’ our inherited plots and building stock in a process of pruning, grafting, and companion planting etc. - a kind of URBAN HORTICULTURE.
The study area lies in the neighbourhood within which we work as architects and have raised our families. Within two typical city blocks we demonstrate through models and drawings the potential for 336 new dwellings and 250 dwellings rehabilitated for continued use, whilst transforming the public realm and introducing shared and private outdoor space and communal facilities for the use of citizens and residents. However, the potential is for the same principles to transfer to other neighbourhoods and to other towns and cities in Ireland which share an equivalent scale of built environment and diversity of building stock evolved over centuries and decades, with cumulative effect in generating renewal of housing and workplaces.
Transformative
Incremental
Re-Use
Diverse
Inclusive
Priority given to re-use of existing structures minimises carbon footprint in relation to both embodied carbon and carbon-in-use. In this way the existing scale of the neighbourhood and familiarity with urban grain are also respected whilst introducing new accommodation and external spaces into under-used plots and disadvantaged pockets.
Provision of a range of potential living and working unit types facilitating lifetime occupancy. Through identification of a range of typical conditions and building types the ambition is to provide a broad range of opportunities and scales of inhabitation, as well as different configurations for live-work scenarios, and continuity of trades and functions of which there is a tradition locally (markets, stables etc.). In the case of existing social housing where there is a repetitive matrix of like living units the introduction of improved access circulation and balconies has the potential to enable interconnection of units/duplex configurations etc. to facilitate flexible and whole-life living arrangements.
The range of types/locations and scales of intervention means that the project is capable of being implemented incrementally enabling continued inhabitation of existing units, harnessing of mid-sized construction companies, employment of smaller local and dedicated architecture practices/related disciplines, hence maximising the local profile of the projects, investment of local stakeholders and engagement with the local community.
Promotion of biodiversity and cleaner air through introduction of courtyard gardens, terraces and allotments and consequent incentive to self-sufficient communities. The ambition for all units to be accessed via protected or shared thresholds, and the aim to maximise active use of roofspaces for gardens and allotments will encourage owners and residents to plant and take care of outdoor spaces.
Recovery of open space from traffic and historic road widening initiatives.
Holistic: Creating new dwellings is a communal task- social, ecological and spatial. There is no master key to unlocking housing, we need to take nimble yet gradually sustained steps; approaching dwelling from various angles and at different scales. This approach is holistic, acknowledges the relative value of all the built components of our city. It provides continuity in terms of the physical fabric of the city, building on, in and around what is existing and familiar. This is in contrast to other more common approaches to housing in which existing structures are typically erased and new environments introduced.
Site specific: Many of the keys using this approach are to be found in particular contexts, our response is site specific working with local character and particularities. To pursue the horticultural analogy: we must study the ground and receiving environment as it stands now and over time, what has grown well in a particular place and what might be re-grown with new conditions. The close, holistic study of context finds niches in which new homes may take root. This project takes the Liberties as a living laboratory from which to learn about housing/test modes of intervention that might be more widely applicable.
Ordinary and Familiar: Studying historic land subdivisions and settlement types, from 11th C linear plot layouts to deck access flats, reveals the underlying structures against which new layers are overlaid; dwelling between old walls, at gables, on roofscapes, in gardens and stable lanes, re-using stock; grafting in new homes, augmenting, re-using, upgrading & enriching existing blocks and estate. In this way communities are able to take ownership of the territory and there is a sense of belonging. Additions are designed to be low-key and protective of underlying structures.
Legible: Use of model as primary medium, supported by drawings, offers perspective; scope of operation is easily understood by community/stakeholders.
At the heart of our approach is an attitude to addressing diversity working with a variety of building types/scales, in which buildings are viewed not as discrete units but as part of a continuous city block or as aggregated infrastructure. This approach to building fabric is inherently conservation-led and economically minded (fabric is only removed where this is significantly advantageous, and then re-used on site where possible) and demands interaction with a broad range of occupants.
The chosen study area has historically been marginalised with a low level of investment in the public realm and community facilities and a broad demographic; social housing dating mainly from mid 20th C was not always well integrated into the physical environment and has not received adequate investment with consequent increased marginalisation and social problems. A primary objective of the project is to use the process of augmentation/adding more living space as an opportunity for enrichment and improved access in which the structure of linear housing blocks is retained, all units are provided with outdoor terraces and more generous threshold areas, as well as common multipurpose facilities and roof gardens. Modification of access infrastructure and provision of double-height terraces offers the possibility for living units to interconnect horizontally or vertically for flexibility and potential accommodation of larger families/downsizing to smaller units. This approach is in contrast to current policy where many such structures face demolition and replacement with more suburban housing typologies.
The urban design approach of additions to blank gables and the building of street edges aims to provide containment to shared outdoor spaces, entrance courtyards and gardens and thereby reinforce the sense of these areas as shared community amenities. This also helps to stitch these blocks physically to the historic street pattern enhancing integration and inclusivity.
The project was conceived in response to an Irish Architecture Foundation initiative to address the housing crisis in Ireland, and has been on public exhibition for a number of months in a city centre gallery at Trinity College in Dublin under the banner HOUSING UNLOCKED. The exhibit is a consolidation of the research and design approach to date. The exhibit is rooted in 20 plus years of living and practising in this place. The ambition would be to garner support for such an approach, to develop it with input from residents and local communities with a view to implementing strategic elements on the ground (construction projects) in the chosen study area or in other urban contexts in Ireland.
The current exhibition has been organised to encourage interaction with the public via a series of workshops, panel discussions and tours. A discussion of the Model Housing-Urban Horticulture project was attended by local residents, members of the public, interest groups, students academics and practitioners who offered their commentary and insight. This was characterised primarily by support for our approach and critique of the historic lack of consultation with residents regarding previous initiatives which focused on wholesale renewal and limited accommodation of the priorities of long-standing local communities.
The current exhibition has also been supported by public media events, online resources and social media platforms which facilitate feedback and discussion amongst interested parties. We are currently investigating options for moving the installation of Urban Horticulture to a venue within the study area in order to encourage an increased level of interaction with communities who would be directly affected by the proposals.
A benefit of the Housing Unlocked initiative has been to increase exposure of Model Housing-Urban Horticulture to a broader range of stakeholders and interested parties. The engagement programme includes free-of-charge admission to the exhibition and has invited the attendance of students, the general public, community groups, housing bodies, built-environment professionals, policy makers, private developers and local government, all of whom have participated and provided feedback. It is intended that this feedback will be gathered and collated in due course and will inform development of the project.
In particular the Housing Agency (a government agency with mandate to inform and deliver national housing and housing policy) has been an active participant in the life and dissemination of the project to date and has committed to help progress the project and deliver outcomes. An event has been organised for Spring 2023 at which the Housing Agency and ourselves will present the project to stakeholders with a view to progressing the initiative further at both local and national level.
The exhibition has been actively attended by groups of students at both school and university level. The chosen study area has also been selected as the context for research and design projects in the School of Architecture at University College Dublin in its current undergraduate and postgraduate programmes involving Donaghy and Dimond, Professor Finola O'Kane and Dr Alan Mee; in this context the Urban Horticulture installation and the research behind it serve as an active resource for students.
The project has been developed in the main in our architecture studio. We are a private practice which has been located for many years in the Liberties study area, with a deep interest in this part of the city and its historical development. In addition the practice directors have both been involved in teaching architecture at third level with a particular interest in urban ecology and how the city is made.
Complementing in-house expertise and interests is the collaboration with two teaching colleagues:
Professor Finola O’Kane is an architect with an interest in historical landscapes, urban topography/morphology and land-ownership. Finola supported our interest in close-reading of context with research methodologies and analysis through historical mapping, with particular assistance in sourcing early estate maps from original landowners. She offered dimensions on reading the city through historical perspectives which shed light on the the grain and morphology of the city through time.
Dr Alan Mee is an architect with a particular expertise in Urban Design and Planning. His knowledge of development history is revelatory in identifying the underlying forces embodied in various urban morphologies and contributed to the exhibit in the form of a 'graphical bibliography'.
Dr Ellen Rowley is an architect and historian with a particular interest in Irish public housing of the early and mid twentieth century. Her knowledge and source material relating to the study area was instrumental in developing an understanding of the working of these structures.
Research from these various strands was gathered and discussed at periodic meetings during the development of the project and served to underscore and refine the urban design strategy.
The initiative uses a local context to address a national/global question while proposing enriched dwelling models in the home context. The embedded nature of living, practicing and self-building is entwined with the exhibit (a new structure is grafted into the plot of the home & office during the lifetime of the exhibition).
The Urban Design approach is to analyse the underlying landscape through time, while close-reading the fabric/spatial orders of our home ground. Local experience is informed by expertise in urban design, historic landscape studies and housing history. This knowledge is fused in the exhibit to help perfect the territory, with models cast to fit the context. This reciprocal relationship between housing, histories, people and place in practice is innovative compared to mainstream ‘high level’ abstraction.
The physical modelling of the Exhibition is presented as an embodiment of place in its spatial contours, with which people can identify, relate and engage. New and old models are combined in a collage of built and unbuilt proposition, and a layered archive of housing histories is tabled to show the ever evolving provision of housing in relation to the social, community and administrative contexts in which these were laid down, while speculating on new layers. This model of exhibition which is situated in time and space relative to specific places and histories allows people to engage and it opens conversations.
The innovation in the exhibit is that it is not solely abstract, it both embraces built conditions and remembers through research and experience the formative forces in our environments while continuing to build incrementally and demonstratively using methods which graft new and old material, on site, in a garden off Francis Street in the Liberties. The exhibition projects through drawing and model how this method can be upscaled to larger structures by understanding their physical/material/contextual structures.
The initiative demonstrates that through close observation and research of context in housing and urban histories one may identify potential which is otherwise ignored or discounted.
The transferable aspects of the project span from the generic, in terms of inherited ‘types’ and how one might adjust these for sustained re-use, in the light of climate goals and ecological imperatives, to the method of study which proposes that to re-house ourselves in sustainable and circular ways we must understand, measure, analyse and experience place from multiple perspectives. The method, while inclusive, is evolving and it acknowledges incompleteness and contingencies, to be enriched every time it is re-applied and remodelled for a particular context. It is not conceptual, but it is applicable and adaptable to contexts on a case by case basis.
There will be ongoing transferable lessons from practice in place as reflected in the exhibition, and from continued practice and construction, including the consideration of the logistics of scales of operation when working in confined built up conditions, such as the degree to which, and the scale at which, prefabrication may apply in particular conditions, how building methods can be tailored to conditions (time and labour must be valued when balancing the imperative of re-use of structure and materials locally in global terms of carbon).
This locally derived approach is paradoxically transferable on the premise that it will mutate in response to context. Rather than projection of pre-ordained typological fixes the process is to study the context in close terms within a broad perspective of expertise in order to imagine how one might act and might build in a framework of circular environmentally just practices.
Context: the fundamental principle is that the design approach arises out of an understanding and close reading of context (both historical and topographical). This is based on recent research but also familiarity with the place over many years of living and working in it. However, the selection of sites and selection of strategies is informed and coloured by the identification of situations/types that replicate in many other Irish contexts and might therefore be more widely applicable. Knowledge/research of other urban contexts informed this process.
Design: our approach to design intervention assumes the primacy of existing orders and structures and aims to underpin the strength of existing patterns/infrastructure, quietly splicing or grafting-in new 'stock' where appropriate. This was tested through multiple iterations in overlay drawing and sketch model, informed by best practice, which included comparative analysis of innovative current work from other international contexts. Consequently the outcome when seen in overview model may appear to be loosely connected. We perceive this as a virtue when it comes to implementation; the project may be realised in part only, or incrementally over time, and this may be achieved using smaller scale and local construction companies and consultants than would be typical for this scale of project.
Dissemination and Process: From the outset models were seen as the primary vehicle for communication to public and stakeholders, but were also used for development of design strategies and for testing ideas. Our architecture studio being situated in a former shop/retail unit within the study area the models were constructed and placed on show as work-in-progress in the shop window during the design and making stage of the exhibit, and draft drawings pinned up adjacent to the shop window, with the aim of inviting feedback from passers-by.
Educational: the Model Housing-Urban Horticulture project has dual status as a public exhibit and as a real urban design/architectural proposal. It is therefore an opportunity to communicate to the public, to stakeholders and to those tasked with providing our infrastructure, pressing global issues around climate change, how we place value on our built heritage and how we might work with it to provide new living environments without negative impact on our planet.
Environmental: whilst the design approach is site driven as noted above, the ambition is to transform the quality of local environments by judicious upgrade and addition. The enrichment of transitional areas between street and front door is seen as collateral to the provision of new living accommodation, through the creation of forecourts, gardens, terraces and threshold areas offering the opportunity for greening these in-between spaces with consequent benefit to the public realm. The creation of buffer zones may serve as an important addition to living space, a potential threshold to integrate living and workplace, and a potential part of a climate-control strategy for internal spaces.
Carbon: The focus on re-use has the cultural and civic benefits set out above but also maximises the value of embodied carbon by exploiting what is already there as against importing new resources and constructions. Our approach is to minimise imported constructions but where they are expedient to employ careful selection of materials and technologies, from local and low energy resources where possible. Experience of best practice from around the world tells us that this approach can deliver exemplary and sustainable living environments of a character and scale that is consistent with its locale.
Model Housing-Urban Horticulture reminds stakeholders of existing layers of housing history rich with physical and organisational models to be adapted, augmented and re-calibrated.
Pre-dating the exhibition the practice has tested modes of making closely measured and fitted to context, reusing structures and materials on site, relying upon physical experience and memory of construction, informing the understanding of old and new technologies and their appropriate application. The exhibit archive table includes a number of local unbuilt projects by the practice; the re-making of public ground, working the gables of 20th C local authority housing, making space for community organisations, approaches developed further in Urban Horticulture. This initiative recasts the approach in the light of the imperative to re-use, augment and thermally upgrade existing stock and it is directly relevant to impending regeneration of local authority deck access housing and to reoccupation of vacant housing stock in many Irish contexts.
Concerns pursued in Urban Horticulture are also underpinned by built work and work-in-progress; the incrementally re-inhabited home, plot and workplace on Francis Street works as a scalable example of living-over-the-shop and window into practice; a garden studio in the courtyard behind this is currently under construction as a self-build project and is serving as a testing ground for ideas at a larger scale.
The initiative has allowed us to frame and model an holistic approach, promoting its value to diverse actors. The development plan is to transfer the exhibit to a local context and to build conversations and capacity so that impending schemes will embed any lessons. The Housing Agency event programmed for spring 2023 is noted above.
Our intentions in relation to environment and climate change are noted above under 'global challenges'. As teachers we are currently immersed in the process of integrating new knowledge and awareness of the climate emergency into developing curricula.
In daily practice we are constantly grappling with these issues at every stage of the design process. The Urban Horticulture initiative has involved working simultaneously at a variety of scales and is proving to be a useful vehicle for exploring the challenges of designing and constructing for a sustainable future.
