DUBLIN - BRIDGE ON LIFFEY RIVER- SANTIAGO CALATRAVA

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Let me introduce you a very absorbing bridge located in the centre of  Dublin, called after James Joyce, designed by Santiago Calatrava.

The bridge was opened in 2003, structure is designed as tied- arch bridge, 30 m wide and 40 m long, and is connecting  the South and the North side of Dublin.

We can see that functionally it has been divided into one, middle passage for a vehicular traffic, and two pedestrian walkways on both side of the bridge.

On each side, between pedestrian and vehicular traffic, there is a special area excluded for people who want to stop and admire the Liffey River.

The designer used basically  only three materials for it's construction; glass , concrete and steel.

You can distinguish nice details of stainless strained steel cables/wire ropes stretching from the top of the arch to the bottom support- the structure has no support below the deck of the bridge whatsoever .
Personally I really like the way of designing the steel and glazed balustrade, and it's connection to the existing retaining wall.
The architect, structural engineer S.Calatrava , here again did very well and I think he prooved that no architecture is to small for the good designer.
The building looks esspecially charming when illuminated by night.

DUBLIN - ATHLUMNEY VILLAS STREET

Another building located within the Ranelagh Street in Dublin.
One can see  curved shapes of main body of the building, a lot of a concrete used for a construction, almost brutalistic,  pure and very minimalistic character of the building.

Really interesting shape as for the building ; reminds me of a snail shell, under which there is a small horizinatal window located.

Looking at the building from front, we can see how nicely the concrete block is curved , and ended with a vertical slender window which runs to the ceiling and then the opening is continued within the concrete balcony balustrade.

The built is very weired , and definitely unusual, and in my personal opinion deserves to figure in my very objective  list of interesting architecture of cities and suburbs.

DUBLIN - RANELAGH STREET- CLOSER TOWARDS THE CITY

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Another building woth of our attention, located only few hundred meeters away from the preliminary school , on the same street.
Flat aluminium roofs, nice and smooth finish of a render and a very cubistic shapes.
The building consists of many parts that prefectly play together giving the very contemporary character.
Obviously the same material scheme as for the other building has been used: timber, smooth sand cement render, and a natural stone.
Big openings, colouristic contrast between the building parts, effect of "looking at the opening through another opening". Very interesting manipulation with blocks of building , makes the whole design fresh and unusualy beautyfull and sometimes I wished I had designed this building.That about sums up my relation to the building.

DUBLIN, RICHMOND PLACE

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The single family residential buidling located in Dublin, on the corner of  Richmond Place and Mount Pleasant Ave Upper.

Another very interesting building made of a nice, very common in the area type of brick.
Very popular recently big openings with timber frame and cladded openable panels, with asymetric vertical bars within the window frame.

Huge opening to the loundge along the boundary wall makes a really fantastic impression, dominates the whole ground floor, and provides more than sufficient amount of a daylight.

Personally I also like the fact that all windows and doors frames are flushed with the external wall which makes the building more simple almost  minimalistic.
The idea of making one of the building's walls a boundary wall, was a really briliant thought.
To sum up I can say that you have to see it to find out how the small architecture can be also interesting and desirable.

DUBLIN, RANELAGH STREET- PRELIMINARY SCHOOL

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Dublin - Very interesting place to live in, especially in the end of the last decade .
I was one of those lucky ones to live there for a few years and experience the unbelievable possibilities of having big money invested in  building process.
Very often buildings were constructed of very good quality, and well finished materials, also you could notice an interesting trend in architecture and design generally to use materials of natural origin, more often then it was happening in previous years.
The presented building is a preliminary school located  in Dublin, on Ranelagh Street .

It is kept in a small , very human scale and one can feel a freshness of ideas and a friendly enviroment very the priority to the designer.

Thanks to the use of natural materials, timber framed windows and doors, timber cladding, natural stone, smothed and polished concrete panels, lead flashings and roof coverings make the building looking contemporary and give it a very noble character.

The attention to details and thoughtfull and fresh use of composition , calls for a special appreciation.