Temoinage

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Tag: History

February 20, 2020

Urbanism February 2020

Cavan Market Square

Between 2018 and early 2019 NJBA A+U provided urban design research and a vision for the much maligned Market Square in Cavan Town, Ireland.  This multi-level design research exercise enfolded the shareholders, the local authority and town team in a process which evolved to make a dramatic intervention in the centre of this old urban centre.

History

The earliest extant record of the town dates from 1591 which identifies two (long demolished) castles, one on the hill overlooking the town and the other set into the fabric of the town next to the Franciscan friary.  Mapping this over the more contemporary fabric it reveals the relationship of the various artifacts to the morphology of the town’s streets.

Market

What remains of the original Victorian Market Square is a pale reflection of its earlier form.  At the centre near what appears to be a well on the 1591 map the old market house was demolished in the 1960’s to make way for a different hub, the general Post office.

Design Challenge

Initial research into the temporary use of the remaining area suggested a different alignment for market stalls that re-affirmed the street condition and cleared a space for people to engage in a truly urban space.  This emphaised the lost opportunity that existed hidden behind the newer fabric, that is the abbeylands, where it is reputed that the body of Owen Roe O’Neill is interred.  Aside from the historical resonance of this space the spatial pattern at the heart of the town is at stake.  With the support of the main stakeholder, the post office, a new idea emerged.

Abbeylands

Re-aligning, re-positioning, re-situating would allow a new connection to the heart of the medieval town that was anchored around the old friary, whose church suffered at least three catastrophic fires.  It remains an empty unloved and oft forgotten void.  By identifying the key boundaries of the centre; between Town hall Street, Main Street, Bridge Street and Abbey Street, the centre can be re-invigorated, and re-connected to its place.

The relationship between church and market space can once again be reunited.  A new branded scheme clarifying the core can become the anchor for a new identity for historic Cavan.

Urbanism

Engaging local stakeholders required a multi-disciplinary approach to communicating ideas and engaging interest.  Combining, drawings, plans, sketches, computer and physical models helped convey the reality of the proposal, eliciting generous, welcome and critical comments.

Simulating before and after proposals were the most effective, especially those that portrayed the reality of the impacts through photo-montages, that reflected what viewers were already familiar.

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Simulation

Simulating or imagining the use of the space was even more effective in convincing the audience of the substantial benefits accruing from the dramatic changes.  The new vision offered a 400% increase in usable public space at the heart of the town, capable of holding exhibition sports events (Tennis / Basketball), small concerts and a more substantial civic space.

Design 

Emptying the space is not sufficient in itself.  Instead a framework that reinforced the street condition of Main Street, provides the infrastructure for temporary accommodation when and if markets are required.  This disciplines the often random nature of such events without compromising the operation or enjoyment of the space.

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Next Steps

Currently the Abbeylands are subject of a new urban masterplan which suggests that significant changes will emerge for this effort and finally the town will be rewarded with a market square that holds the heart of the town in the centre.

njba a+u was commissioned by the Cavan Town Team to provide a vision in conjunction with he key stakeholders surrounding the space.

April 17, 2017

Architecture April 2017

Tread Softly

Wolfe Tone Park is situated in the middle of Dublin on the grounds of the Church of St. Mary’s alongside the old Jervis Street Hospital.  Though many pass by and over the space between the de-consecrated Church and an old industrial building few think about what lies beneath.    The abstracted diagonal paving with its sparse planting and scattered remnants of headstones was once and remains a graveyard.

NJBA A+U –  Wolfe Tone Square

An international design competition was held in 1998 to reconfigure the enclosed park of stone walls, iron railings, paths and grassed over graves.  Even then the original headstones had been aligned along the boundaries facing into the space inside.  The original stone walls and railings identified the sacred boundary and provided minimal environmental protection from the wind and traffic noise.

NJBA A+U – Monument to Wolfe Tone

The solutions that found favour with the jury converted the bounded space to an unbounded non space, leaking to the street and the surrounding spaces.  Originally the intention was to bring St. Mary’s into the composition but that remains isolated.

Critically however the issue of the dead remained silent in many of the submissions as the graveyard is purported to hold cholera victims with many laid close to the surface.  Instead of revealing the interred it was considered more sensible to leave them where thy lay and move the remaining stones to the shaded end of the new space, leaving some to be presented along the western flank to wear away underfoot.

Our approach to the Wolfe Tone Square Competition was diametrically opposed to the washing away of this memory.   Instead we sought to honour the dead, and the living.  With the additional request to honour Wolfe Tone we split the honorific aspects of our interpreted programme in two contrasting courts connected with spaces for the living visitor.

NJBA A+U – Memorial to the interred

The overall plan for the Square would also recognise the significant environmental problems that currently exist.  The prevailing winds from the South West and West transverse the nearby buildings before hitting the Jervis Street hospital Building and directed downwards make for an uncomfortable location at best.  Our proposal sought to enhance the previous barrier’s tendency to shelter the space by including a system of screening with Birch Trees in raised platforms to break up the laminar flow of the moving air as well as a mask to the traffic noise on either street.  Coupled with an integrated seating and water system the visitor would be enclosed ion a place of calm reflection necessary in today’s world.  The square would also be capable of being closed at certain times to ensure that the place was preserved as a place of respect rather than a place of entertainment, a temptation that is all too often taken up in urban design schemes.

NJBA A+U – Wolfe Tone Square

As the council authorities seek to address the limitations of the current arrangement there is a plan to convert it back to some sort of grassed surface.  As people, re-inhabit the space, as they sit on the grass, as they lounge on those rare days of summer and lie back on the grass they will not know of those that lie barely a few feet away beneath the ground.

Tread softly.