Designs sink in 'Bermuda triangle' of Docklands

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Archiseek / Ireland / News / 2004 / June 17 2004: Designs sink in 'Bermuda triangle' of Docklands

Mystery surrounds the dumping of yet another architect's designs in Docklands. For months there was a big billboard at the Grand Canal Docks site promoting a hotel scheme that will never be built, because the developer has replaced its architects, Dublin-based deBlacam and Meagher, with Manuel Aires Mateus, a rising star of Portuguese architecture. The two designs are as different as chalk and cheese. Aires Mateus' hotel features a cavernous undercroft and heavy stone façade punctuated by window cut-outs. Appearing almost hewn out of rock, it was clearly inspired by the Giant's Causeway and the Cliffs of Moher. DeBlacam and Meagher's proposal was for a light and airy building, with awnings, timber louvres, landscaped gardens and terraces. As in the Portuguese scheme, the hotel would have two blocks of serviced apartments to the rear, laid out parallel to each other.

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