British shoe multiple kick-starts Corporation plan to rejuvenate "plastic" O'Connell Street

The significance of the Schuh store on Dublin's O'Connell Street goes beyond its retail function as the Irish flagship for the British shoe multiple. As the latest building to be redeveloped along a street that has attracted severe criticism for being dominated by plastic and neon store shop-fronts, this £1 million facelift is in line with Dublin Corporation's civic vision for the street.

Modern in design, Schuh's integration into the streetscape can also be considered a benchmark from which the future design direction of O'Connell Street will be determined.

Socially, this street has failed because of the rash of fast-food restaurants, a feature that has had an obvious backlash on the street's economic development. The late-night fast-food outlets have produced a bad litter problem and a reputation for drunken disorderliness. There are only a limited number of conventional retail outlets still trading and some of these are sandwiched between tacky leisure and food outlets.

Dublin Corporation's Integrated Area Plan (IAP) brief for O'Connell Street reports: "There has been a growing awareness of the declining appeal and status of O'Connell Street as the main street of our capital. Despite the street's great sense of place, there has been a widespread feeling that it has been bypassed and fails to be a part of the urban renewal so obvious in many other parts of the city." Buildings and their design and presentation, and the uses of both the buildings and the street, are the two main areas highlighted by the corporation that need to be tackled. Designed by Ciaran Divine of Oppermann Architecture, a division of Oppermann Associates, the third Irish Schuh outlet - which opened before Christmas - has 4,000 sq ft of retail space on two levels displaying a range of funky fashion footwear for men and women. The modern, two-storey glass shop-front is a key feature striking a balance between form and function.

"A considered response" is how Divine describes the new facade. O'Connell Street has seen ground-floor shop fronts come and go over the years, but only limited redevelopment of buildings. Wedged between Champion Sports and Super macs, the key objective was to design a store that would meet the requirements imposed by its immediate context and by that of the wider street. Edwardian and Victorian buildings sit alongside late 1960s office blocks, and so the prominence of the location gives new architecture an historical dimension.

Number 47/48 was a designated building under the IAP and Urban Renewal Tax incentives were available to the building's developers, Clemwood, a company made up of the owners, Champion Sports and Schuh. The 1970s/1980s building that had existed here was considered an eyesore, often classified as an example of the "Brutalism" style of architecture. Most recently the store was used as a discount sports retail outlet, but had housed a fastfood operation for many years.

"What we had here was similar to a mouth with a missing tooth. Number 47/48 was a horizontal building in a section of the street where the majority of buildings are vertical. Firstly, we knew we had to remove the facade and remould the building as such. We were also working under the limitations of the IAP, so it was important that all parties worked together and were sympathetic to each other - the architects, the commercial clients and Dublin Corporation," said Divine.

The retailers wanted a flash facade with the maximal display window, Dublin Corporation wanted a building that was sympathetic to their future vision of one of Ireland's premier streets. What exists here now is a contemporary building with a double height shop window. "It's not subtle, but it's not clashing either," says Divine. Some people have described the building as "Temple Barish". In the store you'll find up to 9,000 pairs of shoes stocked at any one time. The interior was designed by Lincolnshire-based Knox Interiors, designers of most of Schuh's stores, and features green neon shelving and aluminium flooring on both floors. Schuh have two other outlets in Ireland - one in the nearby Jervis Centre and one in Liffey Valley in west Dublin.

The IAP vision is to create "the kind of quality environment, range of uses and powerful sense of place that can live up to its unequivocal role as the main street of the capital city; a street where there is a strong dynamic relationship between quality architecture and a vibrant mix of uses, and where a co-ordinated approach to the public design is balanced by a concern to develop the social and cultural dimension of the public spaces; a place where people are attracted to, and feel both stimulated and secure by day and night".