Dempsey to issue planning guides

Definitive planning guidelines on higher housing densities are to be issued shortly by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, following the publication of a consultation draft earlier this year.

Addressing the annual conference of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), which is being held in Chicago this weekend, he said the final version would take on board points made by interested parties, including the RIAI itself.

In response to criticism that his new planning bill had failed to deal with the issue of quality, Mr Dempsey said the density guidelines and other measures would help to promote "a culture of quality in building design".

He said new provisions in the bill would reinforce the concept of sustainable development in the plans drawn up by local authorities, while local area planning would offer opportunities to put more emphasis on design.

"I cannot over-emphasise the importance of good design in housing in an environment where we're providing higher densities and striving for better use of land resources," he said.

"There must always be a fear that quality standards will suffer under the pressures of the building boom that has seen construction output double in five years," the Minister told some 250 Irish architects attending the Chicago conference.

"When this wave of activity subsides and we take a look back, will we be able to say that it didn't wash away our architectural heritage? Or that it left behind architectural masterpieces like the last great period of prosperity in the late 18th century."

Though he hoped that RIAI members would draw inspiration and ideas from Chicago, where the world's first skyscrapers were built in the 1880s, he cautioned that architecture was an expression of a people's culture.

Mr Dempsey said that architecture "must reflect the indigenous materials, cultural values and social needs of the society in which it operates."

Because Ireland and most European countries, unlike the US, were constrained in embracing modern architecture by the legacy of ancient cities, there was not the same opportunity for architectural experimentation.

Mr Eoin O Cofaigh, the RIAI's president, said that while there was no doubt about the quality of many of Chicago's high-rise buildings in a downtown area of "fabulous wealth", it existed side by side with areas more depressed than anywhere in Ireland.

And though Chicago showed that skyscrapers can be elegant, he said that Dublin must look to the example of Paris in "holding the line" against the intrusion of high-rise buildings.

In his speech, Mr Dempsey - the first by an Irish minister at an RIAI conference abroad - said he would be bringing legislative proposals to the Government "by the end of this year" on the registration of building professions.

At present, anyone in the Republic can style himself or herself as an architect because there is no registration of that title.