housing fields

Alan Mee

All over the island, cattle and fields are being replaced by concrete and red roof tile in a way that only Nouvelle Irish Suburbia could manage. A drive in the countryside is not what it used to be. Take Rochfordbridge for example, a small village in County Westmeath on the Dublin to Galway road.

The impression until recently was of a few streets in a rural setting, serving a hinterland of farmers, like most Irish small towns. The Bord Na Mona housing at the edge, designed by Frank Gibney, was literally planted into the Midlands bog adjoining the village in the 1940s. The development, consisting of 100 houses for new workers to the area, sought to create a sense of community.

Today, the surrounding fields have been overwhelmed by a new workforce. While the Bord Na Mona workers harvested turf locally, the newly arrived population is mobile, and works far away, mainly in Dublin, about an hours drive to the East.

The contrast between the new housing developments and the established Bord Na Mona community is heightened by the fact that both face each other across the main road. Look right for order, balance, community. And on your left� well, the usual.

On an urban planning scale, the character of the Gibney development is established by a clear formal order ; a crescent facing the main road, leading to an enclosed green area of civic scale, enjoyed and overlooked by all. Symmetrical axial groups of terraced houses, each with extensive, car accessible back gardens, are punctuated by taller bridge buildings at entrances and focal points.

The Gibney housing sacrifices private indulgences, in favour of the combination of resources for the benefit of the neighbourhood. The relative density of the development allows for greater vibrancy and more efficient use of space. Traffic calming was incorporated before it was invented, and cars are discouraged from speeding as the road access is wide enough for a parked and a passing car only. There is no direct car access to front doors, but only toepath shared with neighbours which works well instead. Children and parents use the place in safety.

The new housing opposite, like the new 'estates' creeping all across the landscape, is bland, predictable, placeless, faceless, and sad to look at, even while passing at speed.

The decision-making process which led to the development across the road from the Gibney Housing runs like this. The Planning Authority, charged with 'the proper planning and development of the area', are powerless to refuse applications for housing at a time when we are in the midst of a 'housing crisis'. The zoning definitions of most Irish development plans do not allow for any three dimensional consideration of the division between rural and urban. The established community generally sees any new development as a good thing, so the planner has a clear run to a grant of permission. Local plans are not linked to an overall strategy to conserve landscapes or townscapes, resulting in a fatal devaluing of the integrity of both. The dependency on the car is also assumed to be basic to most new development. The 'planning' process is piecemeal, a decision for 100 houses here, 300 there, with maximum destruction of the countryside, for the benefit of a tiny minority.

Some say that the recent vibrancy of the economy is a good thing, and that local communities benefit from the influx of people in places like Rochfordbridge. The Bord Na Mona housing is an example of how to physically express the confidence and vitality of communities, even when they appear from nowhere, and settle in the country.

Alan Mee is an architect currently working with Derek Tynan Architects.