The 32-storey tower proposed for the Grand Canal Docks is likely to be rejected as inappropriate and premature, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

The Grand Canal Docks area was identified as an appropriate location for high-rise buildings five years ago, in a master plan adopted by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.

Now, ironically, the DDDA itself is among the 20-plus objectors to plans for a 32-storey tower at Barrow Street.

Reflecting its own almost pathological view of high-rise buildings, it said the scheme by Anthony Reddy and Associates (ARA) for Treasury Holdings would amount to "gross over-development" of the 1.5-acre site and the "excessively tall" tower would have an "adverse impact on the skyline".

The location for Dublin's second 32-storey tower - the first, at Heuston Station, is currently under appeal - seems arbitrary, even random. It does not occupy a pivotal site, such as the Millennium Tower on Charlotte Quay or the 16-storey building proposed for the corner of Grand Canal Quay.

The site comprises two 19th century warehouse buildings, one of which contains Treasury's headquarters, and a wide open space between them. It is at the waterfront end of this gap that the 32-storey tower would rise, if Dublin City Council saw fit to grant planning permission for the scheme.

This is highly unlikely. Despite their ringing endorsement of Paul Keogh's elegant and slender tower at Heuston, which they described as a "model example . . . of outstanding 21st century architecture", city planners are known to regard Treasury's scheme as both inappropriate and premature.

Yet where are the guidelines? The DDDA's Grand Canal Docks master plan, dating from 2000, was far from clear on where exactly high buildings might be located.

Ironically, it was drawn up by Urban Initiatives, in collaboration with ARA, but within defined parameters laid down by the authority.

Five years on, faced with a plethora of proposals for high-rise buildings in the area, the city council is only getting around to preparing its own planning guidelines for the Grand Canal Docks.

Consultants are now being appointed and one of their main tasks will be to identify locations for tall buildings.

DEGW's 1999 high buildings study - never officially adopted by the city council - was also vague on this issue. Yes, the Heuston Station and Docklands areas were identified as having potential. But since no specific sites were selected, developers were left guessing as to what might be permitted.

Given the widespread perception that senior city officials favoured "landmark buildings", this has had an inflationary effect on land values.

How else can one explain why developer Séan Kelly recently spent €42 million on the acquisition of Boland's Mills, which directly adjoins the Treasury site? The huge concrete grain silo on the site was used as a precedent to justify the Millennium Tower, and it is inconceivable that Kelly will settle for anything less in terms of height in its redevelopment of Bolands. He has also expressed concern at Treasury's plans, arguing that they would inhibit his own.

According to Richard Barrett, co-founder and joint managing director of Treasury Holdings, planning permission was granted in 1994 for a 15-storey building on its Barrow Street site "so the principle of having a high building there is already established". The DDDA would allow up to nine storeys.

With a floorplate of 18 sq m (194 sq ft), ARA's tower is certainly slender. Even though it would be less economical to build that a groundscraper, the rationale for it - according to Tony Reddy - is that such a thin, tall building would permit the creation of a generous public realm with access to the waterfront.

"The alternative permitted solution would be conventional residential development of nine-to-10 storeys with no public realm," he says. "A wide building covering much more of the site would also have greater impact than a pencil-thin building we're proposing, which is slender enough to be attractive."

Architecturally, the proposed 32-storey tower is reminiscent of 1960s London, Erno Goldfinger-manque. Alongside, a nine-storey tower would erupt from the roof of one of the 19th century warehouses on the site. Vesuvius House perhaps, or the birth scene in that Hollywood blockbuster, Alien. The twin gable-fronted warehouse is only being retained because it is a protected structure.

Apparently, Treasury felt that a plan for a tall tower and demolition of the warehouse would have been too controversial, even though the case for keeping this very ordinary building is tenuous at best.

Under the 2000 Planning Act, the demolition of a protected structure can only be permitted in "exceptional circumstances" - and development is not one of them. Clearly, it was listed simply because it is an old building even though its only worthwhile feature is the front wall facing the water.

Rob Tincknell, Treasury's development director, defends the tower on the basis that it would be built almost exactly half-way along the inner dock's eastern edge, remote from existing residential. As part of an overall composition, he says it would present a new "postcard view" of contemporary Dublin.

The wide waterbodies of the inner and outer docks are obviously capable of absorbing high-rise buildings to add interest to the skyline of the area without overshadowing nearby housing. Who would want a repetition here of the lily-livered extension to the IFSC, with its "crew-cut" skyline?

Tincknell maintains that the 32-storey tower would fit in well with the emerging pattern of development on the east side of the inner dock, which is characterised by its variety.

This will be reinforced by the residential scheme rising to 18 storeys at the nearby DART station, designed by OMP for Treasury. Inevitably, the hill town of San Gimignano near Siena is cited as a precedent. There, between the 11th and 13th centuries, merchants sought to out-do each other by reaching for the sky, and the legacy of their show-off towers is now regarded as quite charming; it is what makes the place unique.

Some of Dublin City Council's senior planners would let rip on the construction of towers here too. Incredibly, a 40-storey tower being designed by Bucholz McEvoy Architects forms part of the master plan for a 25-acre site alongside the M50 in Cherry Orchard. The idea is to give the area a new landmark.

But can Dublin have landmarks everywhere? The issue is surely where to locate them, taking into account such factors as orientation, relationship with existing buildings and impact on the skyline, both up close and from a distance. Only when that is done can schemes such as Barrow Street be considered.