The scale of a scheme for the centre of Cork is worrying city planners, says Frank McDonald, Environment Editor.

More than 30 years ago, long before it became a buzz term in architectural and planning circles, Danish architect Jan Gehl championed the cause of urban design in Life Between Buildings, an influential book that's been translated into numerous languages and published across Europe, North America and Asia.

Gehl's thesis is that by starting with public life and the spaces where it happens, the design of buildings becomes a means to an end rather than an end in itself. So the real task is to formulate a vision of what type of public life one wants to see flourishing and then turn to how surrounding buildings should be designed to support it. "First life, then spaces, then buildings - the other way around never works," as he has put it. Professor of Urban Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, he also runs Gehl Architects-Urban Quality Consultants and, in that capacity, he has been advising O'Callaghan Properties on its latest scheme for Cork.

Working with Ambrose Kelly's Project Architects, Gehl is credited with the master plan and urban design of a new "high-end retail" development in a city centre site bounded by Patrick Street, Academy Street, Emmet Place and Bowling Green Street, with the grim Faulkener's Lane as its spine. This lane would be widened and transformed into a "spacious and vibrant retail thoroughfare", according to the environmental impact statement (EIS) compiled by planning consultants Cunnane Stratton Reynolds. What worries Cork City Council's planners, however, is that this would happen at the expense of the two parallel streets.

Five years ago, the council identified the area as a "prime location" for city centre retailing. Its 2001 development brief emphasised the importance of retaining the fine urban grain and buildings of heritage value - two parameters which were, at least to some extent, taken on board in the scheme submitted by O'Callaghan Properties.

For a start, the street pattern has been kept; the 15,000sq m (162,330sq ft) of retail space is not arranged as another enclosed, inward-looking mall like so many other shopping centres, such as nearby Merchants Quay (an earlier O'Callaghan development) or St Stephen's Green, in Dublin. That must be counted as a plus.

But the city planners, in their recent request for further information, expressed concern that the vitality of Academy Street would be compromised by the rear ends of shops fronting onto it. The real problem here is that retail units with more than one entrance would need double the number of security staff to deter shoplifters.

An immense amount of demolition is proposed - 11,924sq m (128,350sq ft) of commercial and office space, including the former Cork Examiner building on Patrick Street, which the planners would like to see retained. Protected structures would be kept, such as the important Queen Anne period house on Emmet Place.

Consultant engineer Chris Southgate, who specialises in historic buildings, divided the site into three zones - "conservation" (where protected buildings and façades are to be retained), "respect" (new infill buildings done in a pastiche style) and "intervention" (modern elements comprising the bulk of the development).

Arranged in two parallel blocks, bisected by Faulkener's Lane, the 91 apartments are stacked on top of the 19 proposed multi-level retail units. Though obviously welcome in principle as a contribution to the living city, it is the apartments that give the scheme a relatively gargantuan scale by Cork standards. Canopied roof structures in pre-patinated copper (now where have we seen that before?) step down to the lower buildings on Emmet Place, in a device obviously designed to conceal its bulk. One of the objectors referred to these contemptuously as "cow-shed roofs", arguing that it was "far too high and will dominate the area".

In its detailed critique, An Taisce Corcaigh refers to the Cork city development plan's policy on high buildings, which says they must be assessed in terms of their impact on the scale and quality of existing streets, spaces and adjoining buildings as well as important viewpoints and vistas within and across the city.

Its submission notes that some recent schemes, such as 21 Lavitt's Quay (another O'Callaghan development), "have already compromised important views and streetscapes without adding in a meaningful way to the quality of the cityscape ... of what is widely recognised as one of the finer urban forms in these islands".

According to An Taisce, the whole development should be capped at approximately four storeys along the existing street frontages with a maximum of two floors setback above this level - specifically that the proposed residential floors and canopied roof structures above Academy Street "should be omitted in their entirety".

It suggested that new residential development should contribute to the vibrancy of the city, instead of being "an effective gated community situated on the roof of the shopping centre". As an alternative, it proposed that the apartments should be relocated to the Emmet Place frontage, to complement the "domestic scale" of the area.

The planners have already made it clear that the overall scheme "is not acceptable in its current form". Like An Taisce and others, they are "concerned with the building heights proposed", which would step up to nine storeys, and say the scale of the overall development "will have to be modified to mitigate its impact".

However, they haven't gone quite as far as An Taisce in capping the overall height of the scheme. They want the maximum building heights reduced by approximately eight metres (26 ft) - equivalent to the omission of two floors - and say the "shoulder height" of buildings fronting onto streets should also be reduced.

In their request for further information, the planners sought a revised visual impact statement, including a further series of photomontages showing how the scheme would look from various points, including St Ann's Church in Shandon. They also want the developers to provide a scale model of the proposed development.

The planners also object to the scale, form and architectural treatment of one of the main buildings proposed for Emmet Place and say its height and "unduly horizontal nature" will have to be reconsidered. The architects also have been told to simplify their "palette of materials" and to submit detailed shopfront design guidelines.

Whether the end result will correspond to Jan Gehl's notion that life should precede architecture is a very moot point. Ultimately, An Bord Pleanála will decide whether An Taisce Corcaigh is right in saying that the principles underlying the design proposal are "grossly out of scale, confused and lacking in conceptual or architectural unity".