Residents of Dún Laoghaire gave their opinion on a new development for Carlisle Pier but their choice was ultimately rejected. Emma Cullinan outlines why public consultation isn't always as it seems
Society often has buildings foisted upon it and, once they're up, there's not much anyone can do except praise or rage. How enlightened, then, that residents of Dún Laoghaire were asked to give their opinion on a new development at Carlisle Pier, before it had been built. The people's choice.
This must make life easier all round because members of the public feel that they have had a say in their local environment and the developer gets an easier ride through the building process: if lots of locals have voted in favour of the scheme then, hopefully, there'll be less opposition at planning stage.
In announcing the competition Mr Michael Hanahoe, CEO of the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company, said: "A very important part of the competition is the public consultation process, which will be designed to ensure that the people of Dún Laoghaire and beyond will have an opportunity to make their views known on all four shortlisted projects."
Around 8,000 people visited the exhibition of the four schemes, all designed by renowned architects: Daniel Libeskind, heneghan.peng, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, and Scott Tallon Walker. The schemes had been whittled down from 14 entries. Around 1,600 people filled in comment cards, 600 were interviewed by a market research company and the winner was declared: Daniel Libeskind.
So when it was announced that, actually, heneghan.peng were the winning architects, the public was miffed. Why bother asking for a vote if you're going to ignore the results? This had a whiff of the Nice referendum about it.
It seems the problem is a lack of clarity about exactly what was being asked for. The assessors say that the public vote was designed to help inform their decision rather than determine it but many of those who voted obviously thought that they would at least help to swing the decision.
Heneghan.peng weren't even the runners up - they came (a very close) third out of four.
The local authority, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, had asked for an exceptional landmark building of international architectural quality, which is probably what people thought they were voting for. This was dressed up as a beauty contest. If you're asked to choose your favourite building you don't base the criteria on how commercially viable it's going to be, you go for an emotional response. What do you want sitting in your neighbourhood?
It's generally accepted that the winner was heneghan.peng architects but that's not the whole story. The winner was a consortium called Urban Capital, which included the architects, plus Sisk, Park Developments and Hugh O'Regan. This wasn't just about beauty, this development needed to make money.
Around the time it announced the competition, the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company posted its results for 2002. There had been a 94 per cent increase in profits: welcome news, said the company, as it needed money from non-shipping quarters as well as maritime income to help with the upkeep of the harbour.
The new scheme will need planning permission from the local council whose requirements for the pier included "landmark architecture, a major national cultural attraction, significant permanent public access to the pier and better links with Dún Laoghaire town centre. Subject to these conditions being met, the council will consider allowing other uses such as hotel, residential and retail outlets on the pier."
Well, they will need to consider these because the winning scheme includes a hotel, apartments, retail and leisure outlets, a floating stage and an aquarium.
So perhaps, when asking members of the public for their opinions, the questions could be more targeted, such as, which scheme do you think will bring in the most money? Which property developer would you most like to see running the project? Which building contractor do you prefer? What would attract most visitors, an aquarium or a diaspora museum (as proposed by Libeskind)? Not very sexy questions but maybe more realistic.
There were just so many variables in this case. Who knows what swung the final decision? If Scott Tallon Walker had proposed an aquarium instead of an interactive centre for literature, art and music, an emigration history centre, and municipal art gallery would they have won? Or, perhaps it really was a purely architectural choice; advisers to the harbour board said the winning design had "architecture of great refinement, elegance and sophistication".
But, as a spokesman for the harbour board said, they had to balance several criteria including compliance with the site's zoning, having a cultural attraction, enabling public access, obtaining financial returns on the venture . . . and quality of design.
While members of the public were asked about public access, the cultural attraction and integration with Dún Laoghaire, as well as design, in the end it was concluded that design had been the determining factor.
The fact that people voted for Libeskind is heartening: this is quite a radical choice. Often the risk surrounding a public ballot is that the lowest common denominator project will win out, pleasing everybody but exciting no one. As far as the designs themselves were concerned these were all competent buildings - ranging from the more clunky Scott Tallon Walker project, which rather resembled the nearby Stena HSS, to the delicate, wavelike Libeskind scheme. It's understandable that people opted for the more delicate building, on such a sensitive site. All of the projects spoke a remarkably similar language: using lots of glass and sharp angles, in line with current trends. Sea metaphors maybe?
As many architects have painfully learnt, winning a competition isn't always the end of the story anyway. Libeskind won the contest to rebuild the Twin Towers in New York but has had his work altered by another architect brought in by the property developer to assist with that scheme. In another harbour competition, Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid was awarded the prize for her Cardiff Bay opera house scheme in 1994, only to have it rejected later (a building by architect Jonathan Adams has just been completed on the site).
Even the successful waterside development that is the Sydney Opera House, won in competition by Danish architect Jorn Utzon, ran into difficulty when the architect met opposition from a client representative during the building process and walked off the site.
The Carlisle Pier enterprise was well-intentioned and it is hoped that the public will be consulted on future projects, but next time it has to be much clearer about what is being asked of people and how much their opinions will count for. There's a weighting here: including aesthetics, commercial viability and public access. If the public's vote is going to contribute to, perhaps, 30 per cent of the overall decision-making process then they need to know that. Except, if that's all it counts for, perhaps they won't bother voting at all.