Restoring Dublin’s Missing Link: The Grangegorman Urban Quarter Development

Grangegorman, a working-class community in north Dublin, Ireland, has long been defined by a psychiatric hospital campus located at its heart. Known as St. Brendan’s Hospital, it occupied 73 acres (30 ha), about 40 percent of Grangegorman’s total acreage. Much of the campus remained undeveloped, with historic buildings such as the Richmond Lunatic Asylum and the Richmond General Penitentiary dating back to the early 1800s. Surrounded by a high wall, the campus was cut off from the surrounding area and the rest of the city center, its mental hospital grounds out of bounds to the public.

At its peak, the hospital housed as many as 2,000 patients. However, as mental health policies changed in the 20th century, moving away from the use of large institutions, the patient population decreased drastically, freeing up the site, its historic buildings, and its open space for other uses. The Irish government determined in 1999 that the best use of the site would be to transform it into a mixed-use urban quarter containing campuses for two institutions: the Health Service Executive (HSE), Ireland’s public health care provider, and the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), one of the largest institutions of higher education in the country.

The roots of the DIT date back more than 120 years, with the foundation of higher technical education in Ireland. The Irish government formally established DIT in 1992, bringing together six colleges with different areas of specialization, the oldest of which was founded in 1887. Because DIT originated from multiple entities, it lacked a central campus, operating out of six different main locations as well as 33 satellite facilities scattered around the city. “Providing a central campus will enhance DIT’s educational offerings,” said Brian Norton, president of DIT and a professor. “Students and faculty in cognate disciplines do not have opportunities to interact, and the quality of educational facilities and access to wider student services are uneven.

Collocating activities allows new programs and options to be offered efficiently, enabling DIT to be more responsive to the ever-quickening pace of change in the industries we serve.”

Several drivers led to the creation of a single campus for DIT at Grangegorman. “Central amongst these was the need to create a common and consistent student environment to support all students, coupled with a need to deliver an enhanced, student-centered educational philosophy,” said Noel O’Connor, director of student services at DIT. The Grangegorman site offered the potential to solve DIT’s real estate problems while increasing educational access in the Grangegorman area and adding a critical mass of activity to the new urban quarter.

In 2005, the Irish government passed the Grangegorman Development Agency Act, which provided for “the development of an area in Grangegorman, Dublin, as a location for education, health, and other facilities.” The act also established the Grangegorman Development Agency (GDA) to oversee the redevelopment of the site. With completion planned for 2020, the project will accommodate a total building area of 73 acres (30 ha), with typical building heights of six to ten floors, and an estimated development cost of $2.6 billion (€2 billion). The DIT campus will eventually accommodate 21,500 students and 2,500 faculty. “The Grangegorman project is unique, not only in Ireland but also in Europe,” says Ruairí Quinn, a member of the lower house of the Irish Parliament and minister of education and skills in Ireland from 2011 to 2014. “The development of this 73-acre [30 ha] site in the heart of a European capital city, with public services and amenities at its core, is the most significant development for this city in our generation.”

An extensive public consultation process informed the planning effort, including highly participatory community workshops.

“The local community welcomed the development, recognizing that it would deliver considerable social and economic gain, uplifting the local area,” says Terry Prendergast, senior planner with the GDA. “The generation of employment, education, and training were key local concerns. The community, never having had public access to the site, particularly welcomed the delivery of public open space and permeability, which have been lacking in the area. Any concerns relating to the introduction of a large number of students into the area were addressed by the establishment of a community liaison committee, which has broad representation from all stakeholders.”

The plan for the redevelopment happened during Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” period, when the economy was booming. When the downturn hit in 2008, most development in Ireland ground to a halt. This posed a challenge to the redevelopment of Grangegorman, as the government deferred all major capital projects. “However, the GDA was able to use this period to transfer the lands, to complete the planning process, and to prepare a funding strategy better suited to the fiscal challenges facing the state,” says Michael G. Hand, chief executive officer of the GDA.

Many of DIT’s properties occupied prime real estate, and their sale is a key part of the redevelopment’s funding. The Irish government deemed the Grangegorman redevelopment significant enough that it approved the project for implementation at the end of 2010, declaring the site a Strategic Development Zone (SDZ), a project of national economic and social importance. “The SDZ designation is an unusual and highly effective feature of the Irish planning system, with only eight designated zones nationally,” says Terry Prendergast. “The designation allowed for the development of a planning and development strategy for the Grangegorman site, translating the master plan into the statutory Grangegorman Planning Scheme in 2012. The scheme, which has seen extensive consultation and stakeholder involvement, allows the development to proceed in an orderly, timely, and efficient manner while also securing the master plan vision.”

Grangegorman became a flagship project for the Irish government economic stimulus package in 2012. “While the government deferred funding in 2011, support for the project was restored in July 2012 on confirmation of SDZ planning scheme approval following planning appeal process,” says Hand. “The new funding strategy involved funding support from government, DIT, and philanthropy, and facilitated the advancement of the restoration and conversion of six historic hospital buildings to educational use as well as the installation of all the sitewide critical utilities and parts of the public realm.” Furthermore, the government has supported the development of two academic quads, totaling 560,000 square feet (52,000 sq m), to be procured through a public/private partnership. The quads are scheduled to open in September 2017, accommodating 10,000 students.

In addition to housing a major educational campus and a major health care campus, the new Grangegorman urban quarter is designed to reconnect the site to the surrounding community and bolster its economic, cultural, and social vitality. Additional amenities for the public will include a new public library, sports facilities, restaurants, shops, cultural centers, playgrounds, playing fields, and parks. A primary charter school, Dublin 7 Educate Together, moved to temporary quarters in modular buildings in Grangegorman in 2009. A later phase will construct a permanent facility for the school on the campus.

Integrating Historic Structures

To preserve landscaping and open space in the southern portion, the master plan concentrates development in the northern portion of site, adding new buildings to the historic ones. Most of the mature trees on the site—many of them two centuries old—will remain. Major pedestrian pathways, green streets, and a hierarchy of open spaces create linkages, social activity, and gathering areas across the site. Student residences will be arranged along a main pedestrian spine, St. Brendan’s Way, extending through the campus on an east–west axis. The library, cafés, an informal learning commons, and a variety of social spaces are placed along this main pedestrian spine to encourage interaction and activity.

St. Brendan’s Way will terminate at a new main gateway and city-facing public plaza known as Broadstone Gate, which will unite two significant historical edifices, and include a stop on the new cross-city tram (LUAS) currently under construction. “The historic stone wall is being preserved but altered to create additional entrances to the site,” says Paul Horan, head of campus planning at DIT. “This is literally and metaphorically breaking down the walls that have separated this large institutional site from its surrounding hinterland, offering routes through and across the site as well as access to parkland, gardens, and a playground.”

A second pedestrian path, dubbed the Serpentine Walk, runs alongside St. Brendan’s Way, providing more informal access to buildings, with more landscaping than St. Brendan’s Way. Landscape “fingers” between buildings run north to south and connect the community to the “palm” of the playing fields, metaphorically embodying the “open hand” as a symbol of invitation to the community.

The master plan established two major centers of activity along St. Brendan’s Way, each with a distinct function. The first, Upper Terrace/Library Square, serves as the academic and health heart of the community, a central public space that brings together patients and visitors to the health care facilities; DIT students, faculty, and staff; and public library patrons. The second, Brendan Behan Arts Square, is oriented more toward the public; but many of DIT’s student services also are clustered around this public area. Lined with theaters, shops, museums, and galleries, it functions as the social/cultural heart of the development.

Eleven historic structures of the former psychiatric hospital will be refurbished for new uses. In order to activate the public realm immediately, the GDA started with the renovation of some of the historic buildings for classroom and administrative use for DIT.

These renovated historic buildings opened in September 2014 and include the Richmond General Penitentiary, which dates to 1814, making it one of the oldest structures on the site. “A cluster of former hospital buildings in use for long-term patients has been converted into art studios; design workshops; lecture rooms; student support areas such as gyms, a student union, clubs, and societies; and academic workspaces,” says O’Connor. “A student center now occupies a former dining room, and the Courtyard Restaurant now occupies a number of hospital wards. Flexibility and usability of space have been emphasized. The Church of St. Laurence, a Roman Catholic church, remains as a church but is now refurbished to accommodate lectures, workshops, seminars, conferences, recitals, examinations, and student inductions.”

Other historic structures to be repurposed include two infirmaries built in 1850; the 1895 laundry building, which will be converted into a primary care and outpatient facility; the two-story Connolly Norman House, which is to be repurposed as administrative space for HSE’s mental health program; and a deconsecrated Church of Ireland chapel, which is earmarked for use as exhibition space. An enclosed cultural garden mediates between historic buildings and adjacent quads to the north.

The next stage, slated to begin this year, will add two academic quads through public/private partnerships, with additional support coming from the Irish government and the European Investment Bank. Key new structures, such as the library and the business school, will be designed in contemporary architectural styles by architecture firms selected through design competitions. “The first phase of residential accommodations for 700 students will also be advanced and will incorporate essential café and retail space for the new campus,” says Hand.

The HSE is creating an eight-acre (3.2 ha) campus to provide mental health care and primary health care for the community. The new health care buildings are designed to provide patients with views of the outdoors. Key vistas are of major landscape features and buildings in Dublin to aid in wayfinding.

The master plan distributes the HSE buildings strategically along an east–west axis, with buildings requiring more privacy, such as mental health facilities, placed toward the west end. These structures have their own protected outdoor spaces. Research suggests that healing can be enhanced if patients have views not only of nature but also of human activity, so housing for the elderly is placed at the east end of the axis, with views of playgrounds, so that even those with limited mobility can feel that they are part of the community.

The first piece of the health care campus, Phoenix Care Centre, opened in 2013 to provide accommodations for the psychiatric patients who had been residing at St. Brendan’s Hospital. The next piece, the new primary care facility incorporating the historic laundry building, started construction in April 2015, according to Hand of GDA.

The master plan calls for a high degree of sustainable design across four categories: environmental, social, economic, and natural resource use. Goals include achieving zero carbon consumption and reducing water use by 60 percent by 2050. Green roofs, rainwater harvesting, and graywater reuse measures will conserve water. Narrow floor plates will maximize daylighting and facilitate natural ventilation. All heating and some electricity are to be generated from a central combined heat and power plant using biofuels. The playing fields link to a regional chain of open spaces. A new northern line for Dublin’s LUAS light-rail system is under construction as part of the redevelopment, with two major stops at Grangegorman.

The first 1,200 DIT students arrived in September 2014, taking classes in renovated historic buildings. A total of 10,000 students is expected on campus by September 2017. “The new spaces are creating a dynamic, vibrant academic and social experience for students,” O’Connor says. “Creating a connection between the student and the institution was very important. This connection or engagement is central to promoting learning and development.”

The first phase of landscape, public realm, and infrastructure elements also has been completed. “The site has been reshaped and extensive networks of utility services installed,” Hand says. “These include water, drainage, electricity, gas, communications, lighting, district heating, closed-circuit television, and information and communications technology—all of which future-proof the site for all foreseeable development and tie it into the existing network of city infrastructure. At the same time, the playing fields and community spaces have been completed, representing a significant early community gain.” The new science research and business incubation building is slated to be completed this September, and the majority of the master plan is expected to be realized by 2020.

Inner-City Open Space

The completion of Grangegorman will provide much-needed open space in a dense inner-city area, while providing new amenities and access to health care and educational resources for the economically disadvantaged neighborhood. “The impact on the local area has been considerable,” says Prendergast. “The community has benefited from local employment, training, education, and an uplift in local business. The newly created St. Brendan’s Way has become a busy walking and cycling route used by local residents, schoolchildren, students, lecturers, health workers, and the general public. The coming on-stream in the near future of additional public realm, a playground, an outdoor running track, playing pitches, health care facilities, housing for older persons, a primary school, and additional educational accommodation will continue to regenerate the area and further improve quality of life.”

James Mary O’Connor, who was born and raised in the Grangegorman area, is a principal in the Santa Monica, California, office of Moore Ruble Yudell, which master planned Grangegorman.