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Ballymun
is a huge 1960’s estate known for its inhumane towers, spine
blocks, drugs and grazing horses, an image which has been popularized
by the author Roddy Doyle.
The team won the competition to prepare the Masterplan working with
a core team including O’Mahony Pike Architects in Dublin,
D H Regeneration and Halcrow Fox, working alongside the client team
in their site based office in Ballymun.
The overall aims of the Masterplan are to provide a framework for
sustainable social and economic regeneration and make substantial
improvements to the whole environment.
The Masterplan was awarded the Irish Planning Institute’s
1998 Award for Planning Achievement. The urban design challenge
was to transform the 1960’s dormitory estate into a small
town. With the new orbital motorway and expanding airport nearby,
Ballymun is no longer simply on the edge of Dublin. The plan proposes
a new main street as the heart, new local facilities in each of
the five existing neighborhoods and a new road hierarchy which eliminates
the long culs de sac.
The project is not just about housing renewal, but about economic
development, environmental improvements, education and training
opportunities and empowerment of the community.
Exhibitions of the Masterplan in March 1998 were visited by over
10,000 local people.
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