The Parnell Square Cultural Quarter (PSCQ) will be a landmark destination which will complete the Civic Spine of Dublin at its northern end. Following on from the public launch of this major project, Dublin City Council is now seeking an outstanding Design Team to deliver that landmark. The Civic Spine route includes the Grafton Street and Henry Street prime retail areas, important third level institutions and major cultural and tourism destinations.
A public procurement process, to select an architect-led multi-disciplinary design team, to provide all the architectural, conservation design and contract management services required to deliver this vision, is underway.
Seeking Local Designers to Make a Global Difference
Value Added in Africa Design Programme
Africa is changing. Economies are growing, middle classes forming, and solutions to poverty being creatively addressed. Entrepreneurship is flourishing, with many African co-operatives and SMEs moving away from reliance on raw materials to producing high-quality products for export. From Sole Rebels in Ethiopia to Sunflag in Tanzania, businesses across the continent are moving up the value chain of production, improving their livelihoods and communities in the process.
When you think of an inventor, Dublin City Council might not spring to mind, but Roy O’ Donnell, emerged as a serial inventor after winning three prizes in the council’s annual staff ideas scheme. Roy has also just been honoured with a Lord Mayor’s awards for his special contribution to Dublin.
Data is not useful until it becomes information. Turning raw numbers into a visual representation can help us understand meaning and connections much more quickly.
Cities are complex systems with many different networks, which must be managed by people and automated systems. We are becoming more connected through technology using smart phones, GPS or social networks to improve our experience of the city. It is a two way process.
The shape of cities and how they influence our behaviour is no longer just the concern of planners, architects, urban designers and politicians. Through the Dublinked open data network, the Studio have met designers, technologists, hacktivists, researchers and entrepreneurs who are all exploring how the urban environment is going to change in coming years. They are using Dublin as a test ground to develop new products and services using live city data.
The Studio is always looking at ways to engage with external partners to explore how we see the city in new ways. In 2011 we were approached by the National Digital Resources Centre to provide open data from for Ireland’s first 18 hour Open Data Challenge in the Digital hub. This initiated new relationships between the City Council and developers, designers and entrepreneurs and led to an ongoing collaboration with the Science Gallery with current participation in their monthly Urban Knights platform for change.
For the past two years the Studio have been working to identify suitable data and prepare it for release in ‘open’ or machine readable formats. The amount of information we generate through provision of city services has been quite an eye-opener. . Many are surprised that others would be interested in our data at all. We need to build awareness of the value of our data as a raw material by improving data literacy and knowledge management practices among staff.
