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Grangegorman: Development Plan

Background

The site at Grangegorman has a long history in serving the people of Dublin since the establishment of the Houses of Industry for the poor in the 1770’s. Throughout the 19th century the site evolved to become a large regional mental hospital occupying over 30 hectares of land in the north inner city, just over 1km from the city centre. At its peak the hospital served over 2000 patients. In the 20th century changes in care of the mentally ill have moved away from large institutions, to the situation today that there are less than 100 patients on-site.

The Dublin Institute of Technology

The DIT is one of Ireland’s largest third level institutions, providing a range of applied, professional and technological programmes from apprentice through to undergraduate and  postgraduate level and masters and doctoral research activities for over 20,000 students.

History has meant that DIT is spread across a large number of small sites across the city. The spread and quality of accommodation has proven increasingly difficult to the proper functioning of a modern third level institution. The DIT identified Grangegorman as an ideal location for a unified campus as it has the capacity to accommodate all the Institutes activities and yet maintains the traditional city centre location. The health bodies also wished to maintain some services on the site.

The Agency & The Plan

A Government inter-departmental working group was set up to review the future of the site. This report formed the basis for a Government decision in 2002 to establish an Agency to develop the Grangegorman site. The Agency then engaged Moore Ruble Yudell and DMOD to devise a masterplan for the site.

The plan is to develop a new city quarter focused around health and education, in a way that is sensitive to the context of the Grangegorman site, its surrounding neighbourhoods and the existing community.

The Master Planners have set out an emerging Masterplan proposition of six physical themes:

0. Two hearts, one academic/health and the other social/cultural in the northwest and south-east quadrants of the site
0. A major east-west pedestrian priority route (St Brendan’s Way) weaving its   way from Constitution Hill through the site towards Prussia Street
0. A series of green fingers reaching out from St Brendan’s Way making pedestrian routes through the buildings and into the local area together with a major quadrangle at the academic/health heart looking south across to open playing fields
0. A connection with Constitution Hill at Broadstone Gate opposite King’s Inns
0. A north-south pedestrian connection through the site linking Smithfield with the North Circular Road
0. A contoured uplift in site levels (the Ha Ha) elevating the academic campus above the playing fields and open spaces to the south and positioning the indoor sports facilities in the sunken area.