Papers of James Meenan – Move of UCD to Belfield

V. A STUDY OF ADJACENT SITES Page A. The Commission's Rejection of Adjacent Sites 44 B. A Reconsideration of these and other Adjacent Sites 45 C. Long-term Expansion 48

VI. SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A SOLUTION ON PRESENT AND ADJACENT SITES 51

SUMMARY AND GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 54

POSTSCRIPT 57

APPENDICES A. A Note on the College's Efforts to Expand 60 B. Comments on the Views of the College Authorities on the Science Buildings, Merrion Street 61 C. A Note on Alternative Uses for the Stillorgan Road Estates 62 D. A List of Cultural, Educational, and Professional Bodies, Schools and Hostels in the General University Area 64 E. A List of Government and Semi-State Offices in the Area 65 F. Details of the Harcourt Street Station Site 66 G. Sir Eric Ashby's Comments on 'Inefficient Utilisation of Plant' 67 H. Leading Article from 'The Irish Independent' 68 I. An Article from 'Irish Builder and Engineer' 70 J. Some other Views: (i) An Article from 'The Tablet', 72 (ii) Professor Stanford's Views 73 MAP: The Vicinity of Earlsfort Terrace

INTRODUCTION

The essential thesis presented in regard to U.C.D. by the Report of the Commission on Accommodation Needs of the Constituent Colleges of the National University of Ireland is that, while it is desirable to seek a solution for the urgent accommodation needs of the College by expansion from the present sites, such a solution is impracticable.

We accept the basic fact that U.C.D.'s accommodation needs are urgent and must be met without delay. We differ emphatically from the Commission in its belief that those needs cannot be met except by moving to Stillorgan Road.

The cost of a complete new College must be borne in mind, but this is not the only factor involved; we believe and hope to establish, that the move would have grave consequences, both for the College and for the City. The future of higher education in Dublin would be radically affected and the cultural and educational centre of the Capital would be disintegrated.

The Commission by devoting its attention primarily and almost entirely to matters of space and sites, and by not fully investigating all the other very important factors involved, recommended a move to the suburbs. Having done that, it did not even thne fully consider and give due weight to all the consequences of the proposal.

We are convinced that the Commission is in fact wrong in its belief that expansion is impracticable from the present sites: it follows that the decision to move to the Stillorgan Road must be considered in the light of the consequences to which we have referred.

In short, the Stillorgan Road project is, in our view, both unnecessary and undesirable.

30 U.C.D. and the Future

with workshops for the building trades apprentices taking courses there -- an asset of great value. The issue therefore which must be decided at top level is whether there is justification for the provision from public funds of two equally elaborate and well-equipped schools of Architecture situated in the one city to serve a maximum number of approximately 200 students.

The functions of the two Schools

Until recent years the Bolton Street school did not attract the best entrants to the profession, the U.C.D. school being unquestionably the premier school. While this state of affairs prevailed, the two schools could be said to fulfil separate functions, Bolton Street catering for those who did not matriculate or who could not afford the university course. However, there have been significant changes in recent years, the cumulative effect of which has been to establish the Bolton Street school as equal if not superior. The results of these changes are to be seen in the successful record of Bolton Street students and alumni in recent open competitions and in the high esteem in which the graduates of this school are held by the senior members of the profession, indicative of which was the inclusion of the phrase 'preferably not University trained' in a press advertisement seeking the services of an architect ('Irish Times,' September 29, '59).

Apart from the raising of standards which has taken place at Bolton Street, it is now proposed that this school will be authorised to award a diploma having the status of a university degree, and that admission will be by an examination of the standard of Matriculation. When these plans materialise, the two schools of Architecture will cease to have separate functions, and a powerful incentive will exist for a shift in student numbers from U.C.D. to Bolton Street, as not only will equal or superior training be offered but it will be available at a much lower fee.

The effect of moving to Stillorgan Road

The view is widely held that schools of Architecture are best sited in busy urban areas close to the heart of the local building industry, trade and commerce, and that schools which divorce themselves from the industy tend to become purely academic. Whether the theory be valid or not, the removal of the university school to Stillorgan will take it away from close contact with the Royal Institute Library, the College of Arts, the Building Centre and not least the offices of the practising architects, quantity surveyors, contractors, builders providers and manufacturers. The effect of this must inevitably be to enhance further the status of the Bolton Street school vis-a-vis that of the University.

Conclusion

A possible solution to the problem of the future of architectural education in Ireland may lie in the University school specialising in purely academic and professional formation while the College of Technology would provide the technical training. Any such scheme of amalgamation would, of course, be made much more difficult by the removal of the U.C.D. school from its present location. The problems, however, are properly the concern of the educational committees of the professional institutes, who alone are competent to provide the solutions. The University authorities cannot be ignorant of the problems

Problems in the Proposed Move 31

confronting the profession with regard to the future education of its members and in the circumstances it is difficult to imagine that the University would, if dependent on its own resources, embark on spending £250,000 on a school of Architecture at the present time.

Until the problems are resolved, it would be unjustifiable for the Government to sanction expenditure of this order from public funds for a school which might never be required.

The Inefficient Use of Space and Equipment

In the teaching laboratories and workshops of a university, all too frequently the 'efficiency of plant utilisation is deplorably low.' A discussion of this problem by Sir Eric Ashby will be found in Appendix G.

When overcrowding is absent, the laboratories and workshops, in all but the final advanced years, may be in use for no more than three or four hours a day during term, and in some subjects, and depending on the curriculum and time-table, perhaps on only two or three days a week. However, assuming that a workshop is in use for four hours every day of term and that the college is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. with an hour for lunch, then the plant is in use for 50% of the time during term. But three terms extend in all to about 26 weeks in the year so the plant is in use for only 25% of the available time. If it is in use on only three days per week during term then the plant utilisation efficiency sinks to a mere 12 1/2%, i.e. expensive plant which could be turning out much needed technologists and technicians is lying idle for seven-eights of the time during normal 'working hours' on week-days throughout the year. This is not the way to get an adequate return on a heavy capital investment.

The advantage from this point of view in securing co-operation between universities and institutes of technology is obvious. Such institutes cater for evening as well as day students. They also provide part-time and 'sandwich' courses and short specialised courses both in and out of term. Even allowing for the fact that time is needed for 'cleaning up' say one hour after each threehour class, then the plant can be in operation for nine hours each day (i.e. taking a morning, an afternoon and an evening class). Further, the working year for the plant is extended from 26 weeks to something more like a calendar year.

Such considerations are amongst those that have operated in so many centres elsewhere to ensure the co-operation and co-ordination of universities and technological institutes, particularly in the subjects of Civil, Mechanical, Electrical and Chemical Engineering in which the capital cost of equipment is very high. In Dublin, can we afford, or is it logical to disregard this example?

Considerations in Regard to the Foregoing

We are of opinion that because of the lack of co-operation between the universities and the institutes of technology, the institutes have been forced into the position of providing full professional courses for those students who either cannot afford, or for other reasons do not wish, to attend a university. A position in the development of the institutes has now been reached in which

66 U.C.D. and the Future

Appendix F

DETAILS OF THE HARCOURT STREET STATION SITE

Taken from the advertisements of sale which appeared in the national press during April and May 1959

The whole block was to be offered first as one lot and failing a sale as such, then, in the following six lots:--

LOT 1 A warehouse premises of 17,460 sq. ft. approx. together with uncovered space of 34,740 sq. ft. approx. This property is leased to The Irish Dunlop Co. Ltd. for a term of 10 years from the 1st March, 1953, subject to £1,600 per annum. The tenants are responsible for all rates (R.V.., £360) and repairs. Held by Vendors in fee-simple.

LOT 2 Ground and buildings thereon at Adelaide Road leased to Auto Services Ltd. for a term of 21 years from the 1st January, 1949, subject to £400 per annum. The tenants are responsible for all rates (R.V. £320) and repairs.

LOT 3 Ground and buildings thereon at 57b Harcourt Street (corner of Harcourt Road and Harcourt Street) leased to Auto Services Ltd. for 99 years from the 4th September 1945, subject to £255 per annum. The tenants are responsible for all rates (R.V. £270) and repairs. These premises now comprise a modern Garage and Filling Station. Held by Vendors, in Fee-simple.

LOT 4 Building at Hatch Street, leased to Messrs. Wilson & Co. Ltd., for a term of 99 years from the 17th December 1957, subject to £156 per annum. The tenants are responsible for all rates. Held by Vendors, in Fee-simple.

LOT 5 Vaults under the station. These vaults extend to about 80,100 sq. ft. leased to Messrs. W. & A. Gilbey Ltd., for a term of 42 years from the 29th September 1926, subject to £1,000 per annum. The tenants are responsible for all rates (R.V. £280) and repairs.

The tenants have liberty to surrender their tenancy every seven years, calculated from the 29th September 1926 -- i.e., next date, 29th September 1961. Held by Vendors, in Fee-simple.

LOT 6 Station Premises, Complete Vacant Possession, Entrance from Harcourt Street and Adelaide Road.

Covered Area, 27,500 sq. ft. approximately. Uncovered Area, 63,500 sq. ft. approximately.

These extensive premises, with their distinctive and valuable frontage to Harcourt Street, comprise one of the most important properties to come on the market for many years. Its prominent location on a main thoroughfare, within a few hundred yards of the city centre, makes this a city landmark, with exceptional advertising value. Held by Vendors, in Fee-simple.

At the public auction on 12th June '59, the whole of the above property was sold as one lot for a sum of £67,500.

Appendices 67

Appendix G

Extract from an address of SIR ERIC ASHBY, D.Sc., Sc.D., LL.D., D.L.C. sometime Vice-Chancellor of Queens Univerity, Belfast, to a Symposium on the Design of Teaching Laboratories in Universities and Colleges of Advanced Technology, held on 14th March, 1958, at the R.I.B.A., London.

Before I take visitors round my university I always explain that we are desperately short of space. Then as we walk round I am always dismayed and embarrassed to find most of the laboratories empty. This is the unsolved problem. As teaching laboratories are designed at present, the efficiency of plant-utilisation (as the Americans would call it) is deplorably low.

Here are some figures to illustrate the problem. The largest laboratory in a science department is the elementary laboratory. It is academically more efficient and it saves the time of the teaching staff if all elementary students can do their practical work at the same time. But the elementary class in (say) chemistry does only six hours practical work a week for two terms. In other science subjects the amount of elementary practical work may be even less. Now the university is 'open' from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on five days a week and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. This menas that the 'plant' is available for its purpose for a 44-hour week. There are about 23 working weeks in the year. If we subtract lunch hours over 23 weeks it leaves us with a net availability of 897 hours per year. These laboratories are occupied by students for only 108 hours a year; a 'plantutilisation-efficiency' of 12 per cent. For 88 per cent of the university's opening time those laboratories will be empty.

The Scottish universities and some universities in England still have large elementary classes. Other English universities begin their courses at the post-intermediate stage, and it might be thought that the problem of inefficient utilisation vanishes beyond the elementary stage of teaching. But this is not so. Many advanced courses do not require more than 12 hours a week in the laboratory for 22 weeks. This amount of 264 hours a year: a 'plant-efficiency' of 29 per cent. In brief, it is only the honours student in the last year of his course who occupies the laboratory for anything like most of the time it is available.

Let me illustrate this problem by one detailed example. In concerns a modern geology separtment, and I include now not only the classes for geologists but all held in the laboratories. The buildings contain (in addition to private rooms, lecture rooms, workshop and stores, and a seminar-library room) three main laboratories: one for elementary students and two (one for palaeontology ad stratigraphy, and one for petrology and mineralogy) for advanced students. The use of the laboratories is summarised in the accompanying table.