The designers wanted to create a level surface
around the GPO which could be shared between
pedestrians and traffic, creating the sense of an
urban square, but bus routes through the site led to
a demand for kerbing. A compromise was reached,
involving level controlled crossing points, with kerb-
ing to the carriageways and central reservation. A
pattern of white ‘spot stones’ articulates the dark
grey granite Plaza and assists in the delineation
of lanes. Shared space with lane narrowing pro-
vides generous pavements, approximately 11m in
width. Widened pedestrian areas were proposed to
engender feelings of spaciousness reminiscent of
the pavements of other major European cities.
Carriageway widths have been narrowed to two
lanes and a cycle lane in each direction, with an
8m-wide paved central median. There is a major
pedestrian crossing point to the north, the centre
of which is the Spire, and another crossing point
south of the site.
There are links from O’Connell Street to the adja-
cent narrower side streets, which have a variety of
paving styles. The recently refurbished Henry Street
links to O’Connell Street visually in its use of similar-
ly designed paving. North Earl Street, a pedestrian
street on the east side of O’Connell Street, has an
older two-coloured pavior design. At the interface
between the two, there is a new pedestrian cross-
ing point, which consists of 267 x 267 x 70mm
granite blocks with 166 x 166 x 166mm blocks in the
carriageway area. The surface is flame-finished.The designers built upon the lessons learnt from
other projects, combining research and expertise
to establish a paved surface which should be as
resistant as possible to vehicular movements over
its surface. The prominence of the site demands
high levels of maintenance. Street cleaning vehi-
cles have acute turning circles which create a high
twisting momentum across the paving. Building on
the knowledge of the Scott report, which was spon-
sored by the natural stone suppliers TRL (Edinburgh)
and recognising the problems experienced in the
paving scheme for Eyre Square, Galway, Dublin City
Council’s in-house engineers developed a specifica-
tion for the site. Advice was sought from Iggnaci
Di Lecea, the Chief Specifier for the municipality of
Barcelona. His main piece of advice was that, when
using stone and other high-quality materials, it is
normal to expect a much higher level of on-going
maintenance.Research into the use of stone elsewhere in Europe
and an awareness of the problems that can occur
when the bonding pattern is broken led to the
choice of a smaller granite paving unit (166 x
166mm) on the carriageway than might have been
chosen for purely aesthetic reasons to complement2.13
Close-up of ‘spot-stone’