Botanic Spine : Sheriff street park part 3

The Botanic Spine is a bold architectural project for Dublin city in Ireland.

Sheriff Street Park is what part of that idea might look like tomorrow.

CATALYST @ Botanic Spine

THE BOTANIC SPINE: an 18 km long orbital linear park that threads through a series of pocket parks; some existing, some proposed. Sheriff Street Park is one such park who's radical redesign acts as a catalyst for the area.

The Spine acts as an eco corridor and greenway that threads together the 6 existing city waterways, the Phoenix Park (Europe's largest city park) and the Botanic Gardens, which serves as the brain of the network that uses the spine as a constant feedback loop to output ecological projects and thinking into the wider city. The Botanic Gardens become the Dublin node in a global ecological system, greening the city, improving plant and animal life along green corridors, raising awareness and getting citizens involved with exciting eco initiatives.

The Spine is also a CPUL (continuous productive urban landscape) with a series of organic food gardens along it. The Spine mimics somewhat the structure and function of the human spine: a network of different systems flowing through the spine; plant and animal life, people, water, cycle route, metro line, digital info, hurling fans heading up to Croker for the big game?

One of the Spine's parks, Sheriff Street Park, is looked at in more detail and a series of future architectural scenarios are explored. What started off as a theoretical architectural thesis in 2005 has led to much more since, including 100+ native Irish trees being donated to communities around the spine, including Sheriff Street, the creation at different times of 5 community gardens along the spine, many bike rides happening along the route, discussions with communities the spine weaves through, community radio and further discussion of new ideas about what future sustainable cities might look like.
temporary Botanic Spine website:
http://www.dublin.ie/botanicspine/

View PDF about Botanic Spine:
http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/feb2007/botanic_spine.pdf

CATALYST @ Botanic Spine
2005 thesis available:
- Dublin School of Architecture, DIT Bolton Street library
- Án Taisce

Duncan Crowley, architect
d.crowley@ecointelligentgrowth.net

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Botanic
• Spine
• Sheriff
• street
• park
• architecture
• community
• dublin
• city
• docklands
• urbanism
• ecology
• greenway
• eco
• corridor