The Irish Times

After more than 10 years of urban renewal, the general standard of building design should be appreciably better, particularly for inner city residential schemes. Yet apart from a move away from shoebox-style apartments and some progress in the provision of amenities, this is sadly not the case.n Take the HARP area, for example. Month after month, it seems, this important chunk of Dublin's inner city - some 10 times the size of Temple Bar - is being littered with run-of-themill architecture. And this has now become so widespread that, in some instances, it constitutes entire streetscapes.