The Irish Times

Ireland's recently built housing areas generally lack any sense of place or regional identity and tend to be characterised by "anywhere architecture", according to a British specialist in residential design. Architect Melville Dunbar told the closing session of the Irish Planning Institute's annual conference in Cork that building traditions here had been discarded in favour of the "discount-style ubiquitous box". This often meant "car dominant, serried ranks of dwellings with a similar plan form set at uniform distances apart, no spatial variety or contrast, and little regard to human scale and convenience". According to Mr Dunbar, many local authorities are "bereft of ideas on how to improve the design quality of new housing" and seek refuge in the application of quantity-driven residential density standards.