REFURBISHMENT OF OLD BUILDINGS
In new developments, fire regulations do not present undue technical difficulties to the experienced architect. However in the case of existing buildings the requirement for the refurbished building to comply with modern fire regulations is a severe dis-incentive to renewal. The need to upgrade floors and walls to proven fire standards and the introduction of fire doors and lobbies to staircases, among other typical requirements, can often result in unsatisfactory refurbishment from an aesthetic viewpoint.

Most buildings in the Georgian heartlands of Merrion Square, Mount Street, Fitzwilliam Street, Mountjoy Square or Henrietta Street do not comply with modern fire standards. In many cases altering these buildings to comply with such fire standards would strip them of much of their aesthetic integrity. It would involve removing doors, frames, ceilings and many of the architectural features which provide them with their unique architectural character.

There is a case for liberalisation of existing regulations, if not exemption, in the case of historic buildings of significant architectural merit. These need not necessarily involve merely reducing standards but, by the acceptance of alternative forms of passive and active fire protection systems, could ensure that reasonable standards are attained while ensuring that the architectural integrity of the building is maintained.

It is worth noting that many of these buildings have provided safe occupancy for their inhabitants for over two hundred years and that this suggests they are worthy more sensitive treatment rather than being expected to comply with regulations prepared for modern buildings.

URBAN DESIGN AND PLANNING FRAMEWORK
The initiation of recent and proposed residential developments for the inner city also draws attention to the need for a vision of the form the city should take and for detailed urban design proposals and action plans for specific street and areas. Such devices are not uncommon to Dublin.

When the Anglo-Irish ascendancy undertook new residential developments north of the Liffey in Oxmantown, Mountjoy Square and later in the development of Merrion and Fitzwilliam Squares, they imposed a new order on the city in the form of elegant streets and squares. There was a discipline imposed on the developers of each individual townhouse which produced a coherent architectural entity.

This principle was furthered by the work of the Wide Street Commissioners in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In this century, in the rebuilding of O'Connell Street, the city architect Horace Tennyson O'Rourke, produced clear guidelines for height of buildings, materials, projections etc. in the form of an overall design for the street, and individual architects worked within the disciplines imposed by such guidelines.

If Dublin is to avoid the architectural mess which results from untrammelled development without an overall urban design concept, then it is essential that detailed proposals be prepared for the key renewal and redevelopment areas in the city. Temple Bar Properties Ltd. is in the process of adapting such an approach for the area under its control. Dublin Corporation has begun to take tentative steps in this direction with its own action plans for Temple Bar and the Grand Canal Dock in Ringsend but the format is not yet sufficiently developed in a visual form to successfully achieve its objectives.

In the meantime areas such as Clanbrassil Street and Smithfield still require detailed proposals to ensure that following renewal they are coherent architectural entities. As a reference for this approach our City Fathers need to look no further than recent achievements in Limerick and Kilkenny for examples of the success of this approach.

In addition there is a need, at a regional planning level, to begin to create positive incentives for developers to return to the city centre, primarily by the introduction of a "Stop Line" to development at the fringes of the suburban city and the strict maintenance of a green belt at the city's edge. It is worth noting that even in Belfast, with its ongoing sectarian strife, the maintenance of a stop line has ensured that development and renewal has been restricted to the city centre. As the chief executive of the N.I. Housebuilders Association once said "most of our members are urban renewal experts now, there's no where else left to build". It is a point which our planners in Dublin might consider for the future.

If the remaining stock of buildings in the inner city is to be renewed then consideration by the Government to further incentives, perhaps in the form of tax benefits for refurbishment of old buildings, may be needed. In the present circumstances the sheer enormity of the task in many cases is so daunting that only the committed and wealthy can contemplate embarking on such renewal work.