River Liffey Campshires

Architecture Office Urban Agency Architects

Typology Public Realm

Size 1.02 ha

Location Dublin, Ireland

Client Dublin Docklands, Dublin City Council

Status Feasibility, Pre-Planning, 2019

The Campshires are narrow stretches of public land between the River Liffey and the road on the North and South of Dublin’s Quays. Before the Dublin Port facilities moved further East down the river, the ships docked by the Campshires. Testimonies of their nautical past, storage warehouses, cranes, and mooring hooks are still present in the area. Despite the privileged location by the water and in one of the most vibrant city’s neighbourhoods, today the Campshires appear as an empty and inactive corridor space.

Dublin City Council appointed Urban Agency, together with a multi-disciplinary team, to develop a design for a public realm development on the South Campshires of the River Liffey. The project aims to deliver a high-quality integrated public realm for the South Campshires, intending to protect and enhance the area while improving the key infrastructural network along one of the primary civic spaces within the city. 

The main project objectives involve the provision of a pedestrian path and cycle track along the South Campshire and of extensive hard and soft landscaping, the inclusion of a flood defense infrastructure along the South Campshire, new drainage, public lighting design and the inclusion of a district heating network pipe, as well as the provision of service utility points for docking vessels/ coffee docks

As Urban Agency’s Project Architect, I led the project until the completion of the pre-planning stage. The initial research phase aimed at developing a masterplan for both the North and the South Campshires: based on the ongoing and forecast projects along the Campshires, the strategy proposes development sites to enhance the riverside public realm and outlines opportunity areas to be developed into water activity amenities. The project area was later limited to the South Campshire only, for which a detailed study and set of pre-planning drawings were prepared.