The Irish industrial estate, like the country surrounding it, has gone through a transformation in the last decade. Formerly the reserve of character-free structures and little more than a nod to the aesthetic, the industrial estates of the 70s and 80s were purely functional places.

Fast forward to 2001, however, and it's a completely different story: suburban business developments are now peppered with as many trees as buildings and you're more likely to see a "specially-commissioned" fountain than a building with an iron roof. The business park has entered the picture and is taking over.

The key difference, at least on the outside, between a business park and the old faithful industrial estate is that the new developments are designed to look good. Take the Park West development adjacent to Dublin's M50 for example. The first phase of Park West, designed to employ 25,000 people, is now complete, and all buildings have been sold.

John Doherty, marketing manager for development, estimates that approximately £4 million (€5.08m) has been spent on landscaping, including populating the park with sculptures.

The flagship among these sculptures is the 116 ft "Irish Wave", by now famous in its own right as possibly being the tallest sculpture in the world - and also for costing £750,000 (€952,300) - but there are at least nine more, including an imaginative structure called "The Bastard Son of Sisyphus".

The external environment at Park West "was equally important to the actual buildings right from the start", says Doherty. "We wanted to surround the buildings with sculptures, water features and garden areas to create a sense of identity."

Identity, according to Doherty, is promoted through artwork, meaning that identical buildings in different parts of the park look and feel different because of the pieces of sculpture placed outside them.

"I think it enhances business," he says. "There's a pleasant working environment; it's more impressive for clients and better for employees when they have interesting things to see and visit."

Citywest, located just a few miles away, is celebrating its 11th birthday this month and Brendan Hickey, managing director of the park's developer, Davy Hickey Properties, says that it's still only half-way into its development.

Citywest, like its younger neighbour Park West, was influenced by Stockley Park development on the outskirts of London, the 80s pioneer of the new breed of business parks in Britain and Ireland.

"I observed that during the 80s, the whole concept of the business park had flourished in the UK, probably coming from the States, during which time we had a recession," says Hickey, who followed the trend so far as to engage international consultants to research into best practice for this type of development.

He found that "a quality physical environment" was a key criterion, although he admits that at the end of the 80s there was little demand for such things in the commercial property market.

"Nobody was asking for it but, at that time, no one was asking for anything," he says.

Citywest was designed from the ground up, literally, with 70,000 trees being planted before a brick was laid on buildings including a bridge over the Naas Road.

This phase of the park's development cost £7 million (€8.89m), Hickey says - "a lot of money 10 years ago".

As its stands today, Citywest is at full occupancy and gardens are landscaped throughout. The development's central feature is the "Pool of Tara", a man-made water feature that is home to families of ducks and surrounded by greenery.

It's all a long way from neighbouring Ballymount Industrial Estate, a development dating from the 70s, described by one estate agent as "pretty much just roads and buildings".

It must be remembered however, that locations such as Ballymount tend to cater for a different market to that targeted by new-generation business parks: the brave new world of high-tech and sophisticated industry.

From the developer's perspective, this new market can present a more lucrative option than heavy, "older" industries.

"The idea of high-tech business parks is a reflection of a change in Government policy," says Dr Brian Meehan, a Dublin-based planning consultant.

"The traditional industrial estate doesn't seem to be happening any more."

Meehan notes, however, that the most recent business parks springing up around the capital appear to incorporate higher-density office or business space than older parks such as Citywest.

This implies a change in the balance between buildings and their surroundings, and could reflect recent and ongoing shivers in the global economy.

"Citywest started off as being low-density," says Meehan, "but recent buildings are more dense. There aren't many more two-storey buildings any more. The site costs for these developments are quite enormous.

"Take the most recent acquisition in Merrion a site sold by the Religious Sisters of Charity for £36 million (€45.7 million) to a property consortium.

"It's being thought of as a business park. To make that economical, I would assume that density would be fairly high."