RGU Scott Sutherland Yearbook 2018

L O O CH S D N

O B R A YE

Y RSIT NIVE NU RDO RT G O

SCOTT SUTHERLAND SCHOOL YEARBOOK 2018

S T T SCO

U

A L R E TH

ROB E

18 0 2 OK

ROBERT GORDON UNIVERSITY

Dedicated to Graeme McRobbie

Editorial Team Calum Dalgetty, Stuart Dilley, Sophie Houston, Alexandra Leask, Fiona Logie, Neil Mair, Katie Rice, Danny Whitelaw Cover Design Andrew Pacitti Publisher Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK Printer J Thomson Colour Printers, Glasgow ISBN 978-1-907349-16-4 Special thanks to Professor David McClean.

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Contents

Scott Sutherland School

CONTENTS Education: Professor David McClean

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Reflections on Part 1: Lucia Medina

39

Housing Research

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Sustainability

40

Housing Crisis David Vardy

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‘Responsible’ Design Professor Lynne Sullivan

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Practice Based Research Professor Gokay Deveci

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Resilience Theory Olivia Johnston

44

Bothy Revival / Micro-Village Stage 1 Architecture

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Adaptive Reuse Stage 2/4 Building Surveying

46

Healthy Housing Stage 2 Architectural Technology

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Extending the Life of a Museum Stage 3 Architectural Technology

48

Co-Living in Torry Stage 3 Architecture

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The Architecture of Infrastructure Stage 4 Architectural Technology

52

Housing Opportunity Stage 5 Architecure Unit 2

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Reclaiming the Waterfront Stage 5 Architecture Unit 1

56

Vertical Community Katie Rice

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Orkney Caravanserai Stage 5 Architecture Unit 3

60

Retrofit Housing Dr Amar Bennadji

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Sustainable Placemaking Professor Gary Clark

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Reflections on Housing Ian Gilzean

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Reflections on Year Out: Calum Dalgetty

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2018 Yearbook

Contents

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Outreach

68

57°10 Society Thomas Perritt, Danny Whitelaw

70

The Robotic Touch An Interview with Matthias Kohler

108

London Exhibition 2017 Ross Robinson

73

Shifting Technologies Dr Marianthi Leon

112

RIAS Convention 2018 Hannah Skyner

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The Future of Architecture Bill Black, Alan Dunlop, Neil Gillespie

114

Modernism in Scotland Stuart Dilley

76

Reflections on Technology Professor Richard Laing

124

Playable Pavilions Thomas Perritt

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Graduate Reflections: Tom Dryburgh

125

Study Trips Jennifer Robertson

82

Unit 1: Aviemore

126

Urbanism at Borders Dr Quazi Zaman

84

Introduction Calum Dalgetty, Stuart Dilley, Neil Mair

128

Dissertation to Book Dr Quazi Zaman

85

Student Projects

132 145

The Framework of Design Stage 2 Architecture

86

Reflections Professor Gokay Deveci, Bill Black

Elsick House / Belmont Street Stage 2 Architecture

88

Unit 2: School

146

Community as Extended Classroom Stage 3 Architecture

94

Introduction Unit 2

148

Construction Management Dr Quazi Zaman

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Student Projects

152 161

Lunch and Learn Dr Michael Dignan

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Reflections Professor Alan Dunlop, David Vardy

The Big Crit 2018 Chester Kendell

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Unit 3: The Quotidian

162

Introduction Unit 3

164

Student Projects

168

Reflections Professor Neil Gillespie, David Vila Domini

179

McMemory

180

Alumni

182

Reflections on Part 2: Sophie Houston

The Future

101

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The Reality of the Virtual Professor David McClean

104

Creating New Cities Theo Dounas

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Education

Scott Sutherland School

EDUCATION At a time of rapid advancement in the ways in which we learn, communicate, interact, and work, the role of skills and knowledge is constantly shifting and is, to some extent, open to question. The currency of much knowledge is transient, and the same is also true of skills. It was ever thus.

Image courtesy of The Gatehouse - Design and Print Consultancy

Equally, there is much commentary on the evolving nature of the workplace, and it’s changing demands on, and expectations of, the contemporary graduate.

Speculation and conjecture about the future abound, but certainty is in short supply. Amidst the shifts in paradigm, being prepared to flourish in uncertainty is clearly a requisite for future success.

Arguably, it always has been.

The clock hands appear to turn ever faster, and the rate of change is accelerating at an exhilarating or overwhelming pace, depending on your persuasion.

The magnitude of change facilitated by technology is of an unprecedented scale, as predicted by Buckminster Fuller in his ‘Critical Path’, first published in 1981.

Yet not all prophecies materialise. The 1980s predicted the death of the office through the home working revolution

2018 Yearbook

Education

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‘The following pages display a depth of creativity, imagination, innovative thinking, and critical questioning; the very qualities that have proved fundamental to progress over time in multiple fields of endeavour.’

enabled by IT, yet this overlooked the primal human desire to socialise.

Consequently little changed. What appears different today, however, is that contemporary technology offers the potential to transform functions hitherto undertaken by people, not through desire, but of necessity. This surely heralds an unprecedented era.

But amidst this state of flux, how much is really new? The scale of societal challenges is, but amidst discussion of AI and emerging technologies, the importance of the fundamental human capacity to embrace uncertainty, change, and technological progress, remains constant. I suggest that the attributes that most directly describe this capacity are creativity, ingenuity, and curiosity, and forms of education that nurture and develop these capacities prove the most potent and enduring. In this vein, Fuller’s book also asserted the primacy of education for the future well-being of our planet.

So, what is the relevance of this to what is contained in this publication? Simply that the following pages display a depth of creativity, imagination, innovative

thinking, and critical questioning; the very qualities that have proved fundamental to progress over time in multiple fields of endeavour. This includes the design and construction of our buildings and cities, of which the heights of achievement are often portrayed as the measure of our civilisation.

The fact that such creativity is played out so skilfully through designs and processes that transform our imagination into material reality bodes well for us all, but creativity observes few borders. It is the ultimate transferable attribute, and one which we should rightly celebrate.

I hope you enjoy the evident talent and passion of our students through the ideas and thoughts presented in this book, and that you share the optimism that such a body of work conveys.

Thank you for your interest in the School.

Professor David McClean Head of School

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HOUSING

STAGE 1 ARCH STAGE 2 ARCH TECH STAGE 3 ARCH STAGE 5 ARCH STAGE 6 ARCH

RESEARCH A home can be much more than a space contained within four walls. Within this chapter, a number of varied projects and

articles examine a range of housing typologies

and contemporary issues,

including the housing crisis.

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Housing Research: Housing Crisis

Scott Sutherland School

Housing Crisis: How did the world of design become so disconnected from the design of the world?

We are all familiar hearing the word ‘housing’ appended by the word ‘CRISIS!’ - and of course there is more than one the crisis in London being very different to the crisis in Aberdeen. Surprisingly something both crises share is that neither has very much to do with architects. In fact, architects design less than 6% of the country’s housing, and the vast majority of that is small scale house extensions.

So how did the world of design become so disconnected from the design of the world?

David Vardy explains how the School has been addressing the housing crisis.

According to the UN Human Rights Council, ‘Housing has lost its social function and is seen instead as a vehicle for wealth and asset growth. It has become a financial commodity, robbed of its connection to community, dignity and the idea of home.’ Swap the word ‘housing’ for ‘the role of the architect’, and the word ‘home’ for the word ‘architecture’, and this becomes the sorry story of our profession - a parallel track worth observing.

With 1.9 million families languishing on the UK housing waiting list, and more than 6 million struggling with tenure insecurity, what should we do and where are the ideas?

According to the Dutch Architect Reinier de Graaf ‘no-one has a clue’ - not ‘planners, utopian environmentalists, sociologists, quango soldiers, free-range urbanists, demographic strategists, ‘place makers’, sow-distant visionaries, soothsayers’....and, rather disappointingly not architects either.

In the late 19th century developers got rich quick by knocking up grandiose houses. In the 20th century the racket was suburbia for the aspiring middle classes, and by the 21st century, extortionately expensive flats for the super-rich. Profit has always led housing provision, not need - a long term failure to match supply with demand that other political systems have handled better. At the neoliberal turn, and with Thatcher era policy, the problem of supply deepened dramatically.

The involvement of the banks, the 2008 financial crash, and today an ageing population means that the reality for millennials is that a third will rent into retirement.

The UK builds the meanest housing space in Europe behind Italy and Portugal, in some respects the most expensive and unequal housing, and also the least

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Housing Crisis

energy efficient, other than Spain. 80% of Austria’s houses are self-build - which tends to involve an architect. However, in the UK this figure is only 8%.

the RIAS Convention, and the Scottish Government paid a visit to the studio.

So if, as Bruce Mau stated, ‘the fundamental idea of design is to make the world a better place’, and in a world in which financial speculation has led to a now unsustainable housing crisis, then as a profession - and more pointedly as a discipline - we should be working on the problem.

And we are - this year, Unit 2 of Stage 5 Architecture, led by Professor Alan Dunlop (un2.archstudio), took on mass housing and the global housing crisis, with research support from Theo Dounas.

Stage 3 Architecture tackled a co-housing project. A collaboration formed between the students, myself, and Theo Dounas, cemented through a trip to Vienna - in many ways the home of social housing.

Our paper ‘The Scottish Housing Crisis: Architecture as a solution prism’ positions the discipline of architecture as able to solve housing crisis problems.

A research trip to China broadened our understanding of the housing crisis internationally, and a series of research projects are under development across the school, including a start-up which seeks to develop affordable mass housing prototypes. By May 2019, it is hoped that the work of Unit 2 will have demonstrated that architects have more to offer than an involvement in only 6% of UK housing.

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As a profession - and more pointedly as a discipline we should be working on the housing problem.

David Vardy

Unit 2 presented at the GIA Papercut procurement event, exhibited work at BACK

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Housing Research: Practice-based Research

Scott Sutherland School

Practice-based Research: Diversity and Inclusion

Ageing, diversified lifestyle, household structures, work and mobility patterns are all aspects of life that have been shifting during the 21st century and are having an impact on our housing needs.

Diversity and inclusion are major challenges - or opportunities - of our time.

Gokay Deveci discusses his work on a new housing typology that addresses this.

Housing must become more inclusive, but our existing strategies and housing typologies do not keep up with the increasing demand and the expectations of a diverse range of inhabitants. Through use rather than a profit-oriented planning, it should be possible for housing projects to combine individual life-plans with spatial needs for privacy and retreat, as well as community activities.

Not only is Scotland’s population growing rapidly, it is also ageing significantly - with the number of people aged over 65 set to increase by 53% in just 25 years. An ageing population is set to be one of the most significant social transformations of the 21st century, creating implications for nearly all sectors of society - particularly healthcare and housing.

The already struggling National Health Service will be under an extremely large amount of pressure with these social changes. People aged over 65 are more

likely to suffer from long-term health conditions and already around 80,000 people in Scotland receive some level of care at home with the number set to rise. It may be easy to see how the healthcare sector will be affected by these social changes, but how may an ageing population affect the housing sector?

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of people living alone, so much so that it is now the most common way to live - accounting for 37% of all households in Scotland.

This is largely due to our ageing population who are more likely to live alone or in smaller households, as well as many choosing to stay in their own homes as opposed to moving into care homes.

With more people living independently for longer, these changes demand more housing but also add other pressures onto the NHS. If the projections are correct and the number of lone adult households do continue to increase, it is likely to encourage loneliness across Scotland and in turn, more people will suffer from additional mental and physical health

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Practice-based Research

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‘Housing must become more inclusive, but our existing strategies and housing typologies do not keep up with the increasing demand and the expectations of a diverse range of inhabitants.’

conditions. Loneliness is already a big concern for Scotland’s elderly with NHS Scotland stating that, ‘Older people are especially vulnerable to loneliness and social isolation – and it can have a serious effect on health.’ These increased social pressures demand a different way of living for our elderly population and the ‘Integra House’ could offer a solution to this.

The ‘Integra House’ is a new typology of housing which demonstrates a collaborative approach to age by combining the principles of innovative housing design as well as wellbeing, healthcare and technology to encourage active aging. The affordable homes will be co-designed with input from computing and healthcare professionals with the aim of creating senior housing in which people aspire to live and support one another to help eliminate social isolation.

It is proposed that a technology-enabled ‘Integra House’ will offer a solution to the growing challenges that face housing and healthcare today. It will enable residents to remain in their homes for longer; prevent hospital admission and enable early discharge; provide a solution for people that do not wish to enter a care home; and predict health related events and enable mitigation to enhance wellness.

The first ‘Integra House’ is set to be trialled in in Stromness, Orkney in a pioneering co-living community where facilities such as kitchens, utility spaces and garden areas are shared between residents.

This typology is suited to the island community with one in five Orkney residents being over 65, as well as there being a general housing shortage, social isolation issues, very high levels of fuel poverty (63% in 2014) and a demand for specialist housing with support.

The proposal would have interactive dialogue systems that are integrated within the homes that can use conversational ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI), based on what is being sensed. These systems could be utilised for general fact finding and chit chat; assisting with self-reporting for self-management of health and wellbeing; and intervening where necessary to gather more information about the mental and physical health of residents - linked with behavioural monitoring systems. The incorporation of the ‘AI’ helps to monitor and identify early symptoms of ill health and help manage residents’ wellbeing.

Professor Gokay Deveci

The proposed typology is replicable throughout rural Scotland and beyond, delivering a truly innovative integrative solution that puts residents’ wellbeing first and directly addresses other related active ageing and healthcare challenges.

The ‘Integra House’ technology could also be introduced within established communities - creating jobs, opportunities and supporting services in the local area.

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Housing Research: Stage 1 Architecture

Scott Sutherland School

Stage 1 Architecture:

Bothy Revival / Micro Village

Stage 1 Architecture students focussed on the extension of an existing Bothy and the development of a Micro-Village on the university campus.

This year students undertook a series of projects to develop and illustrate an understanding of architectonic values, acquired through the assessment of design skills and thinking processes.

During the first semester, our students undertook five separate projects which, when combined, constituted one larger project. The ultimate aim of the first semester was to design an extension to an existing bothy building. To enable this, students started by recording the existing building by sketching it from different angles and making models after surveying.

This task was done in small groups, each with around six students.

The second half of the semester was dedicated to individual projects where the extensions to the existing bothy building were imagined by each student. A wide range of responses arose from cafes to personal offices to exhibition spaces and some which simply focussed on the restructuring of the existing building itself.

Semester 2 engaged students in a similar manner, by using one project over the entire semester which was broken into smaller segments. The project was to

design housing for RGU staff on the Garthdee Campus by the riverside.

Collectively, the individual responses from the students would form a cluster of buildings, or micro-village within the wider university campus.

Throughout the semester, students built on the skills gained in the first semester by exploring a range of different design methods and processes centred around investigations of the existing site, spatial design, and housing typological studies.

Dr Amar Bennadji, Dr Quazi Zaman

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Stage 1 Architecture

Bothy Revival Joe Inman

The Bothy is a small granite building situated on a large stretch of green parkland on the banks of the River Dee in Aberdeen. Originally designed as a small hut or cottage in which people might dwell for short periods of time, the building is now used by the Aberdeen and District Angling Association (ADAA) as a meeting space. We were tasked with an adaptive extension of the small residence, revitalising its local vernacular.

In designing a small cafe extension, my aim was to make use of natural light, and connect people to the surrounding context. I nestled the original building amongst organic forms that mimic the form of rocks to create intrigue and to draw people towards the building. I wanted to create an interior that was bright and open, contrasting with the old and rather claustrophobic interior of the original building at hand.

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Housing Research: Stage 1 Architecture

Scott Sutherland School

House Six Jonathan Gray

Our micro-village design was centred around large plazas, shared between the houses, which step down to the picturesque views of the river at the bottom of the site. The overarching aim for the village was to create opportunities for the inhabitants to meet each other and for their paths to cross.

For my individual house design, I employed large glazed apertures to create a better

engagement between the house and the other plazas. This also allowed natural light to flood the concrete mass of the building.

To create a central well of light through the centre of the house, I also used glass squares on the floors to allow natural light to into the lower floors.

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Stage 1 Architecture

At One With Nature Dalibor Baran

The house sits within a larger development of six houses and hides between the trees.

It is divided into two main parts - ‘heart’ and ‘quiet’. The heart is where the entrance on the upper level is. It leads to the office and overlooks the kitchen and the living room. The quiet is the narrower and lower portion of the house with three bedrooms.

The heart and quiet are connected through a glass dining and chilling area.

This is acts as a transition space between the two zones. It enjoys undisturbed views towards south and north of the site.

A staircase connects with the main access point to the house and the river edge, running right through the house.

Circulation is key to both the outside and inside experience.

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Housing Research: Stage 1 Architecture

Scott Sutherland School

The Sun Path House Krzysztof Kalita

The design of the house is based on two main ideas. The first one being the idea of rotation - both the form and the layout of the building are based on similarly sized rectangular modules rotated along one common axis by 30, 60 and 90 degrees respectively.

This provides the house with optimal sun exposure throughout the day as it tracks the sun from east to south-west.

The second driving idea within the design is the implementation of an atrium, inspired by the simplicity, ingenuity and practicality of ancient Roman houses. It acts as a circulation hub and a place of meeting for family members throughout the day.

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Stage 1 Architecture

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Concave/Convex House Karolina Przynarowska

The house is an integral part of the micro-village for university staff. It is characterised by emphasis on rigidity and angularity, contrasting with the smooth curvature of the site. Criteria set for its development included use of concrete, solar panels and a skylight system.

House with characteristic concrete panels.

The name of my house derives from the fact that some parts protrude, while other segments are either pushed or hollowed in, creating interest through the alteration of volumes and void spaces.

The project was very much inspired by the work of Tadao Ando, with particular note taken of the 4x4 House and Koshino BACK

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Housing Research: Stage 2 Arch Tech

Scott Sutherland School

Stage 2 Architectural Technology: Healthy Housing

Stage 2 Architectural Technology students focussed on the development of ‘healthy’ sheltered housing.

The Stage 2 Architectural Technology students broadly focus on housing, and this year they have investigated and detailed projects for student housing and sheltered housing.

The main project for the year has been sheltered housing, where they have looked at future proofing housing for the elderly while tackling issues such as low energy design, and demographic issues stemming from loneliness. The project was one that was worked on by students from RGU in Aberdeen, but also in Berlin, Amsterdam and Alicante, over four different sites.

The influence of the location on the building requires the projects to be sited in special locations across Europe in order to offer the opportunity to establish the differences that views, climate, orientation, culture or proximity to a certain environment condition the design. The site location for the main cohort was in Cults near Aberdeen, but some students chose to site their building in locations such as Murcia in Spain. All design and construction solutions had to comply or exceed the current requirements of the Scottish technical standards. The

social group for whom the projects were designed were elderly residents.

The project involved the design of a flexible and innovative apartment complex on a plot of around 8000m2.

The apartments had to be designed for two people and bathrooms were to be totally accessible. The complex also had to include a shared multi-purpose room where workshops or physical exercise activities could take place, a shared living room including space for a television and small tables for table games, and a shared kitchen and dining room where the occupants might socialise.

Dr Jonathan Scott

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Stage 2 Arch Tech

Healthy Housing Greig Clark

The project shown in the above images was work from my integrative studies in Stage 2. Based on the shape of a traditional house, the project replicated this to give a sense of familiarity, community, and togetherness.

The plan includes a mix of apartment types, some with one bedroom, and others with two bedrooms, each with an en-suite or shared bathroom.

With the idea of healthy housing in mind, I based the project around the passive house theory, which looks to reduce CO2 in the project, but also, through daylighting, improve the lives of the elderly residents who will be staying there.

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Housing Research: Stage 2 Arch Tech

Scott Sutherland School

Healthy Housing Callum Law

With students from all over the world, we were put into groups and tasked with designing an assisted living residence in either Aberdeen, Alicante, Berlin orAmsterdam. For our design we chose a location 2 hours outside Alicante in a rural, coastal area in the Murcia Region.

Throughout, this location proved to be a challenge as the Spanish weather meant fighting the sun instead of embracing it.

Therefore, this project focuses heavily on counter-acting the sun’s rays by using elements such as heavy shading on the west face, thick cavity walls and roof and also using water features such as swimming pools and the sea to promote ideas of shading and cooling.

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Stage 2 Arch Tech

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Healthy Housing Rory Souter

The main ambition of my design, an assisted living home in Cults, was to preserve as much of the site as possible as well as linking in with the existing surrounding buildings. A hedge which divided the proposal from the existing buildings on the left of the site was removed to open up the site.

The building is cantilevered over an existing path which acts as a main channel

for pedestrians. The proposal is versatile, catering to a wide base with independent and semi-independent apartments.

In addition to the apartments themselves, I proposed a number of larger spaces for community use in which people could gather to socialise. The building was detailed to be passive, south-oriented, clad in untreated larch, and topped with a standing seam roof.

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Housing Research: Stage 3 Architecture

Scott Sutherland School

Stage 3 Architecture: Co-Living in Torry

Stage 3 Architecture students looked at the development of Co-Living initiatives in Torry.

Stage 3 presents unique challenges to the students. They have to complete two buildings in full detail, from concept to implementation, with the added complexity of the first semester project being an adaptive reuse scenario. This year we focused on Aberdeen’s centre, with Jackson’s garage being transformed into spaces for artists and a gallery, while retaining the existing functions. In the second semester, the focus shifted to housing. We looked at creating models for co-living within the challenging context of Torry in Aberdeen.

The latter project was driven by an effort to better connect the stages of the Part 1 course with the Part 2, where Stage 5 Unit 2, as noted earlier, looked at the housing crisis. While the collaboration between the stages was a challenge, the exercises we hosted at the beginning of the second semester, focusing on Shape Grammars, Typology and Bricolage were successful.

A housing ‘crisis’ emerges as a permanent condition, globally due to population pressures, lack of comprehensive housing programmes and access to them. Access to good quality housing remains an issue for social mobility, access to healthcare,

education and other factors of success in life, while research has shown that the potential for success of people increases when the basic needs have been taken care of.

A fixed amount of housing building stock, an increase in population, the change in demographics and behaviour of younger people leaving home earlier result in a change in preference of where people want to live. Increased immigration, obscenely expensive prices, and an ageing population contribute further to the issue.

The quantity of houses built still remains below the number needed, with the quality of the existing housing stock not up to modern standards.

With this in mind, the second semester brief was to design housing for all ages, for a social housing society, on a site on the east part of Balnagask circle within Torry.

Theo Dounas

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Stage 3 Architecture

Co-Living Samantha Bryan

In this project I wanted to embrace the aspect of community and cohabitation by allowing both generations to live near one another and share living areas.

This was achieved by arranging a series of studio apartments around the perimeter of the site and creating a communal courtyard within the centre. Between the apartments and courtyard is a communal living and circulation space with creates

opportunities for the residents to meet and come together.

Staircases are used to break up the apartments and create more informal living areas, giving opportunities for residents to enjoy views from all positions of the site. Additionally, terraces are revealed at each level to allow light from the south to enter the courtyard and provide external spaces at each level.

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Housing Research: Stage 3 Architecture

Scott Sutherland School

Co-Living Angus Chow

The design accommodates 100 people for all ages, targeting to 17-25 youngsters and people aged above 65. Residents have private and self-contained units, but sharing different facilities such as bathrooms, kitchens, laundry areas and living spaces. The project was about rethinking the basics, from the way we live to how we categorise building types in relation to the extent to which facilities within them are shared.

The idea of co-housing was to solve several social issues like loneliness, unemployment, income deprivation, and to experiment with a new way of living in Torry. With sharing becoming part and parcel of daily life, the project looks to create connection and bonds between people to give a sense of community and neighbourhood.

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Stage 3 Architecture

Co-Living Lucia Medina

Located in Balnagask Circle, a neighbourhood made up primarily of council housing from the 1960s, the project is driven by the struggles brought by the housing crisis. The questions raised, however, are pushed further than the simple act of survival: what qualities can be brought through a housing complex?

And what does society lack in today’s world? The brief puts in the spotlight two demographics that not only suffer from a

crisis of housing, but of a crisis of home: can the student and elderly population co-exist?

The building becomes a building about people, about being together, materialising its many metaphors through the use of timber. A celebration of the everyday: of the materials we touch, the spaces we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with.

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Housing Research: Stage 3 Architecture

Scott Sutherland School

Co-Living

Katarzyna Popowczak The initial design approach for this social housing project has three main aims which I followed through the whole process: fast, prefabricated construction; small, affordable units; and daylight.

of the modules around the courtyard maximise the daylight for every unit. The new harbour, located nearby, gives the possibility to deliver prefabricated CLT units elements at a low cost.

The inspiration for a modular construction came from containers from the nearby harbour and granite blocks, and the shape of the building is reminiscent of how these blocks are stacked. The organisation

The building is clad with copper, which creates a contrast to the interior and an element of reflection which blends the whole building into the context.

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Stage 3 Architecture

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Co-Living

Magdalena Wloczka As the country faces a housing crisis, the project tries to address the issue and proposes housing for a section through society, offering a variety of flat types.

The composition of individual blocks and circulation blocks creates narrow pathways opening towards three squares, serving as social meeting points. As a result, a journey through the scheme results in numerous different views

towards the sea, or the neighbourhood itself.

The CLT structures are clad in brick and timber, with accompanying concrete circulation zones. The juxtaposition of those materials, as well as variation in the spacing of timber battens creates gives each house a distinct character, associated not only with the building, but its inhabitants.

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Housing Research: Housing Opportunity

Housing Opportunity: Addressing the Crisis

Unit 2 of Stage 5 Architecture has been generating conversations around the housing crisis, both in Scotland and abroad.

Scott Sutherland School

Housing Research: Housing Opportunity

Scotland is facing a housing crisis. This, as most will agree, is a fact to the people living in Scotland today. But how can the country deal with this crisis? Some believe that the solution and the problem lies solely with the government. They, after all, are the people who can affect the most change; who can create bigger budgets, who can specify areas that are most in need and who will ultimately decide who can carry out the work.

But are they the only ones that can make a difference?

how we get the most out of it for the most people, without undermining quality or destroying communities.

All exhibition images courtesy of RIAS

2018 Yearbook

In the immediate post-war years an urgent need for housing and a scarcity of materials encouraged great innovation and advanced building techniques were embraced. Architects and designers of the age provided buildings that responded to the challenge using approaches that provided a record number of dwellings.

However, government targets, mass production and a focus on speed frequently led to poor workmanship and shoddy construction.

Today, our need for new housing is similar, but the scarcity of our current age is in land and particularly land in the right location. Innovation is again required in

As master’s students at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture we have set ourselves the challenge of researching this crisis that Scotland faces today. Led by Professor Alan Dunlop, David Vardy and with research support from Theo Dounas we are producing a body of work that will address the issues in this country as well as the rest of the world, with an aim to generate a wider discussion on this most important of topics.

We are gradually piecing together research of one of the most important issues facing our society at present and will carry on doing so throughout the remainder of our studies. To date, our work has not only covered the issues of housing in the UK and Scotland but from all over the world. This included studies into socialist housing in Russia, and the ‘Polykatoikia’ house type in Greece, in tandem, with studies of housing policy through an investigation of planning, funding and procurement strategies.

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Housing Research: Housing Opportunity

Scott Sutherland School

The creation of a travelling exhibition was our main tool to engage with the public and professionals.

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Housing Opportunity

The creation of a travelling exhibition which consolidated our research into a series of informative panels and ‘art pieces’ was our main tool to engage with the public and professionals dealing with the housing crisis on a day to day basis.

our individual thesis projects. Within the unit, we have an exciting mix of schemes emerging from floating homes, to graduate housing and housing for the elderly.

As part of our research, we were also invited to speak at the Glasgow Institute of Architects’ PaperCut event on Procurement. Hugh and Owen from the unit shared the stage in Glasgow with esteemed names such as Malcom Fraser, Ann Nisbet and Stephen Murray to discuss key issues which are affecting built environment professionals today.

Topics discussed ranged from the age at which architectural education should start, to alternative competition judging methods and the wider cultural perception of architects.

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If you would like to find out more about our research or our work going forward there are a variety means to do this. Our website and social media accounts are regularly updated and provide some more information about our research. We have also produced a zine on housing in Scotland. You can pick up one of these at our exhibition, alternatively you can order one through our website below. https://homesssrgu.wixsite.com/unit2 Stage 5 Architecture Unit 2

Overall, the event was incredibly eyeopening to us as architecture students to understand the opinions of fellow design professionals in Scotland and it also provided a solid platform for us to network and gather support for our research.

We are looking into a wide range of issues facing housing, which are fuelling BACK

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Housing Research: Vertical Community

Scott Sutherland School

Vertical Community: Co-Housing as a model to reduce Social Issues in Multi-storey Housing

Stage 6 Architecture Student Katie Rice explores how co-housing can be used to combat the social issues associated with multi-storey blocks.

Though it may be hard to believe, one of our now most cherished building types was so rejected by communities that they couldn’t be demolished quick enough. It was just fifty years ago that the tenements set the scene of overcrowding and poor living conditions - high density post-war housing was a reaction to this.

slowly collapsing ever since a major shift in our housing culture the 1980’s - a private ownership model took over from the welfare state and the aspirations of Scots changed. People started to reject the Scottish tradition of flatted town centre accommodation and began to aspire to suburban life.

Fifty years on and the next phase of demolition is fully underway - many of the multi-storey blocks and post war public housing estates that replaced the now much-loved tenements are being demolished in order to ‘regenerate’ these areas once again. Now that the policy of tenement demolition is considered to have been short-sighted and wasteful, shouldn’t we be thinking twice about what we are demolishing today?

People now choose privacy – a detached house, a garden with high fences and a private driveway. This new-found obsession with homeownership has indirectly affected many things, such as the unaffordability of housing due to high demand, the collapse of the reputation of public housing and a lack of community.

With housing in Scotland caught up in a fifty-year cycle of demolition and redevelopment, we must recognise that with the demolition of housing comes the dismantling of communities. ‘Community’ is something we once did so well, we look back now and see we took for granted the close contacts shared between neighbours which flourished for decades.

The concept of ‘community’ has been

Co-housing is a living concept focused on living as part of a community - residents have their own private space as well as access to communal space shared with a number of other residents. Co-living is not a new housing typology, people began living this way in the 1970’s in Denmark with a main aim of sharing childminding duties. These communities evolve around social events such as eating dinner together, celebrating cultural events and gathering for their shared interests.

Living in higher densities and providing

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Vertical Community

high quality spaces for people to socialise could help to reduce these societal issues.

of co-housing in the reconfiguration of a multi-storey housing block in Aberdeen’s city centre to create a ‘vertical community’.

If we take the housing typology that is infamous for its social issues and lack of community – the post-war multi-storey block – it can be seen that it is not just the collapse of the reputation of public housing that has led to the social failure of these blocks, but their design. The design does not encourage a sense of community - their long corridors and lack of social space mean they are often lonely places to live. These associations led to demolition works from the 1990s onwards.

Though for some they are an emblem of social failure, they also represent a strong stance and investment in equality as a means to offer warm, secure and reasonably priced accommodation to all.

Many of these post-war housing blocks were built to last and could well enjoy a second life. Could co-housing be an architectural and social remedy to today’s issues? This project explores the concept

The redesigned slab block contains community amenities under four themes: play, live, work, public. A focus on health and wellbeing comes through the ‘play’ theme with gardens and allotments on the roof level and a gym, library and flexispaces on levels 13 and 14. The ‘live’ aspect fills most of the block – between levels 3 and 14 – which provides private flats and connected large communal areas. The ‘work’ space on levels 1 and 2 offers open plan studio and office space for small businesses and artists.

The ‘public’ facilities are housed on ground floor with a focus on bringing the community in and being a hub for arts festivals that are happening in Aberdeen more and more.

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The redesigned slab block contains community amenities under four themes of play, live, work and public.

Katie Rice

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Housing Research: Retrofit Housing

Scott Sutherland School

Retrofit Housing:

A Model for Reuse

Following a trial at the Bogendollo House of 250 years old in Aberdeenshire, an innovative method was successfully used to insulate an internally-lined solid masonry wall without causing damage to the historic features of the wall so that it can retain its emotional and physical significance.

Amar Bennadji discusses his research work related to the retrofitting of existing houses.

This is the first time such insulation has been used in an historic building in Scotland and the method, involving water blown foam, was developed by Canadian company Icynene who’s CEO, Jeff Hood, flew over to attend the trial. The foam was created specifically for injecting into delicate structures, as it expands slowly putting little pressure on the fragile inner wall. And, as it is 100 percent water blown, it contains no harmful blowing agents.

Additionally, through its open cell structure, the foam will allow the wall to breathe which will assist in controlling moisture movement and preventing timber decay, one of the biggest fear’s of the owners.

As the principle investigator of the project, I found that the heat loss through the wall was reduced by 50% and that the project opened the doors for historic buildings to finally retain warmth, reduce their energy

bills and contribute in efforts to curb global warming by reducing their carbon footprint.

The project went through several phases before its competition, including an extended surveillance period to continue monitoring the new insulation’s efficiency.

A survey of the house needed to be completed before tests and trials were completed within a safe, workshop environment to make sure no damage would come to the house. These trials were carried out at KDL’s premises in Kishorn where a physical 1:1 scale wall was constructed that simulated the walls of the house. The trial was a success and it was decided to move ahead with the method for the house.

Some preparations had to be made to the site before the application phase could begin. These involved the installation of boards in the loft, installing lighting, and the removal of the skirting boards as well as all dust that had gathered in the wall cavity over the last two centuries.

Using a series of draw cords and pipes, the insulation was blown into the cavity walls whilst taking care of any debris that appeared or became dislodged.

2018 Yearbook

Housing Research: Retrofit Housing

This operation took a whole three days to complete on site, however the project as a whole took over three months and involved some sixteen different professionals ranging from local architects such as David Chouman and Craigie Levie to Mike Tweats, managing director at KDL. The improvement of the building’s energy efficiency without harming its original features was the main concern of the team and so in this way, the goal was achieved.

£60k to the project taking the total cost of the work to just under £100k.

The building was monitored for eighteen months including three months prior to the intervention described here. The results were then compared with computer simulations by pushing the climatic conditions to extremes. The results were satisfactory in regard to both moisture migration through the wall fabrics, the potential condensation, dampness and therefore the health and wellbeing of the occupants.

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This retrofitting project demonstrated the possibilities which exist to significantly reduce carbon emissions from the existing building stock, contributing to the UK’s international commitment to reduce such emissions to the tune of 80% by 2050.

However, benefits of the system should not only be read in terms of its energy efficiency credentials. Although an investment in itself, could it be argued that such an approach, applied as a supported exercise at a larger scale across the existing building stock, might help to curb the current housing shortage? By making old buildings of architectural value more affordable to run, they become more accessible to those who might otherwise avoid buying or staying in them.

Dr Amar Bennadji

With this in mind, the house was then fully insulated. Recent data showed a heating reduction of 57% as a result of the intervention. The house received many improvements to reach this level of reduction, with governmental support of BACK

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Housing Research: Reflections on Housing

Scott Sutherland School

Reflections on Housing At the invitation of Professor Alan Dunlop, I was delighted to take up the opportunity to see, at first hand, work at the Scott Sutherland School. A sense of energy and connection came across in the studios and the School seems to be benefiting from the creation of new faculty connections and cross-disciplinary thinking.

On the RGU website it states ‘we see it as our social responsibility to design and build stimulating, sustainable and wellconsidered structures and spaces that reflect society’s aspirations’. These are sentiments that I would wholeheartedly endorse and it was stimulating to hear how these aspirations are being translated into student work, particular of Unit 2 of Stage 5 Architecture. I welcome the ambition to tackle very demanding but relevant societal issues in a way that can be often be avoided in architecture schools.

Housing, which is a key priority for the Scottish Government, is both a challenging and a complex area of policy. The student project which I was lucky enough to see

Image courtesy of RIAS

Ian Gilzean, Chief Architect of the Scottish Government, reflects on the work of the school concerned with Housing.

were based on the outcome of interesting and well-presented research (including impassioned poetry!), looking back over the significant influences on housing in the UK through precedents, and studies into demographics, land-use, migration and affordability.

In summary, it was encouraging to see issues that are current and relevant being tackled head-on in a rigorous and committed manner. The quality of presentations, drawings and models that I was able to see during my visit demonstrates the value of in-depth research being clearly linked to an ambitious architectural agenda.

Ian Gilzean

2018 Yearbook

Perspectives: Reflections on Part 1

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Lucia Medina Reflections on Part 1 in Architecture

‘By now, we have become familiar not just with a building; and its oddly numbered levels and rooms; or its customs and inhabitants; from softwares to timetables and members of staff; but with architecture itself.’

There are many ways in which we could mark the end of a cycle. Having come to third year, we find ourselves being a generation young enough to not compare our studio with any other, but also old enough to remember that the walls of the school had not always been clattered with cardboard models and rolls of printed plans, and that there was once a lift that worked.

We now feel we have come long enough to acquire a sense of place; to know there will always be some tea and coffee by the kettle and some snacks by the lockers, that no matter what time you enter the school at, there will always be a familiar face welcoming you with a smile (even if they are probably as sleep deprived and stressed for finishing their project as you are).

struggle to imagine a world in which one doesn’t wake up thinking about stairs and windows.

But now, as we stand at a final crit for the last time; and we remember our three year younger selves shaking while trying to discuss a design for a house for two professors; we realise how far we’ve come, and even if we almost wish we could keep going in this comfort for a bit longer, we look forward, and position ourselves at the starting line again.

And we know we have come to the end of a cycle, because once again we feel eager to discover – other studios, other cities, new lifestyles. We smile with excitement as we put the last dot to three years of learning, and we jump into what is usually known as ‘the real world’.

We have come long enough to know to book off every Thursday night – because nothing could be more important than a 5710 lecture and some cheese and wine – and to year after year look forward to the end of May to celebrate our work at the Big Crit. By now, we have become familiar not just with a building; and its oddly numbered levels and rooms; or its customs and inhabitants; from softwares to timetables and members of staff; but with architecture in itself.

After three years we now talk about certain buildings like we would about our siblings, the names of certain architects warm our hearts like hearing the name of an old friend would, and we find ourselves depending on a pencil and a sketchbook more than you would on a phone (even in these days of technology). We have made architecture our every day, and BACK

SUSTAIN

STAGE 2 SURVEYING STAGE 4 SURVEYING STAGE 3 ARCH TECH STAGE 4 ARCH TECH STAGE 5 ARCH

ABILITY

Sustainability can mean many things. It may well

concern energy efficiency

and the environment, but we consider that its definition should be expanded to include notions of

resilience in settlements and communities.

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Sustainability: ’Responsible’ Design

Scott Sutherland School

‘Responsible’ Design:

The Net Positive Approach

Acting as Project Architect on a range of buildings considered to be sustainability exemplars - ranging from Passivhaus retrofit of medium-rise apartment blocksi to new commercial and university faculty buildings designed to ‘near-zero’ energy standards - I have recognised a consistent theme over the years. Whilst some were recipients of housing design and national design awards, their sustainability credentials were considered largely incidental to, and separate from, their perceived design ‘quality’.

Visiting professor, Lynne Sullivan, discusses her work in sustainable design.

As Chair of the RIBA’s Sustainable Futures Committee 2015-2017, I felt one of the RIBA’s key priorities should be to do more to equip architects with the knowledge and skills to meet the requirements of the UK’s Climate Change Act commitments and cut emissions from the built environment.

I went to Paris COP21 in 2015 to an event organised for architects from around the globe – and the theme was ‘net positive’.

Net positive as a concept embraces the conventional definitions of ‘quality’. That is to say social value and distinctiveness in placemaking and a tactile and aesthetic building character. These are attributes which support pride and longevity in

communities and their wellbeing, as well as being the very qualities which tend to be recognised in design awards.

However, ‘net positive’ also implies outcomes including health benefit, and environmental wins. Instead of a typical house demanding, say, 20,000 kWh per year in electrical energy (or equivalent) the expectation would be that, through building energy efficiency and renewable energy initiatives, that figure could become zero. Indeed, it would be preferable that the building should become a net producer of non-fossil energy. Also, for example, an expectation might be that in the face of variable outdoor air quality, that indoor conditions are beneficial.

For Architects to embrace the target of ‘net positive’, my Sustainable Futures Committee colleagues and I promoted three key propositions to the RIBA: Firstly, that architectural graduates should have ‘energy literacy’ as a core competency, supported also by subsequent CPD. Design with energy literacy implies mastering the necessary prediction tools and considering the energy (operational and embodied) consequences of

2018 Yearbook

Sustainability: ’Responsible’ Design

design decisions alongside all the other potential outcomes. This cannot only be the territory of the engineer members in project teams – the key design decisions, which bear substantially on the environmental impact of the outturn building, are architectural eg siting, massing and constructon philosophy.

industry disciplines, and to avoid taking the view that the profession of architecture is the sole bearer of sustainable responsibilities.

The second proposition was that learning from actual performance of buildings in use is the key to improving design and its social, environmental and economic (whole life) consequences. In order to learn, (and to properly calibrate the value of prediction methods) architects should advocate - and where possible instigate - post-occupancy evaluation and monitoring of energy and other impacts in their projects.

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Whilst supported by RIBA Council, these key propositions still require consistent uptake by higher education leaders and more widely across practice than is currently the case. Research from the University of West of England showed that students of architecture as a group were notably eager to embrace sustainable techniques and practices in their work – this approach is one I believe we should all espouse as a founding principle and work to deliver.

Professor Lynne Sullivan

Thirdly, we proposed that RIBA should promote this approach as part and parcel of the Institution’s role to enable good practice and design excellence.

It should support and promulgate knowledge around this topic, embedding it into any definition of design quality. As part of this ethos, we also encouraged the RIBA to work towards cross-disciplinary accountability, with fellow building BACK

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Sustainability: Resilience Theory

Scott Sutherland School

Resilience Theory:

Sustainable Communities

Stage 6 Architecture student, Olivia Johnston, studied the detrimental effects of zonal planning on community resilience.

In order to understand the effect zonal planning has had on cities in the last century, I examined numerous literary sources associated with design, resilience theory, diversity and the social aspects of community life.

policies. This often results in disjointed, overly forced methods of design that may well employ good architecture, but do not create a flexible, flowing environment able to develop diversity and adapt to further changes and expansion.

It is evident the impact of the Industrial Revolution was the catalyst in determining a need to redesign the city, and Sir Ebenezer Howard’s principles welcomed a balance between city living and country life in order to eliminate disease and overcrowding. These principles have been applied in various settings since then, providing a range of examples to examine. From this starting point, an exploration will provide an updated account of urban planning by examining Jane Jacobs’ philosophy on street life and diversity, Christopher Alexander and John Minett’s literature concerning design and the physical structure of a city, and the underlying theory of spatial resilience and how this can be implemented.

The Garden City Movement was created on the principle that there would be room between buildings, as well as less people inhabiting each area, however, in believing over-crowding and high density to mean the same thing, Garden Cities deliberately did not consist of enough people to allow diversity to develop, wholly misinterpreting the term.

It appears that each topic has a clear understanding of their position and effect on urban environments, yet there does not appear to be an overall conclusion that can be implemented within planning

Jane Jacobs continually emphasised the need for mixed use buildings of differing ages to allow primary uses to flourish, while supporting the development of secondary uses as a result. Street life is full and lively, with many different people on the street at different times throughout the day. This is a fundamental aspect of creating a diverse economy and community; diversity helps support further diversity, therefore, if there is an initial strong and widespread basis of uses, in theory, the city should be able to naturally evolve and develop further.

2018 Yearbook

Sustainability: Resilience Theory

This connects to the theory of spatial resilience, whereby the more flexible an urban environment is, the more is it able to adapt and change within itself.

Spatial resilience proves that in order for one element to become and maintain its own resilience, it must be part of an overall resilient landscape. Therefore, one successful enterprise does not a resilient community make, and there must be a range of elements, which again opposes the need for individually zoned areas (Kärrholm, Nylund and Prieto de la Fuente 2014).

much more successful in terms of diversity and resilience. The individual residential blocks may have their own facilities and town centre, but this does not allow for cross-use and secondary diversity to develop, and each city as a whole lacks a vibrancy, which ultimately suggests they lack a fundamental part of life.

Therefore, it can be said spatial resilience consists of many elements, which is the argument Christopher Alexander employs when discussing the physical structure of ancient cities in his article entitled ‘A City is not a Tree’ (1966). Alexander identifies that the complex, multi-faceted structure which historical cities employ, is the result of many thousands of years of evolution. Anything designed relatively recently is structured in a logical, linear fashion because the complex structure of the semi-lattice is difficult to implement and not necessarily a rational method of designing; therefore, Alexander concludes that it is perhaps too complex a structure to replicate in modern day planning.

However, published nine years later in 1975, John Minett’s article ‘If the City is not a Tree, nor is it a System’ proposes that, as a result of the method by which designers create systems, the city should not be viewed as one single system, but rather as a multitude of differing systems creating the whole. This would appear to compliment the theory of spatial resilience but on a broader scale, as a resilient city district (the singular element) can then be strengthened by the resilience of the city as a whole.

Through analysis of both Brasilia and Chandigarh, these elements can be clearly conveyed. Both cities share the structure of a ‘tree’, with obvious separation between components. Their rigid planning constrictions do not leave much, if any, room for expansion and growth, which is clearly evident in the creation of the satellite towns surrounding Brasilia; in fact, the satellite towns, with their spontaneous and flexible planning, can be viewed as

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The employment of zoning principles emphasises the misunderstanding of how diversity evolves and develops along multi-faceted, complex routes which, in turn, strengthens a community’s resilience.

In determining this, Jacobs realised diversity did not simply ‘exist’, but instead was a culmination of factors, architectural, social and economic, and is a fundamental aspect of society and its success.

Alexander and Minett proved cities are complex elements with many over-lapping strands and suggested it is perhaps not possible to replicate such a well-formed structure from afresh.

Resilience theory also proves that cities must contain similar elements of varying scales and functions in order to strengthen their individual resilience and ultimately support the growth and development of the whole. These arguments directly oppose the planning philosophy behind zoning principles as their structure and philosophy are simply too minimal to compete with thousands of years of evolution, and, as humans, it is likely impossible to create such complex systems that include every aspect of a successful, thriving and resilient city.

Olivia Johnston

Alexander, C., 1966. A City is not a Tree. Design, Feb(206), pp.

46-55.

Jacobs, J., 1965. The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

New York, NY: Random House, Inc. Kärrholm, M., Nylund, K., and Prieto De La Fuente, P., 2014.

Spatial resilience and urban planning: Addressing the interdependence of urban retail areas. Cities, 36, pp 121-130.

Minett, J., 1975. If the city is not a tree, nor is it a system.

Planning Outlook, 16, pp 4-8.

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Sustainability: Adaptive Reuse

Adaptive Reuse:

Scott Sutherland School

Collaborative Building Surveying

Mike Dignan discusses a collaborative project between Stage 2 and Stage 4 students on the Building Surveying course.

2018 Yearbook

Sustainability: Adaptive Reuse

The UK has the oldest building stock in Europe with 25% being of traditional build while the construction industry contributes over 46% of the nation’s CO2 emissions, requiring us to think progressively of how we reuse and adapt. A core part of the Building Surveying profession lies in the continued use of our built environment.

This comes in the form of maintenance, repair, building conservation or the design of adaptive reuse projects. To that end, the course team regularly uses real buildings and live case studies, provided by alumni, as the context for projects.

The students then reverted back to Stage 2 and Stage 4 student groups with their respective project briefs that reflected the level of learning so far.

The Building Surveying 2nd and 4th year students collaborated on a project that allowed them to develop design proposals to adapt a city centre commercial building that had been vacant for a significant amount of time.

The project required that students from both years worked together in small groups to undertake a measured survey of the building, producing plans and sections of its existing layout. Both sets of students collaborated, permitting the final year cohort to guide and coach the Stage 2 students through the exercise with staff members supervising the survey days.

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The Stage 2 brief stated that the students were to provide a design solution to adapt the building into serviced office and conference space mirroring the ongoing activities of the commercial property market. The Stage 4 brief tasked the students with developing design proposals for a fine dining restaurant.

This brief also tasked them with providing additional space in the form of a significant extension addressing the challenge of interfacing new with old.

Both project briefs allowed students to test the application of knowledge of architecture, construction technology, materials, costs, services and the logistics of constructing in a confined city centre location. The final output for each year was to produce a portfolio of drawings and a client report based on the project.

Dr Michael Dignan

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Sustainability: Stage 3 Arch Tech

Scott Sutherland School

Stage 3 Architectural Technology: Extending the Life of a Museum

Stage 3 Architectural Technology students focussed this year on the design of facilities which could sustain the life of a museum into the future.

The Stage 3 Architectural Technology students focussed on non-domestic construction this year, with a project which looked at the regeneration of the Grampian Transport Museum in Alford, Aberdeenshire, creating a larger exhibit space in a new museum for the client.

Over the years as the collection has increased and number of visitors expanded, the museum has undergone additions and extensions but the current building was first built in 1982. The exhibitions themselves embrace all types of transport, large and small, from horse drawn to the latest supercars. Many of the exhibits are nationally important, and many others offer insight into old skills and anything transport related.

Critically, museums have a very specific set of environmental guidelines, and this museum in particular has specific requirements technically – especially if they ever wanted to exhibit a 40-tonne Sherman Tank in the future. To this end, it was considered that the new structure should offer flexibility to reflect the museum’s massive turn over of exhibits, and be durable for future needs, particularly in light of the scale and

weight of some of exhibits that have been displayed there in the past.

The project was very much a test of the students’ structural, environmental and functional knowledge and their ability to integrate these different elements to develop sustainable proposals which ensured the ongoing success and life of the museum in question in the future.

Dr Jonathan Scott

2018 Yearbook

Sustainability: Stage 3 Arch Tech

Grampian Transport Museum Stephanie Harvey

Located in place of the existing museum, it was a requirement for the design to provide a large and flexible space to accommodate a greater display of exhibits than is permitted at present. Where possible, the design attempts to utilise indirect natural light to brighten the rooms.

With this in mind, the design includes three interconnected buildings, each serving a specific purpose. A high vaulted ceiling

and large uninterrupted floor area in the central exhibition space was achieved through the use of an exposed glulam portal frame, with semi-concealed flitch plates at the eaves and ridge connections.

Flitch shoe connections were employed at the base of the posts.

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Sustainability: Stage 3 Arch Tech

Scott Sutherland School

Grampian Transport Museum Kathryn Urquhart

The Grampian Transport Museum has operated from their current site since 1982. They have extended and altered the original building a number of times in a bid to improve the museum. However, the current facility fails to perform to a commercially viable standard and is thus no longer fit for purpose.

In my proposal for a new museum building, the primary structure comprises Douglas

Fir glulam trusses and columns due to their immense strength and suitability for large-span buildings.

The design also incorporates a central ridge skylight along the roof spine, which provides both interest for visitors and natural light. The roof trusses also allow for the hanging of cars and other smaller exhibits to create a more dynamic museum experience.

2018 Yearbook

Sustainability: Stage 3 Arch Tech

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Grampian Transport Museum Harry Warren

In being tasked to design a brand new facility to replace the current Grampian transport Museum, I wanted to create something which could become an example of high quality contemporary Scottish architecture.

Taking the idea of sustainability as one which does not only concern itself with environmental design or energy efficiency, but rather longevity and adaptability for

the future, the use of a large span timber structure permits the creation of large open spaces. This allows for any number of exhibits to be installed within the museum.

From a pragmatic point of view, large shuttered apertures were formed in the gable ends of the proposal to provide a means through which to deliver and remove exhibits as and when required.

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Sustainability: Stage 4 Arch Tech

Scott Sutherland School

Stage 4 Architectural Technology: The Architecture of Infrastructure

With a focus on BREEAM excellence, Stage 4 Architectural Technology students, developed a range of projects related to healthcare and education.

Stage 4 Architectural Technology students had the option of designing one of four different types of infrastructure project – two were rural and two were urban. The projects included a new primary school, a maternity clinic, a special needs school, and a sheltered housing site.

Notional budgets would therefore be restrictive and justification was required for non-standard construction. In addition to the challenges this presented the students, it was also a requirement of the brief that the projects achieved a BREEAM (or similar) rating of excellent.

The project is topical given the amount of new housing in the local area and the significant need for infrastructure projects to accompany them. Focus is on the environmental, technical and functional requirements of these buildings, with the first semester developing the planning and strategic aspects of the project. In the second semester they focussed more closely on a particular area within their project.

With excellent public transport links into each site as part of the Local Plan expansion corridors, the project offered the students a unique opportunity to create exemplary new models for sustainable educational and health buildings. In some cases there also existed the possibility that the proposed projects could act as a catalyst for the regeneration of their wider surrounding areas, both economically and socially.

Four sites were chosen for the proposed projects. Education and Health buildings are very important in local communities, often developing into important focal points. Typically these type of buildings offer efficient and affordable accommodation, yet offer little architectural or functional merit. As is typical in reality, it was considered that the four projects would be funded by regional and city councils.

Dr Jonathan Scott

2018 Yearbook

Sustainability: Stage 4 Arch Tech

Primary School for a Rural Village Mateusz Nowak

The proposed site for this project was in Stuartfield, a small village in Aberdeenshire. The village is currently expanding with new houses being built on two separate plots of land. As a result the current primary school is not suitable for the current number of students in the area and this is set to increase.

The design strategy is to develop innovative ideas for the school, focusing

on the teaching spaces, environmental aspects, and engaging the local community with the building.

The proposed school includes 8 classrooms facing towards one another, creating an indoor courtyard. The classrooms are set out as pods to create dynamic learning spaces which seek to facilitate better teaching and, thus, higher attainment.

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Sustainability: Stage 4 Arch Tech

Scott Sutherland School

Primary School for Children with Disabilities Rebecca Pirie

The brief of this project was to create a primary school based in the Hazlehead area of Aberdeen that could specifically accommodate children with disabilities.

Due to a number of different site restrictions, the building shape is long and thin. Six skylight elements were created to stand up from the roof. This allows more natural light into the building, particularly in the middle of the plan. Some of the glass

in these skylights was designed as opaque elements to prevent too much light or heat entering the school. The skylights face north to allow diffused daylight to permeate into the building and prevent moving shadows which could distract children with certain disabilities.

A large area was created in the centre of the school, with various ‘break-out’ spaces for the children to use when not in class.

2018 Yearbook

Sustainability: Stage 4 Arch Tech

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Zero-Energy Eco Village for the Elderly Martina Kulesza

The proposed development area is located next to the new settlement, Chapelton of Elsick, south of Aberdeen. This zeroenergy retirement village features 21 detached residential dwellings and a large community centre and aims to foster a safe and pleasant environment to combat loneliness and encourage engagement.

The community centre focuses on natural, sustainable materials and renewable

energy sources. There are no designated accessible seats or locations - the whole building is fully accessible.

The development provides and invites external exercise and downtime through a series of interconnecting open spaces, each displaying different landscape characteristics. Some spaces promote quieter activities whilst others promote more active pursuits.

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Sustainability: Reclaiming the Waterfront

Scott Sutherland School

Reclaiming the Waterfront:

A Vision for Aberdeen Harbour

Unit 1 of Stage 5 Architecture has been exploring the potential reuse of Aberdeen’s waterfront and harbour area.

2018 Yearbook

Sustainability: Reclaiming the Waterfront

Historically, Aberdeen has been unusually fortunate in its continuing ability to capitalise economically on an abundance of valuable natural resources, whether fish, granite or oil. This has generated a city of considerable wealth, articulated in granite in the 19th century in the form of great institutional buildings, and the leafy avenues and terraces of the West End.

three decades, any perception of immunity from economic change that has existed was misplaced and, in light of recent events, has been demonstrated as folly.

History has repeatedly shown that cities that are economically reliant on a single sector risk faster and deeper decline than urban areas with more diverse industrial bases.

Aberdeen has, in the past, shown great ambition, not least when Union Street was constructed from East to West through and over an undulating medieval city. The ambition was sufficient to drive the council into near bankruptcy, but it nonetheless left a legacy which has defined the city centre ever since.

Without strategic action now, there is a clear threat of such a scenario being played out in North-east Scotland.

Aberdeen’s life as a city has always been dictated by its relationship with its rivers and the sea. This association is ever evolving, and indeed we live in a further period of change today. The project is to explore future social, economic and cultural influences, in addition to the influence that the waterfront development potentially has within the city. With the down turn of the oil industry in Aberdeen, and the consequent reduction in industry this provides the opportunity to open up and reclaim the harbour for the public and create new engaging spaces.

Today, 6 out of 10 of Scotland’s largest companies have a major presence in the city. However, as finite resources dwindle, the city is challenged with developing alternative economies, through attracting investment from beyond and cultivating an attractive entrepreneurial environment to stimulate diverse activity within. How can Aberdeen sustain its relevance?

Although Aberdeen may have been able to buck many economic trends over the last

In order to maximise impact on the site, four new exciting areas have been developed. These zones then spread

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Sustainability: Reclaiming the Waterfront

Scott Sutherland School

Four different zones, each with their own character, were established as part of our proposal.

outwards throughout the site connecting it as a whole and linking it together.

Zone One to the west forms a strong connection with the existing city centre, and an obvious link from bustling areas to the harbour. Zone Two is located more centrally on the site and is a brand new welcoming point and central hub. Zone Three is located to the right of this and aims to integrate new functions such as a marina within the existing industry base, additionally improving density. Zone Four is located at the east of the site, around Fittie, and aims to retain and expand upon its community and sense of spirit, while still coexisting with industry.

carriageway which currently splits the site in half and prevents access has been sunk at several points and new green bridges have been created to extend across this.

To connect these four zones, the harbour front - Trinity Quay, Regent Quay and Waterloo Quay - has been pedestrianised and widened. This will additionally allow for a new tram line to carry the public along the harbour front. A new road acting as a central spine through the site has been introduced, with smaller access roads splitting off from this. The busy dual

Perceptions of the site will be improved by making it feel safer. This is partially achieved by improving transport which makes it easier and less dangerous to get to the site, but also by improving sight lines and increasing density. A higher density site with more activities of a greater variety will encourage larger numbers of the public to visit, reducing the harbour’s desolate and criminal connotations. The vision to reclaim Aberdeen’s waterfront aims to revive and recreate a thriving space along Aberdeen’s harbour edge. As a city that ‘turns its back on water’, the project hopes to shift the emphasis of public space back towards it.

Stage 5 Architecture Unit 1

2018 Yearbook

Sustainability: Reclaiming the Waterfront

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The vision to reclaim Aberdeen’s waterfront aims to revive and recreate a thriving space along Aberdeen’s harbour edge.

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Sustainability: Orkney Caravanserai

Orkney Caravanserai:

Scott Sutherland School

Tourism and the Everyday

Unit 3 of Stage 5 Architecture has been examining the social and cultural implications of the ever-growing tourist industry in Orkney.

2018 Yearbook

Sustainability: Orkney Caravanserai

In the past, Unit 3 has concentrated its gaze on Aberdeen, initially exploring the eastern seaboard, the wonderful old town, and the western landward margins which are currently being redefined by the Aberdeen bypass. This year the studio has strayed North from Aberdeen, shifting the setting for exploration to the Orkney Isles, with the ambition to generate compelling design ideas through group work and to later produce individual responses to these themes in our sixth year.

and the rest of the UK and their more ancient associations with Scandinavia.

The university is interested in developing links with Orkney across a number of disciplines. Our studio project therefore ties into this initiative. With this in mind, the material produced as part of our initial groupwork studies has been designed and produced in ways which make it suitable for public exhibition.

Orkney’s visitors contribute to around £30 million annually to the Orcadian economy so is a vital source of income for the remote island community. Yet this is not without cost - the seasonality of the tourist industry splits the year into distinct halves of boom and bust. The sheer volume of tourists has begun to affect the welfare of Orkney’s precious attractions.

Orkney is unique, rich in its archaeology, geography, history and culture. The archipelago is located off the Northernmost tip of Scotland and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea and the Pentland Firth. The Island community displays a unique Orcadian identity, which is a blend arising from the relatively recent (15th century) connections with Scotland

We live in a time where more people than ever before can afford to become global tourists. This developing ‘experience economy’ has been cited as the world’s next greatest economic offering. Orkney is no stranger to this acceleration of tourism, with more travellers every year visiting the archipelago seeking to experience its unique and authentic features.

The cruise ship network has played its role in this scene, both contributing to and taking advantage of the influx of visitors to the archipelago. These floating towns are seen by some as a menace on the unspoilt landscapes but they also represent the far-reaching curiosity of the hopeful travellers aboard.

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Sustainability: Orkney Caravanserai

Scott Sutherland School

The visitors cannot be blamed for their curiosity, and for their desire to share in the unquestionable delights of the Islands, but without observation and management it is possible that a sustainable level of tourism would be surpassed, with the negative consequences that follow.

principles of the unit: the quality and atmosphere of spaces and the character of the lives they play host to. Through a study of Pessoa’s text, the unit was required to imagine the simplicity, ordinariness and the loneliness of the life of the man it described, echoed across three settings - an apartment, restaurant and office. Explored through models and evocative images, the exercise showcased the unit’s ambitions for the quality of each individual student project which will develop in the forthcoming sixth year.

Our studio project seeks to bridge these two distinct ‘worlds’ - local communities, and tourism - through architectural interventions. The process began with research and analysis work, encapsulating the social, cultural, environmental and historic spheres surrounding the Orkney Islands, and culminating in a written study.

This set the scene for the possibility of a contemporary ‘Orcadian Caravanserai’ – a place to generate mutually beneficial exchange between cultures.

However, before proceeding with our individual projects within this context, the unit undertook an exercise which sought to explore space, atmosphere and notions of the everyday. The exercise explored the theme of the ordinary and the daily through the eyes and thoughts of Bernardo Soares, an imagined identity of Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa.

Its purpose was to focus on the core

Moving forward, it will be important for us to consider what the social and cultural implications of an ever-growing tourist industry, in which the artificial and superficial take precedence over the authentic, will be in relation to nature of our individual design proposals. Key to the success of our project is the reconciliation of two conflicting interests. How might architectural interventions enhance visitor experiences whilst maintaining the everyday intimacy of an island community? Therein lies our challenge.

Stage 5 Architecture Unit 3

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Sustainability: Orkney Caravanserai

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How might architectural interventions enhance visitor experiences whilst maintaining the everyday intimacy of an island community?

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Sustainability: Sustainable Placemaking

Scott Sutherland School

Sustainable Placemaking: Past, Present, Future

‘Whatever space and time mean, place and occasion mean more. Space has no room, time not a moment for man. Make of every door a welcoming and give a face to each window, make of each a place, a bunch of places of each house and each city’.

Visiting Professor Gary Clark discusses sustainable design and where it needs to take us in the near future.

I first used this statement, made by Aldo van Eyck, in an environmental design lecture series on placemaking to fourth year students in 1993. It highlighted to me the need for a deeply humanist approach to architecture that modernism and commercial architecture often lacked, and which set the goal for a sustainable architecture that resonated with human psychology on all levels.

At that time there were no single contemporary case studies that encapsulated sustainability, exemplary design, and place making. Zero emission buildings were marginalised to off-grid deep green communities, whilst the language of sustainable placemaking had not entered mainstream politics and the construction industry.

Instead, lessons were drawn from Georgian and Victorian examples such as Golden Square in Aberdeen, Greek

Thomson’s Masterplan and Moray Place in Strathbungo, Glasgow, Edinburgh New Town, and the Georgian Squares of Bloomsbury in London. Indeed, Georgian cities are considered the most desirable places to live by the public, regularly topping the ‘best places to live’ categories in the popular press, and therefore are sustainable places in the widest sense.

These historic examples score high on many sustainable criteria; however, they are woefully inadequate at energy use related to heating. A typical three storey townhouse uses 30,000kWh of gas per year or 100kWh/m2 compared to a Passivhaus code 6 target of 15kWh/m2.

Twenty-five years on from my fourth year lecture, what has changed? And is the construction industry closer to consistently delivering anything remotely close to true sustainable places?

The answer is complex and depends on who you believe, but I believe we are halfway there. There are many definitions of sustainability but the one that is most simple and sums up the scale of our challenge is ‘One Planet Living’ by Bio Regional. If all 7 billion people in the world lived like us we would require six planet

2018 Yearbook

Sustainability: Sustainable Placemaking

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1 Moray Place in Glasgow, Neale Smith.

2 BedZED, Tom Chance.

3 Gasholders at Kings Cross, Peter Landers.

4 Northwest Cambridge, Jack Hobhouse.

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Earths; One Planet Living promotes a lifestyle within a one planet capacity of one tonne of CO2 per person per year, which means our homes should be zero carbon to allow for food, transport, and leisure.

In 1999, BedZED by Bill Dunster and Bio Regional came close to achieving a zero carbon, ‘one planet living’ community in south London. It was and still is a seminal example of sustainable placemaking. It included all key strategies of near zero environmental design that we now take for granted. It would have achieved its target of zero operational energy and emissions if it wasn’t for the temperamental nature of the experimental bio-mass combined heat and power engine.

The Labour Government in 2006 introduced a progressive policy called Code for Sustainable Homes and set a strict ‘Code 5 or 6’- zero carbon emission targets for domestic new buildings by 2016 and non-domestic new buildings by 2019. These targets were repealed by the Conservative Government in 2015.

Many of the residential projects nearing completion now were designed when the Code for sustainable homes was

still active, so industry has proven to consistently deliver Code 4 domestic developments which equate to a 40% reduction in predicted carbon emissions from 1990 baseline. This is good progress but is a long way off 100% reduction in carbon emissions from buildings.

Kings Cross Redevelopment by Argent is one of the finest examples of sustainable placemaking in the UK. It has redeveloped a derelict brown field site into one of the most desirable places to live in London to rival any Georgian city. It has invested in a large local combined heat and power plant which taken together with low energy design principles achieves a 40% to 50% reduction in carbon emissions. I have been fortunate to lead the design and construction of the most prominent buildings in this development called the Gasholders by WilkinsonEyre Architects which was completed in January.

WilkinsonEyre won a design competition for the project in 2002, with the concept for three residential buildings housed within the elegant frames of the gasholders. The concept proposed three drums of accommodation at differing heights to suggest the movement of

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Sustainability: Sustainable Placemaking

Scott Sutherland School

the original gasholders, which would have risen up or down depending on the pressure of the gas within. A fourth, virtual drum shape, located at the centre forms an open courtyard, celebrating the conglomeration of the cast iron structures at their point of intersection.

efforts to decarbonise the national grid, we still have a long way to achieve ‘one planet’ emissions for the UK by 2050. This would require all new homes to be zero carbon and all existing buildings upgraded to reduce energy emissions by 50%, as well as decarbonising the grid.

There are also several high-profile examples which have achieved zero carbon (Code 5 or 6) in the UK. One example of this is North West Cambridge.

This is a new part of Cambridge, created by their university to attract and retain students, staff and their families. The masterplan was by AECOM and different architects designed different parts of the development. WilkinsonEyre completed the central area of the masterplan this year which not only creates a contemporary and beautiful place to live but does so without any carbon emissions.

To achieve this, we need the next generation of architects, and indeed other designers, to build on our achievements, harness the exciting developments of companies like Tesla and their solar power arrays, and demand radical action from Government. This is your challenge.

Professor Gary Clark

Despite some recent positive sustainable policy developments on existing homes, and the Scottish and UK governments

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2018 Yearbook

Perspectives: Reflections on Year Out

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Calum Dalgetty Reflections on Year Out in Architecture

‘Perhaps the most exciting part of the job for me was working for a ‘generalist’ practice. By generalist I mean a practice that’s work covers all manner of scales, sectors and budgets...I had the opportunity to work on everything from a small house extension, to the extension of the worlds first Carnegie Library in Dunfermline.’

Being totally honest, I found the process of continually applying for jobs and receiving the typical party line of ‘we really like your work and appreciate your interest, but…’ really wearing, however, as they say all good things come to those who wait.

With just one interview experience under my belt at a small local practice near my home in the Scottish Highlands, I jumped at the chance, when the opportunity for an interview at Richard Murphy Architects in Edinburgh came up.

The interview was organised at the end of May but didn’t take place until early July which gave me plenty of time to prepare as well as apply for other jobs in case this one didn’t come off (although I didn’t actually do the latter which was either very brave or stupid, either way I wouldn’t recommend such an approach). Before I knew it mid-July came and I found myself sitting in front of one of Scotland’s leading architects explaining my portfolio, an experience I must admit I found slightly intimidating!

Nevertheless, after a car journey back to Aberdeen analysing every word that was said I was delighted, surprised and a little daunted when I got a call offering me the job. Perhaps the most exciting part of the job for me was working for ‘generalist’ practice. By generalist I mean a practice that’s work covers all manner of scales, sectors and budgets. At present in Scotland the predominant form of practice is either small scale 2 or 3 people offices doing one-off houses or extensions, or larger scale commercial practices.

In that respect, my experience at RMA was incredibly rewarding, as I had the opportunity to work on everything from a small house extension, to the extension

of the worlds first Carnegie Library in Dunfermline and the proposed relocation of St Mary’s Music School to the Historic Royal High School building on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill.

There were numerous highlights to note, working on a project such as the Royal High School in Edinburgh was fascinating as there were such strong political factors, as well as an alternative proposal by Gareth Hoskins to turn the building into a hotel running in parallel to the design process. The extension and addition to the Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries was the project I worked on the most. This was an immensely rewarding project to work on both architecturally and in terms of practical experience as almost all of the drawings I worked on were translated into reality during my time in the office; site visits were always an exciting opportunity to run (bearing in mind health and safety) around the site taking note of all the elements that I had drawn, perhaps the most unusual being the small maze in the walled garden next to the entrance.

After the building opened it was awarded the 2017 RIAS Doolan Prize for the best building in Scotland; definitely one for the CV! Perhaps the most rewarding thing about my experience was the practices attitude towards design, and their ‘of its time and of its place’ mantra which has created a diverse catalogue of work, work that truly gets into the ‘grit’ of its site and context to inform the design. This intense understanding of place and context undoubtedly helped me upon returning to complete my master’s at Scott Sutherland.

If the rest of my career is as diverse and exciting as my time at RMA, I will consider myself very lucky indeed!

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STAGE 1 ARCH STAGE 2 ARCH STAGE 3 ARCH STAGE 5 ARCH STAGE 6 ARCH CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT STAGE 4 SURVEYING

OUTREACH The school undertakes a number of projects

which engage with both the industry and the

general public, providing

opportunities for the work of our students and staff to be taken outwith the realms of the university.

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Outreach: 57°10 Society

Scott Sutherland School

57°10 Society:

Reflections on Another Year

All poster images courtesy of Andrew Pacitti

57°10 Presidents, Tom Perritt and Danny Whitelaw reflect on another successful year for the society.

2018 Yearbook

Outreach: 57°10 Society

The 57°10 Society, which has been running for almost thirty years, was set up to offer a means through which guest architects and designers from around the world could be invited to the school to talk about their projects and ideas every week.

Duncan’s explanation of the challenges associated with building into the fabric of Edinburgh’s historic Old Town.

Following the success of last year’s 57°10, ran by Ross Robinson and Ross Cowie, we wanted to continue the traditional lecture series for which the society is best known, whilst also introducing more social events to bring together the various year groups and courses within the Scott Sutherland School.

We therefore began the year with a pub quiz event in Steinhaus before welcoming Colin Harris from Edinburgh-based practice Sutherland Hussey Harris for our very first lecture. A number of other Scottish firms featured in the lecture series including Neil Taylor from TAP Architects and Rod Duncan from jmarchitects, whilst our first guest hailing from further afield was the charismatic Davide Macullo of the Swiss practice Davide Macullo Architects.

Each of these lectures generated interesting conversations, from Macullo’s colourful, art-inspired houses to Rod

During the annual study trip week in November, we invited our members to tag 57°10 in their photographs so we could then repost them on our official social media accounts. This was a great way to share the experiences from the study trips across all years, from the Stage 1 cohort in Rome to Stage 6’s final trips to Berlin and Lisbon, a selection of which are also published in this Yearbook! The remainder of our Semester 1 schedule comprised Thomas Burlon from Brandlhuber+ and two renowned London practices: Imogen Long from Haworth Tompkins, who discussed theatre design, and Takero Shimazaki of t-sa. We then finished off the semester with our annual Christmas Party in December.

Returning in January after a busy period of deadlines, the lecture series recommenced with Dermot Patterson from LDN Architects and Thomas Bernatzky of Hoskins’ Berlin office, followed by a number of consecutive lectures which interestingly covered a similar theme: innovative computing techniques within

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The success experienced this year is ultimately down to our committee, and the overwhelming enthusiasm and commitment of everyone involved.

Outreach: 57°10 Society

Scott Sutherland School

architecture. This included Matthias Kohler of the Zürich-based practice Gramazio Kohler Architects, who discussed their innovative work with robots; whilst our very own Theo Dounas shared some of his past projects from working in China.

In March we welcomed Jonas Lencer, Director of dRMM, who of course won the RIBA Stirling Prize last year for their hugely popular project at Hastings Pier.

will now take over from us, and we have no doubt that they will continue to deliver a great series of events for next year. As Presidents, we both feel that the success which 57°10 has experienced this year is ultimately down to our committee, and the overwhelming enthusiasm and commitment of everyone involved. We really hope that being a part of the 57°10 society this year has been as exciting and enjoyable for you all as it has been for us!

This semester also featured several social events for the society, including the Aberdeen Society of Architects Dinner, the annual Architecture Ball, a Beer Pong Tournament at BSSC, and a fundraising Bake Sale. The 57°10 committee were also delighted to collect several individual and society accolades at the RGU Student Achievement Awards, including the Student Engagement Award and a Silver Quality Mark Award.

As usual, the Big Crit was the last event of the year and also marked the end of our tenure as Presidents. Dale and Hugh

Thomas Perritt, Danny Whitelaw

2018 Yearbook

Outreach: London Exhibition 2017

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London Exhibition 2017 The Scott’s London Exhibition opened for the first time June 2017. With the premise behind the 57°10 Society being to connect the school, with its perceived remoteness, to an outside world of inspirational guest speakers, it seemed only logical to branch out and take the work of the school to the greatest concentration of architecture practices in London. The concept had been bounded around optimistic 57°10 presidential manifestos for a few years in search of prospective votes, but with no resulting fruitful discussions.

It was in the summer of 2016 that this all changed, when I, as the co-president of 57°10, approached Head of School, David McClean, to bring the concept to life. Luck would have it that David, in collaboration with the alumni office at RGU had already been in touch with alumni in London in an attempt to connect and reunite former students of the school. Fast forward through numerous months of meetings, organisation and fundraising, and we eventually had the bones of the exhibition

sorted, all of which would not have been possible without the help of the volunteers involved or from generous donations from alumni. The venue was sourced by alumnus Scott Lawrie, who succeeded in securing a space amongst some of the best practices in London, free of charge.

Sited in the basement space of Bespoke Careers in Clerkenwell, the show included a curated version of all master’s students’ work and six Stage 3 Architecture projects.

We believed that the peripherality of Aberdeen gives students at the Scott Sutherland School a unique perspective of architecture with the freedom permitted from the two-year master’s projects something that sets the school apart from others. With a third of our graduating year landing jobs in London, the opportunity to exhibit the work coming from the school out with Aberdeen shouldn’t be overlooked in years to come.

Ross Robinson

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Outreach: RIAS Convention 2018

Scott Sutherland School

RIAS Convention 2018: Future Directions

An opportunity for Master’s of architecture students to present to practitioners and industry professionals.

As an architecture student, it’s not often that one would be invited to discuss a topic on the same platform as internationally acclaimed professionals of the industry. As part of ‘The Year of Young People’ in Scotland, the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) worked together with RGU to provide students with the opportunity to present their work at the annual RIAS Convention, marking the first year that students had been invited as speakers.

The convention took place on Friday 11th and Saturday 12th May, this year hosted by the Aberdeen Chapter in the recently refurbished Queen’s Cross Church.

Students from the MArch programme of the Scott Sutherland School presented their thoughts on three poignant topics responding to the 2018 Convention title ‘Future Directions’. These topics stemmed from each unit as follows: Unit 1 - Neil Mair, Stuart Dilley and Calum Dalgetty - ‘Aviemore: Past, Present, Future’, Unit 2 - Hannah Skyner - ‘Architecture and Pedagogy’, Unit 3 - Kirsten MacFarlane and Danny Whitelaw - ‘A New Periphery: Floodplains’.

We were also joined by the Part 2 Course Leader, David Vila Domini, who provided an introduction to the master of architecture programme at the school and a brief explanation of each units structure.

The presentations combined group work developed over the course of two years, along with individual thesis and design projects, set within the context of the groupwork. Material was produced and collated over a period of 14 weeks (Stage 6 Semester 2) and the topics were considered in great depth to ensure the presentations were both interesting and thought-provoking for the delegates of the convention.

We were overwhelmed by the positive response from those who attended the Saturday programme. Many of the delegates seemed pleasantly surprised by our ability to present coherently and professionally, along with the innovative ideas and views we had towards the three topics in question. The feedback reflects the standard of work produced by all students of the Scott Sutherland School and we are proud to have represented our colleagues at such a high-profile event.

Outreach: RIAS Convention 2018

Schools of architecture encourage their students to think outside the box, tackle difficult questions and pose innovative solutions to various issues. It’s a humbling compliment that certain members of our profession don’t just dismiss the value of the work that is consequently produced.

This being said, we do hope that the success of our presentations will be discussed and considered in following years, allowing for the repeat involvement of students across the country in the discussion of architecture at such events.

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All images courtesy of RIAS

2018 Yearbook

Unfortunately, the attendance of the main programme on Friday 12th May was not recurrent during the Saturday event, even the speakers from Friday didn’t stick around. The lack of support and interest from what was a large proportion of those attending was disappointing, with some even saying as they left on Friday evening, ‘I’m not coming tomorrow because it’s just students’. Not only is this demotivating as one of those who was due to present, but it is also slightly embarrassing for those who behold this opinion in relation to the future of their own profession.

On behalf of the Stage 6 students involved, along with the Stage 5 students who exhibited their groupwork during the event, I would like to thank the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and those who organised the event for providing us with the opportunity of presenting our work at the renowned event that is the RIAS Convention, and for giving us the privilege of being the first students to have done so.

Hannah Skyner

Our industry should be supporting students, encouraging them to present their ideas to the wider industry. Architects themselves should revel in the opportunity to provide notable feedback which has the potential to influence the young architects of the future.

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Outreach: Modernism in Scotland

Scott Sutherland School

Modernism in Scotland:

A Collaborative Exhibition

All images courtesy of Neil Mair

A public exhibition of Stage 5 architecture work held at The Lighthouse in Glasgow.

2018 Yearbook

Outreach: Modernism in Scotland

In late 2016, the then-Stage 5 architecture cohort produced an exhibition entitled Modernism in Scotland. The exhibition, a combination of models, information panels and an accompanying book, was developed to describe and explain how the Modernism movement manifested itself in Scotland. It highlighted a collection of thirty-four buildings that propelled the careers of a generation of architectural practices, including the likes of Morris and Steedman Associates, Gillespie, Kidd and Coia, and many more.

Association in collaboration with their sister RIAS chapter, the Glasgow Institute of Architects, and Architecture and Design Scotland.

The exhibition was received warmly and positively when it was opened, by staff, students, and external visitors alike. As a result, it was agreed that the possibility of taking the exhibition to another venue outwith the university should be explored.

Fortunately, an opportunity arose when the school was approached by the Edinburgh Architectural Association, who were looking to put on an event for the Festival of Architecture in September 2017.

Through further discussions and logistical planning, it was eventually agreed to launch the exhibition at The Lighthouse in Glasgow, with an opening event organised by the Edinburgh Architectural

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The opening night of the exhibition was well attended, with fascinating discussions taking place between students and architects about the impact of the Modern movement on architecture today, and the lessons that can be learned from its successes and failures. Following the launch, the exhibition remained opened for a whole month, sitting alongside other architectural exhibitions on Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson and the Strathclyde architecture building.

The exhibition was a great example of a collaborative effort to bring the exhibition to a wider audience, between students, the EAA, the GIA, and A&DS, and will hopefully create oppotunities for further collaboration in the future.

Stuart Dilley

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Outreach: Playable Pavilions

Scott Sutherland School

Playable Pavilions:

Product Design for Look Again

All process images courtesy of Laura Reilly

Final year students undertaking the Product Design elective have been creating ‘Playable Pavilions’. Thomas Perritt describes their participatory design process.

2018 Yearbook

Outreach: Playable Pavilions

The Look Again Festival invites people to become ‘tourists in their own city’ by seeing Aberdeen’s city centre through fresh eyes. The festival is a celebration of the very best contemporary visual art and design, showcasing both local and internationally acclaimed talent in Aberdeen.

was architecture, but also playing with the participation of the children.

Aligning with Scotland’s ‘Year of Young People’, the 2018 programme will see artists and designers respond to the theme of ‘Serious Play’. Three iconic locations; Marischal College Quad, Broad Street and Castlegate, will be animated with an array of live art and performance, playable structures, interactive workshops and creative interventions across the fourday festival.

As part of the festival, myself and eleven other final year students have created two playful and interactive installations which will be on display at the Marischal Square site this summer.

The demanding brief and the tight twomonth timeframe for design development were challenging, as the construct was required to be sturdy, stable, and playful, both in the sense of playing with what

The installation was to be up to the size of a pavilion, defined parametrically and produced in a digital fabrication fashion in ways which were to permit children and young people to play within. At the same time the installation should be demountable, easy to disassemble with the correct process, and easy to reassemble by young people or children at a 1 to 1 scale.

The design for these installations developed over a very short period.

Initially, we brought individual design ideas to the table which we developed with input from peers and local school children of Kaimhill Primary and Bridge of Don Academy, giving us a fantastic opportunity to deal with clients on a live build project in a university setting.

This participatory design method also provided us with feedback directly from our target audience, and exposed us to some fantastic original design suggestions, even if many were unachievable. Following this collaborative process, we decided as a group which two

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Outreach: Playable Pavilions

Scott Sutherland School

concepts to take forward into detailed design with the aim of building at a 1:1 scale for the Look Again festival.

In comparison, ‘Big Box’ consisted of a series of interactive walls which could be manipulated in different ways for a sensory experience of space. It comprised three sections; the sequin board, the pin board and the impression board. Through a combination of touch and sight, the continual transformation of the space was encouraged to create something new through the imagination of its users.

The outcome of this process was ‘Wee Rig’ (original concept by Darragh Martin) and ‘Big Box’ (original concept by Rikki Geddes and Eddie Hughes). From here, we worked in two groups to further develop these concepts. We looked more closely at the detailing of the installations, including issues related to structural stability, logistics, fabrication and, of course, cost.

The demanding brief and the tight two-month timeframe for design development were challenging, as the construct was required to be sturdy, stable, but also playful.

Thomas Perritt

The completed ‘Wee Rig’ installation consists of a series of bright and colourful intertwined telephones and periscopes within a structure which loosely resembles the form of an oil rig.

With its soaring tower, winding pipes and explosions of colour, the installation created an exciting and interactive landmark for the festival which passers-by would experience through means of sight, sound and touch.

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Outreach: Playable Pavilions

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1 Wee Rig Visual, Yevgen Gozhenko 2 Big Box Visual, Joe Leask.

3 Wee Rig Visual, Yevgen Gozhenko.

4 Big Box Visual, Joe Leask.

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Following the collaborative process, we decided as a group which two concepts to take forward, into detailed design and to build at a 1:1 scale for the Festival.

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Outreach: Study Trips

Scott Sutherland School

Study Trips:

Macaronic Millennials

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2018 Yearbook

Outreach: Study Trips

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1 Unité d’habitation in Berlin, Katie Rice.

2 Grundtvig’s Church in Copenhagen, Neil Mair.

3 Oriente Station in Lisbon, Nikhil Mair.

4 Vienna by Night, Yevgen Gozhenko.

5 Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Centre in Berlin, Stuart Dilley.

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Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, may well claim responsibility for the recent popularisation of the Grand Tour concept, but it was the swinging sixties and the rise of budget airlines in the past few decades that truly brought it to the millennial masses.

With this, the past year saw students across the school travelling to numerous cities around Europe. Destinations ranged from Berlin, Copenhagen, and Vienna, to the sunnier climes of Rome, Barcelona, and Lisbon.

The ‘gap-year’ normally consists of trundling along Europe’s iron tracks, ‘finding oneself’ in the world’s most populous continent, or building bars in the wildlife reserves of South Africa.

However, in a world where Facebook is Thomas Cook and iPhones are chaperones, for those of us fortunate enough to study buildings and construction, John Locke’s 17th century notion of travel as a fundamental source of knowledge is steadfast.

However, what may seem - to the uninitiated - like a jolly for the sake of it actually constitutes a vital component of any architectural education; whilst our peers slope off to spend their reading weeks cooped up in the university’s glazed interpretation of an agricultural slurry tank, we are on our way to an infinitely more edifying visit to mere sections within the world’s building library.

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Jennifer Robertson

In a fashion that would be rather baffling to a ‘grand tourer’, we millennials find ourselves increasingly squashed into orange aluminium tubes at 35,000ft, being shuttled between the most remote offerings of Europe’s airport terminals, staying in former prisons or red-light districts, and caught up in independence rallies that would make the likes of the Battle of Bannockburn look like a mere tea party.

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Outreach: Urbanism at Borders

Scott Sutherland School

Urbanism at Borders we might mean by borders or boundaries and how these might be divided up into a series of typologies, others focussed on issues surrounding specific regions or border conditions. To this end, one such example looked at China’s share of economic transaction and its stretching global footprint of exporting and importing, whilst another looked at the notion of ‘China Town’ as a distinct cultural border in cities around the globe.

As part of an elective module entitled ‘Contemporary Issues in Urban Design and Development’, a small group of Stage 6 architecture students undertook investigations into issues surrounding borders - as areas of historic and contemporary accounts of separation, mediation and social displacement.

1 1 Social Segregation and Boundaries of Restriction, Quazi Zaman.

2 Border Typologies, Andrew Pacitti.

3 Chinese Trade Boundary, Patrick Sim.

A series of research posters were produced to document the studies in a graphical form for the upcoming Conference ‘Urbanism at Borders’ to be held within the university during September 2018. The posters will subsequently be included within the proposed book ‘Urbanism at Borders – Cross-disciplinary Narratives’, expected to be published in 2019. The posters will act as companions to some forty other written papers from the conference in question.

A fourth example sought to demonstrate how the information age has resulted in the blurring of borders around the globe, with huge volumes of knowledge and data transmitted across countries and continents, whilst a final example looked at the notion of borders or segregation from the point of view of people with disabilities or impairments.

Dr Quazi Zaman

The graphical narratives posited by each poster represent various political, social, cultural and geographical borders around the divided world. Whilst some focussed on the broader polemical question of what

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2018 Yearbook

Outreach: Dissertation to Book

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Dissertation to Book The dissertation is considered to be a critical reflection of students’ aptitude to think polemically and intellectually on a selected research topic. Depending on the course chosen, this is one of the final tasks that students engage in, demonstrating a rigorous excursion across a defined scholarly route grounded in the ability to learn, contemplate and write critically.

Selected dissertations with a high quality of scholarly discussion have been found to appeal to wider global academic readers. By associating with an internationally reputed publisher as a ‘knowledge partner’, and refining work with the assistance of tutors in the school, recent years have seen student dissertations being published at an international level as monographs.

‘Berlin: A City Awaits – The Interplay between Political Ideology, Architecture and Identity’ is one such exemplar, written

by Stage 6 architecture student Neil Mair in his then-fifth year. The title has

been chosen by Springer Publishers (Switzerland) to be published in 2018.

The monograph is a unique narration on how politics can structure architectural lexicons as exhibited in the re-making of Berlin over several decades through various political instruments. The intellectual aspect of the book has been deepened further through the inclusion of a collection of historical photos which have been redrawn by hand to make it more lucid and engaging for readers.

The book has been endorsed by eminent urban design professors, due to its critical value in capturing the role of politics in urban development. They are Professor Emily Talen from the University of Chicago and Professor Christine Boyer from Princeton University in New Jersey.

Dr Quazi Zaman

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Outreach: The Framework of Design

Scott Sutherland School

The Framework of Design: Celebrating Process

A public exhibition curated

by Stage 2 architecture students in March 2018.

2018 Yearbook

Outreach: The Framework of Design

Our aim for this exhibition was slightly different to those undertaken by our predecessors in previous years - we wanted to demonstrate to the public what studio life is really like. To do this, we decided to not only exhibit our final projects but to display the little sketches, concept models, and other tools that had aided our design development. We wanted to create a tour of our minds: how we think, design and problem solve. After all, it’s the journey that matters, not the destination!

crucial that the exhibition should be easy to follow. OSB boxes which would sit on the tables were constructed, containing a range of different interactive games as part of the exhibition. The games were light-hearted and architecturally themed in ways which would allow everyone visiting to involve themselves, from local school pupils right through to the older generation.

The biggest challenge when designing the exhibition was in how we could display the material in a way which suited the theme: celebrating the design process.

Many questions arose - should we use tables, hang posters from the ceiling, put stickers on the floor? Should the work be scattered around or organised neatly? We thought that the exhibition should reflect a workshop and that it should have some kind of industrial, ‘work in progress’ feel. To achieve this, we mounted OSB boards on black trestles to make tables that could be easily assembled and disassembled.

Given that the exhibition was open to the wider public as opposed to just design students and tutors, we also thought it was

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In architecture schools we are often faced with projects that are merely hypothetical, and it can be easy to forget who we are actually designing for. Exhibiting our work and design process to the public helped to combat this issue. People are at the centre of what we do and after conversing with many members of the public, we were directly exposed to contemporary societal issues which people often put their trust in architects to resolve. The exercise was not only useful in allowing us to think more clearly about our own design processes and the tools which allow us to make design decisions, but also in giving us the first tastes of a deeper understanding of the role played by the architect within society as a whole.

Stage 2 Architecture BACK

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Outreach: Stage 2 Architecture

Scott Sutherland School

Stage 2 Architecture:

Elsick House / Belmont Street

Stage 2 architecture students developed proposals for a Spa in a walled garden and a dance centre in an urban setting.

Building on work undertaken by previous years, the first semester saw Stage 2 architecture students returning to the wonderful walled garden at Elsick House, this year developing design proposals for a luxury spa. The brief arose out of longterm aspirations of the Duchess of Fife to reinstate a Spa somewhere in the grounds of the house, given the dilapidated condition of the current pool facilities.

The spa was to include an indoor swimming pool, an outdoor pool, jacuzzi, sauna, a suite of massage rooms and rest or relaxation areas where refreshments might be served.

A key part of the project was the integration of the spa with a landscape design. In their initial investigations the students made measured drawings of the garden and walls, made detailed studies of timber precedents and looked at the evolution of landscape design through iconic examples. A short, intensive project to completely transform the landscape of the garden – explored entirely through modelling – then launched them into their individual design projects. A great variety of approaches from a maze-like composition of thick inhabited walls

to a lightweight canopy structure were proposed in what was a very successful conclusion to the semester.

In semester 2 the students ‘went urban’ and tackled the design of a dance centre on Aberdeen’s Belmont Street, with design input to the initial project brief from local dance agency Citymoves. The students met dance instructors in their current studio at Triple Kirks in Aberdeen, with a view to gaining valuable insight as to how spaces would be used, user profiles, and the overlap between dance and architecture.

This is the most challenging brief these students have had to date – asking them to observe, consider and respond to an existing historic context, with a contemporary intervention that gave form and space to the physical act of dance and movement. With this project, they were also required to reach a particular level of technological resolution, meaning that they are now fully fledged and ready to engage in the challenges presented by their forthcoming third year and Part 1 examination.

Gillian Wishart

2018 Yearbook

Outreach: Stage 2 Architecture

Spa in the Walled Garden Katarzyna Owczarska

My ambition for this project was to incorporate nature into the design and to reduce energy use, creating the best, yet sustainable, experience for users.

The main concept of my project was related to the circulation and experience of people entering the building, in order that they would stay in contact with the surrounding environment almost all of the time. This is achieved through the

provision of many openings and large windows, which also deliver natural light to almost every space in the spa.

The spa is divided into areas that are more public, with views over neighbouring garden spaces and the forest, and more private areas at a lower level, which have a closer connection with a number of courtyards and smaller gardens accessible only by spa clients.

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Outreach: Stage 2 Architecture

Scott Sutherland School

Spa in the Walled Garden Dickson Ka Ho O

Elsick Estate and its surroundings have a long history of transformation, moving from agricultural land to the development of an entire new town. My idea was inspired by the meaning of ‘transformation’, using the spa project to emphasise this notion of change as part of the visitor experience.

The building structure is exploited to create contrasts between an enclosed area and larger, open areas through the

use of solid walls alongside lightweight elements. This, and the movement of users along a narrow corridor upon entry, towards a much wider area with a range of different spa facilities, emphasises the idea of transformation.

The roof steps down a number of levels towards the outdoor pool, with glazed sections of varying widths installed within, to admit natural light.

2018 Yearbook

Outreach: Stage 2 Architecture

Dance Centre Andrew Harvey

The relocation of Citymoves dance studio to a street front location on Belmont Street opened up an opportunity for a major intervention on the street.

to the building behind the site and using materiality to establish links from the public ground floor to the expansive dance studio above.

The design of the dance studio has been focused on framing vistas both from outside the dance studio looking in, and inside looking out over the city.

Respecting the existing context brought about considerations for providing light

My approach in the massing was to employ a large double height space above a circulation core to act as a beacon that would be visible from Union street at night, giving the client, Citymoves, a public presence that they do not currently have.

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Outreach: Stage 2 Architecture

Scott Sutherland School

Dance Centre Marie Airth

Combining a dance centre for Citymoves with a public cafe, the concept for my project is based on a continuous wrap of glazing around the upper floors with an exposed concrete structure below, creating a heavier feel to the lower floors.

Perforated aluminium panels offset from the glazing line are designed to control daylighting and privacy in the urban setting whilst also permitting variations in the

internal atmosphere, dependant on the season or the time of day.

Key spaces are located towards the south to benefit from views into the nearby Union Terrace Gardens. A circulation core slices through the centre of the building allowing light into the deepest areas of the plan.

The interior combines exposed concrete and masonry elements with warm timber flooring and associated finishes.

2018 Yearbook

Outreach: Stage 2 Architecture

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Dance Centre Matt Clubb

Counter-rotating volumes aim to make a statement about dance on Belmont Street, putting it on display to the public through the use of a semi-transparent hung cladding system.

The rest of the facade is transparent, suggesting a clear route to a cafĂŠ and bar element, which rises above the neighbouring rooftops to allow views over the city.

Pairs of dancers, cut from stainless steel, are then layered and hung from the facade, providing an appropriate level of privacy to the studios and intrigue through the shadows that they cast.

Internally, the dynamic rotation of volumes is further expressed through variations in materiality between spaces: warm tones in the orthogonal spaces and clean white tones in the studios.

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94

Outreach: Stage 3 Architecture

Scott Sutherland School

Stage 3 Architecture:

Community as Extended Classroom

Stage 3 architecture students developed a series of proposals in small groups for live clients.

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2018 Yearbook

Outreach: Stage 3 Architecture

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1 CLAN proposal by Rebecca Brewer, Katarzyna Popowczak, Ili Nadhira Azizi, Samantha Bryan.

2 Transition Extreme proposal by Vasil Dimov, Hannah Drummond, Deborah Nicol, Agata Renusch, Natercia Roesch, Kirsten Scott.

3 Transition Extreme proposal by Angus Chow, Yasmin Fraser, Beth Milne, Ailidh Morrison, Man Ho Pau, Magdalena Wloczka.

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Urbanism is complex. The underlying rapport between people and place is difficult to conceptualise without any realworld experience. Stage 3 architecture students have been looking at the causal relationships drawn between various spatial contexts and socio-cultural constructs and, with the idea of the community as an extended classroom in mind, undertook a short project with live clients outwith the context of the university.

Just as in years that have gone by previously, students worked in small groups to concentrate on one of two projects related to the design of particular spaces and their relationship with an existing building and its users. This year’s clients were CLAN (Cancer Support for All) and Transition Extreme.

Creating sensory and therapeutic landscape environments and better interaction between the indoor and outdoor spaces were the remits of the CLAN exercise, whilst the second project on the Transition Extreme site looked to regenerate ambiguous and undefined outdoor spaces into active and more inclusively designed zones for use by

the wider public with both commercial and social value. Graphical material was produced and developed into posters to describe each group’s final proposals.

These were then used as part of a series of group presentations by the students to each client at the end of the process.

The core objective of the coursework was to train the students to take real urban issues, investigate them through urban design analysis, and to generate ideas that reflected the real needs of a live client.

Both projects build on previous outreach exercises undertaken in the past five years which have included working with school pupils at Portlethen Primary School, and the Robert Gordon College in Aberdeen, in addition to residents of the Hutcheon and Seamount tower blocks. The various engagement methodologies and subsequent design outcomes from each of these exercises, including CLAN and Transition Extreme, are being developed for further research and publication in the near future.

Dr Quazi Zaman

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96

Outreach: Construction Management

Scott Sutherland School

Construction Management Construction Managers are required at all stages of the construction process from inception through to construction, and to maintain our built environment when in use. With this in mind, the BSc Construction Management course was specifically designed to develop students with a broad-based education in design, construction and commercial management. Now in its fourth year, the first cohort of students on the course are graduating, and will soon be entering fulltime professional jobs.

Capitalising on the university’s strong ties with industry, and the experience of research staff working in the school many of whom are chartered construction managers and builders - there have been opportunities within the course to develop specialist knowledge and understanding through study based activities and site visits to live building projects, including the Marischal Square development in the heart of Aberdeen’s City Centre. Such initiatives enabled students to see at first hand the themes investigated in the taught

elements of the programme. The course also allows students to undertake a period of work-based learning through means of a placement with a company or an EU Institution partnered with the university in their third year.

There is a good gender balance across the course, with one female student nominated to become a member of the Women in Property (WIP) initiative each year. Instigated by the construction sector, the WIP’s broader objective is to create gender balance, inspiring a diverse and inclusive working environment where female construction managers are able to enter a career in the built environment sector with confidence.

Dr Quazi Zaman

2018 Yearbook

Outreach: Lunch and Learn

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Lunch and Learn A group of five final year surveying students organised a programme of lunchtime CPD events over the course of the past year. Given the apt title of ‘Lunch and Learn’, the series consisted of six onehour long events over two semesters.

The organising committee reached out to a number of school alumni in their efforts to persuade professional people to give up their time, free of charge, as part of the programme of CPD events. They were also willing to use contacts that they had made during their third year industrial placement period. The response was excellent.

All of the invited guests were very impressed with the level of engagement from the students who attended, with audience sizes varying from around 40 to 50 in number in each session over the course of the two semesters.

Dr Michael Dignan

All images courtesy of The Gatehouse - Design & Print Consultancy

To this end, the committee found that a host of speakers, ranging from recent graduates right through to managers in more strategic roles, were very happy to talk to the student group. Speakers included Aileen Beverly of the Stewart Milne Group, Darron McKay and John Mackie of Hardies, Jordan Cullen of Wise Property Care, Dave Honeyman of Hays, and Steven Traynor of the Robertson Construction Group.

The programme allowed the surveying students to add to their learning through interaction with experts and practitioners on a wide range of topics, including information about career progression and becoming a chartered surveyor, the design and construction of below-ground structures, employment prospects and how to prepare for interviews, and the procurement of major projects.

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Outreach: The Big Crit 2018

Scott Sutherland School

The Big Crit 2018

All Big Crit images courtesy of The Gatehouse - Design and Print Consultancy

Now in its tenth year, the Big Crit event enables students to use their projects as platforms for broader discussions about architecture and society.

2018 Yearbook

Outreach: The Big Crit 2018

The annual Big Crit event, organised by lecturer Gillian Wishart and a team of fifth year students, is the climax of the Scott Sutherland School’s calendar. Celebrating the best of the architecture students’ work, selected projects form a platform for the discussion of contemporary and enduring architectural issues amongst peers, staff, the general public and a panel of esteemed critics invited from the profession each year.

RIAS awards. Ben Addy established Moxon Architects in 2004. Operating from both London and Aberdeenshire offices, the practice has garnered a number of awards and accolades. Ben ran a degree unit at the Bartlett School of Architecture for nine years. His attendance at this year’s event marked his fourth visit to the Scott Sutherland School in recent years.

The day-long event included individual and group presentations from all year groups, with this year marking the tenth anniversary of the first Big Crit. The invited critics included Bruno Silvestre, Colin Harris, Ben Addy, Alan Dunlop, Neil Gilliespie, Robin Webster, Mary Arnold-Forster, and Penny Lewis.

Bruno Silvestre established his own practice in 2010 and currently lectures in a number of schools across the UK following both national and international competition and publication success.

Colin Harris, is a partner and managing director of Sutherland Hussey Harris.

Sutherland Hussey Harris are one of the leading practices in Scotland and are recipients of an extended list of RIBA and

Nominated for a 2018 RIAS Award, Mary Arnold-Forster worked at Dualchas Architects for sixteen years before setting up her own practice, focusing on the discreet development of rural sites in and around the West Coast of Scotland. Robin Webster is both a former Head of the Scott Sutherland School and a partner at Cameron Webster Architects, with over 50 years of experience in the industry, whilst Penny Lewis is the former editor of Prospect and co-founder of the ae foundation. Our final guest critics were two of the visiting professors from the school; Neil Gillespie of Reiach and Hall Architects in Edinburgh, and Alan Dunlop, who runs his own practice.

From Stage 1 right through to Stage 6, the event enabled students to talk about their work and receive feedback on their

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Outreach: The Big Crit 2018

Scott Sutherland School

projects, or perhaps their approaches, from an outside perspective in a more relaxed and open format than that which is usually associated with formal assessments in a typical design studio.

Reflecting on the event, the invited critics were extremely complimentary of the student work and the level of the discussions that had taken place throughout the day.

from questions about role of women in the industry to Kanye West’s apparently newfound interests in the field of architecture.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of The Big Crit, the school also arranged an event titled ‘Dissecting Architecture’. Held on the evening preceding The Big Crit itself, it offered both students and the wider public the opportunity to meet and to pose questions to the invited panel.

Set in the beautiful halls of Aberdeen’s Anatomy Rooms, the event took the format of BBC’s Question Time. Chaired

by Scott Sutherland’s very own David Dimbleby - David Vardy - a number of lively discussions stemmed from the issues raised by the audience, ranging

As the only school in the country to open its doors to the public during Crit time, the Scott Sutherland School continues to set the bar in anticipation for others to follow. And of course, once the ‘grilling’ is over, the day ended on a high with the 5710 Society hosting drinks and a buffet at the entrance to the school. There was a relaxed yet euphoric sense of freedom flowing around the room, as tutors and students alike reflected on what has been another successful and rewarding year at the school. Here’s to the next ten years of The Big Crit.

Chester Kendell

Image courtesy of Neil Lamb

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2018 Yearbook

Perspectives: Reflections on Part 2

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Sophie Houston Reflections on Part 2 in Architecture

‘The two-year structure of the master’s course allows us to become wonderfully invested in our projects, working from group masterplan to conceptual scheme to detail design, whilst the final semester is an opportunity to explore a specific aspect of your project in detail.’

Not that I would particularly care to reflect upon my advancing age, but I am of a generation who spent their first three years of study in the old Scott Sutherland School building.

I have many memories of the old School, from the cluttered studios where my first few crits took place beneath a saw-toothed roof; to the lecture halls in which I learned - with mixed degrees of enthusiasm - about Classicism and Modernism, different building technologies, and the projects of various 57°10 guests; and of course the many hours spent in the computer lab listening to that raucous oyster-catcher unknowingly, and clearly unsuccessfully, trying to woo his own reflection.

As Part 1 students we would rarely venture upstairs - other than fruitlessly searching for a half-decent printer - as this was the slightly mysterious, parquet-floored home of the Masters units. But, as a fresh-faced first year, I do recall once going up to watch some of the Masters students’ crits, marvelling at the sheer volume of work produced, the complexity of their projects, and the quality of discussion between students and tutors - although even then, the reputations of the Masters tutors somewhat preceded them!

A few years later, upon returning from my year-out placement I suddenly, somehow, found myself trying to cope with being one of those Masters students. Now though, the layout of the School is comparatively reversed; Stages 1-3 occupy the top floor, and Masters sits level with the building entrance. I would like to think this makes Stage 5 and 6 more visible and approachable to the younger years,

perhaps removing some of the mystery and intrigue which might once have been associated with Masters.

The two-year structure of the master’s course allows us to become wonderfully invested in our projects, working from group masterplan to conceptual scheme to detail design, whilst the final semester is an opportunity to explore a specific aspect of your project in detail. Although I definitely struggled with some aspects of the course, I found the freedom of the thesis to be particularly enjoyable, and learned to become comfortable with the fact that I was not entirely sure where my research and explorations would lead me; indeed, I began by looking at landscape design and ended up wielding a crochet hook!

However, now that the Big Crit is over and our studios are poised for End of Year Show, thoughts inevitably turn towards graduation, and the seemingly vast horizon that is life after architecture school. I’m hugely excited as I loved being on placement and can’t wait to get back into the office, working on real projects and seeing drawings come to life on site. Although the current climate is undoubtedly challenging, I look forward to this next chapter in my career, safe in the knowledge that my time at Scott’s has prepared me well for whatever lies ahead.

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THE

FUTURE

The construction industry is constantly evolving due to innovative, emerging technologies. This

chapter discusses these

technologies and the impact they may have on the future

of the built environment and architectural education.

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The Future: The Reality of the Virtual

Scott Sutherland School

The Reality of the Virtual: Studios in the Digital Era

David McClean, Head of School, discusses the qualities of traditional studio spaces and whether they might be replicated through digital means.

For many, there is an inherent paradox in architecture education. I frequently get asked why, in a digital era, the learning process initially focuses on the manual, on hand drawing and physical model making. Does this represent some kind of Luddite pre-occupation with historic techniques, or even the manifestation of a fear or disquiet amongst those educated in an analogue era? Certainly not.

The answer to that question is straightforward and, I suspect, would be pretty universal from schools around the world.

For no matter how sophisticated a tool, the computer is still just that, something that requires the guidance of a skilled operator. Hence the development of visual sensibilities and aesthetic judgement in a design subject is fundamental, and the natural precursor to digital production or mixed media at a later point.

The other tradition that seems immutable for many, including contemporary students, is that of the studio environment as a vehicle, a place for learning. A physical place, that is. The roots of studio-based learning extend back to the atelier of the 18th century

with its ‘master-apprentice’ learning relationship, and to the Ecole des Beaux Arts originally founded in 1648.

Such a lengthy history, coupled with its universality within the subject, speaks of its proven success. Perhaps inevitably, this reality creates a resistance to change or to new learning models, modes, or formats that retain its essential qualities. Yet I would argue that the rationale pertaining to hand drawing in the developments of skills and sensibilities does not equally apply to a learning space.

Whilst there are spatial characteristics that define a high quality studio environment, many spaces can function well as design studios. So what is the essence of studio? Arguably its essential quality is defined by the interaction that it facilitates; between student and tutor and, perhaps even more importantly, between peers.

Fundamentally, studio spaces are creative places of socialised learning, which is why Donald Schon, in his seminal book ‘The Reflective Practitioner’ advocated it as an appropriate learning vehicle for many

The Future: The Reality of the Virtual

subjects, and not simply those which are traditionally labelled as being ‘creative’.

us, regardless of generation. Students today love the physicality of studio as much as their predecessors, but there would be a deep irony if such a crucible of creativity also proved to be the seedbed of immoveable orthodoxy and conservatism.

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Image courtesy of The Gatehouse - Design and Print Consultancy

2018 Yearbook

The question that advances in digitisation promotes is whether or not online technologies can successfully replicate the essential attributes of studio. Yet developments already appear to have leap-frogged such a question.

Design consultancies collaborate across the globe in real time; online learning in other subjects already hosts interactive platforms that conjoin students around the world; and our very own ‘Build Our Nation’ project a few years ago involved online design collaboration between 4 European schools. Oh yes, and there are already at least two fully accredited architecture courses in the USA, run entirely online.

Doubtless, more exist elsewhere, or soon will. The notion of virtual studio is already with us. The virtual is already real.

Whether to advance is always to progress is a moot point. However, as the palette of possibility grows exponentially, the opportunity is there to take the lead in defining new and, I believe, inescapable modes for this valuable method of learning.

Professor David McClean

The test of providing an equivalence of experience is not to be underestimated, however, especially when the conventional model is so ubiquitous. Part of the challenge undoubtedly lies within BACK

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The Future: Creating New Cities

Scott Sutherland School

Creating New Cities:

Adventurous Architecture

The competition for creating a futuristic city in Yilong has been an exhilarating experience for my practice. The brief called for the creation of a new city of the future, within Yilong, in Guizhou province in China. We elected to enter the competition since we felt we had already developed some digital tools, targeted towards the automatic creation of dense, diverse housing towers, re-purposed now for the creation of a city. At the same time we saw an opportunity in scaling our tools from the scale of the building to the scale of the city.

Can digital tools be used to automate city design?

Theo Dounas discusses his competition entry in China.

We started working in September with a research phase, looking at the development plans the government has had for Yilong and the province.

The central government in Beijing projected that the province would host a multitude of big data centres. In parallel I was researching the impact Bitcoin and blockchain farms have had on the environment. One article mentioned that generation of one bitcoin is so heavy computationally that the heat generated from it is enough to heat your house for a week. We decided that one of the unique parts of the tool would be to embedded big data centres and blockchain farms within the fabric of the city.

The basic frame of the algorithm is a differentiated model of cellular automata (CA). The first phase combines a strategy for minimising the distances between the further boundaries of the initial area with a Cellular Automata algorithm to define the initial urban sprawl. The minimal path is retrieved by relying on a digitisation of the well-known Frei Otto’s (2011) minimal path approach.

The second phase is based on the creation of a bi-dimensional grid that will work as masterplan for the 3D development of the city. The urban sprawl has been calculated first to set out the driving rules of the process and the starting grid where the first generation of CA has to sprout up.

A series of tests have been conducted applying different time steps to the developing process of the CA. The determination of the optimal layout has been conducted, analysing that the position of the cells would fall within specific areas of the city. The presence of specific constraints avoid situations in which the algorithm builds within bodies of water or lakes, allowing the proposal to give way to the natural landscape.

2018 Yearbook

The Future: Creating New Cities

Once the first layer of cells has been defined, the algorithmic process goes ahead to define the new city with buildings of different heights. The basic idea was to adapt the shape of the city so that it could fit the surrounding landscape through three different types of organisations: areas with dense building as high as the hills, areas with buildings that follow the outline of the hills and areas with the presence of mega structures that connect the lower layer of the city with its highest point. Within the urban fabric, big data-centres and blockchain farms are dispersed throughout so that the recovered heat from the heavy computations can be used to heat the city.

As an exercise in re-using design strategies and algorithmic ideas about design, our experimentation with the Chinese city scale proved successful.

The proposal was awarded the third place award in the competition out of a total of 1,052 teams. It further consolidated our position that, in the future, innovative urban design and experimentation will increasingly take place in China as the country faces unique challenges of urbanisation.

The three-dimensional urban development is then based on a CA algorithm that starts from the centre defined in the 2D study. To ensure an amplified urban density, a lower value has been defined as what is known as the ‘survival level’ for the CA. In the 3D design stage too, a key role as been played by the analysis of the position of the cells that helped with the selection and removal of those elements that did not respond to the functional plan, or the geographical aspects of the site.

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The city that our algorithm creates is one of pure programme, pure density, pure organisation and no form. We envisage our future work to continue with the urban density algorithm, and that it will enable designers to build highly capable frameworks for architectural production, in complex parametric spaces.

Theo Dounas, Davide Lombardi, Chenke Zhang, Hao Wu, Chaohui Yang

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108

The Future: The Robotic Touch

Scott Sutherland School

The Robotic Touch:

An Interview with Matthias Kohler

57°10 Presidents, Danny Whitelaw and Thomas Perritt, interview Matthias Kohler of Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich.

DW: At what stage in your education or profession did you start to become interested in digital fabrication and the use of robotics within design?

MK: The use of robotics really came with the professorship. The former president of ETH asked us what kind of tools we would need to research digital fabrication.

Fabio Gramazio and I realised that if we bought a specialised tool like a laser cutter or a mill that we had been using before, such tools would very much dictate what we would do. But we were interested in a more open approach which would allow us to do many different things with a machine.

We were also interested in the topic of additive fabrication, the question on how do you build architecture with a machine additively? And since there was no machine that can build architecture, this also created demand to go for a versatile tool that you can customize to build bespoke artefacts with.

So in 2004 we concluded that the robot was the right tool, because it does not prescribe what you can do with it. The robot is versatile and generic, and this is

what we were looking for to link computation and construction.

DW: Yeah, it seems pretty endless, the capabilities of it.

MK: Of course and the robot’s capabilities get more impressive over time. The robot’s generic nature is similar to that of the computer. I got in touch with the digital much earlier, I was a computer kid. I programmed computer games in the 80s.

My early interest in the digital and my later interest for architecture then started to meld. Here, the robot emerged as the tool being capable of bridging between what you could do with the digital and what you can do physically.

DW: Has this work influenced your design process at all? For example, you touched on it there, when choosing which tool to use you didn’t want the tool to define what you were doing, it was the other way around so does form finding influence the technique behind how you craft or build using these fabrication tools?

MK: This is a chicken and egg question.

Tools clearly have an influence on how you design. Now if you are intellectually

2018 Yearbook

The Future: The Robotic Touch

‘The robots and these kinds of digital techniques have influenced the way we design... we start to programme design more than drawing designs.’

independent as an architect, this means that you select your design tools. As there is a dialogue between the tools you choose and the way you work, robots and the computational design techniques clearly have influenced the way we design.

there is almost no structural engineer in Switzerland yet that is prepared to actually close the loop. As architects, we are not the signing off engineers, so we depend on external people, which still need to change to a digital workflow.

Factually, it lead us to start programming designs more than drawing designs. I would also say that through the robot we started to rediscover topics like construction. We started wondering: how will the constructive techniques change once robots, sensing and computational control of material processes are a reality?

We start to discover such fundamental architectural questions only through our hands-on engagement and with our curiosity towards technology.

DW: So how much sketching do you do throughout a typical design process and is it something that you value or has it been replaced by something else?

DW: So you are rethinking architecture in general to an extent?

MK: Well you said that… [Laughter]…But I agree that to some degree it’s true.

TP: Structurally, is everything calculated again through programming or do you have to figure that out or double check that externally?

MK: Currently many aspects of structural integration are still at research stage.

Some projects do integrate with structural analysis and therefore have automated iterations of structural optimisation. Some other projects are really just conventionally double-checked by a structural engineer and then changed again according to needs.

In a research context, where projects are relatively small, it is much easier to close the loop. But for a real building project

MK: I still do some sketching for personal purposes but these are more of a diagrammatic nature, not so much about forms. They are more diagrams, details or thoughts. I would say the contemporary form of sketching that people in our group do is through sketching codes and geometries in Grasshopper and Rhino.

These are the sketch tools of today, I would say. It’s not that we look at hand sketches for discussing a concept or at 3D modelled designs as sketches, both is of little interest at that stage. It is more important to find computational principles that seem to fit with the nature of the architectural project, which is interesting.

DW: Is there a place for physical, handcrafted models as well? Does that still play a role in finding forms or is purely grasshopper as you suggested?

MK: What we usually do for example in our student course is to work at 1:201:50 scale with smaller robots. Here it is important for us that students actually touch the material, do something with it, then reflect about the logic and intent of what they did and see how they programme that. We think it is very important to close the loop back to the

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‘You sketch because you want to get closer to what real building will be like, right? And it’s the same with the digital, it shouldn’t create distance. I think that in our research, that actually can come very close together.’

material and understand all aspects of making. One of the challenges we currently face with the entire digital explorations is that often students have difficulties actually perceiving and understanding what they produced as a model. I’ll give you an example, we did a studio in Singapore called ‘Design of Robotic Fabricated High Rises’.

In that studio, the students programmed the design and building of high rises at a 1:50 scale as model towers. I was expecting that, whilst they are building these model towers with the help of the robot and with some code, they would start to get into an intensive relation with the physical object.

DW: No it makes sense though, if you are going between the two, there is obviously going to be a favourable type at some point, depending on the person as well.

MK: Correct, but I think ideally for architecture, you should not need to decide. It would be like urging an architect to decide if he likes sketching or if he likes real building. This is non-sense, right? You sketch because you want to get closer to your ideas of what the real building will be like, right?

It is the same with the digital. It should not create distance. Quite in contrary, from what I have seen in our research the virtual and the physical can actually come very close together.

I would have expected that the students read their models, grasp the spaces, their stability, their essence in different ways than they understood their design on screen. Yet actually, to everyone’s surprise, that didn’t really happen.

DW: What do you think about the future of architectural education when it comes to this? Should schools continue to focus on the more classical side of sketching compared to focussing on programming and coding?

The students had a very hard time actually appreciating the physical for what it is and what it produces phenomenologically. To me this is still an unresolved puzzle. How can architects appreciate the physical for what it is when designing it in the digital? To overcome this seeming gap it is important as I am convinced that in the end architecture ultimately is a profession that acts in the physical, tangible world.

TP: This school is very much on the classical sketching, physical side but then the programme stuff is definitely coming into it and that is something we are very interested in. There is a kind of discrepancy between the students, the school and the tutors.

So how can you have full appreciation for the physical while working in a digital environment, which allows you to do explorations of the physical that you can only do through the digital. Sorry is that too abstract?

MK: The same applies to the ETH. I think it is very important to start integrating the digital and in particular programming and new fabrication techniques with architectural design.

Of course the early explorations in digital architecture of the 90s might have shown us that you can do stuff which after 10

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years maybe isn’t considered the greatest of all architectural works. But on the other hand these explorations were of seminal importance to the development of our discipline.

Architecture is a living culture and for it to stay alive institutions need to invest in it.

ETH, for example, is a school with a long tradition, and a long-standing emphasis on constructive aspects. In our case for example, we started to fuse our explorations with the ETH tradition. We explore the digital but we equally examine the physical construction at 1:1 scale.

MK: I see a gradual increase and interest in this novel way of designing and of building. It will take some time until successful cases develop into a digital building culture. I’m convinced that it will be rewarding to look for a building culture in which the digital is inclusive and hopefully we will discover architecture with new qualities which we have not yet seen.

For further information on their projects, see their website. http://gramaziokohler.arch.ethz.ch/

Image courtesy of Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich

Images courtesy of Gramazio Kohler Architects, Zurich

‘I see a gradual increase in this way of designing and also in this way of building - it will take some time until successful cases develop.’

We therefore feed from and to the tradition of the school and we took the discussion to a new level. I don’t know your architecture school here but I assume there is something at the core here and maybe seeing how what is at the core is not being lost while the new is added, gives you a unique profile.

DW: So Ill finish on this, how do you see this branch of architecture developing in the next few years? Do you see fully automated building sites or just a gradual increase in this way of designing?

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Shifting Technologies:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Marianthi Leon discusses the influence which changing technologies have had on our built environment, including the tools with which we design and build.

Following an immersive experience into the applications of high-tech architecture, from buildings’ optimisation and forms’ generation according to the users’ requirements, I landed into the harsh reality of construction, where clients are pressing, and subcontractors are prone to miscommunication. It is exactly this winding journey that led me to Building Information Modelling and the use of computer mediation for supporting teams’ facilitation and collaboration management.

Technology has been pivotal in shaping architecture and the built environment, and, interestingly enough, the different construction trends. From hand drawings, the use of drawing boards and the simplicity of modernism to the invention of CAD and Parc de la Vilette, up to MAXXI and parametric architecture, these tools have shaped our built environment and had a major impact to the construction industry. New stronger and more flexible materials had to be developed, innovative solutions had to be generated and all these processes had to pass within the construction lifecycle and supply chain.

How difficult can it be?

Apparently, quite difficult.

This is why a series of reports were developed focusing on efficiency and collaboration, dating as far back as the 70s and 80s. The technological evolution of visualisation methods and computational modelling techniques together with a higher degree of complexity in the use of representation means contributed to the transformation of the design process and led to the development of contemporary architectural paradigm. New dynamic conceptions of space design emerged along with new categories of experiences, due to the accelerating changes in technology.

Buildings’ design representations have shifted their influence from the drafting mediums and material properties that defined architectural drawings for centuries to computational design and new methods for machining and constructing. Additionally, the new communication means, including the Internet and wireless technologies of communication, augmented reality, pervasive and ubiquitous computing provide the ground for a more active stakeholders’ participation and interaction, together with an enhanced need for more efficient multidisciplinary collaboration.

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Technology has been pivotal in shaping architecture and the built environment, and, interestingly enough, construction trends.

The concept of collaboration within built environment projects is interrelated with the computational design representations since the successful project completion involves input from a range of AEC/FM professionals that focus on the forms, materials, cost, construction and life-cycle of a project. Effective communication is a prerequisite for the application of BIM, and accessible ICT technologies along with visual processes are able to bridge the design teams, contractors, subcontractors and users/clients’ differences.

Eventually, we are experiencing a shift of paradigm regarding the transition from files’ exchange to analysis and methods exchange, which results into sufficient control over the building information and moves us from the strictly technological and procedural focus to ubiquitous, multidisciplinary and informed collaboration. It is impossible to master the diversity of technical languages; seeking the multiplicity of professional viewpoints from the very early design stages can produce results that are less prone to errors and costly design and construction iterations at later, more advanced stages, thus avoiding grievances, delays and expensive litigations.

Scott Sutherland School has been at the leading front of teaching, research and practice in these areas in close engagement with the industry and in cross-industries environments, with applications from Smart Cities to management processes optimisation, and from collaboration management to AR/VR applications for construction.

According to Italo Calvino (in ‘Invincible Cities’), “You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours”.

How wonderful is it to be part of an industry that can shape people’s lives and dreams?

Dr Marianthi Leon

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The Future: The Future of Architecture

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The Future of Architecture: Conversations

All images courtesy of Stuart Dilley

Bill Black, Alan Dunlop, and Neil Gillespie discuss the future of architectural education and the wider profession.

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In collaboration with 57°10, we hosted a debate in March with the three visiting master’s tutors on the topic of ‘The Future of Architecture’, chaired by our very own Head of School David McClean. Bill Black, Alan Dunlop and Neil Gillespie discussed the future of architectural education and the wider profession, as well as the role of traditional methods of ‘craft’ in an increasingly digital industry.

DM: So, Thursday Night Question Time!

Let’s start with the theme of ‘practice’.

The first question that came was, how do you think the ‘typical’, whatever that is, practice will change in the next 10 years?

AD: The future of architectural offices and practices and how they develop is down to you guys – the progressive young architects of the future.

I can only say, judging on what has happened during my practising life, that there has been a huge change in the way that we do things. Very often when we come to universities to speak to students we learn about new technologies, and that side of thing continues to carry on apace.

The likelihood is that in 20 years’ time, the way we produce architecture is going to be fundamentally different. When I started my practice, everything was done on the drawing board, but now there are rather incredible technologies that seem to be capturing everybody’s imagination.

So how might architecture change and how might practice change? I think the emphasis on technology is going to become a whole lot greater, however instead of seeing it enhance creativity, it very often supplants it.

NG: I would just like to say that we can only speak from the experience that we have or are having. It’s grim just now… but it’s been grim before. There have been four bad economic cycles throughout my forty-year career.

Stressing the word ‘typical’… I think that ‘typical’ practice always reflects the nature of the culture and society that it serves the standard of practice serves the client.

The schools or students don’t necessarily have to do that, but a typical practice will have to, and will reflect the quality and

nature of the society. And all I can say is that the culture out there at the moment is not good, it’s culturally and visually illiterate.

AD: It’s an age of philistinism!

NG: We are talking about typical practices, but there will always atypical practices. But if you are talking about typical practices, which are the ones the majority of us find ourselves in, we need to ask ourselves where our culture is coming from and taking us to.

BB: I think you, as students, might find inherently two choices - you either work in very small practices, maybe one you set up yourself… or you work in a very large practice. I am predicting here the near death of the kind of practices that Neil and I work in, because we are constantly squeezed. There is a world of work for those very small practices, they do really well and do very inventive stuff for individual clients who want to extend their house and there is a sort of rolling programme of really interesting work.

Bigger jobs are increasingly hard to win, the whole system is set up so only very big

‘The likelihood is that in 20 years’ time, the way we produce architecture is going to be fundamentally different... So how might architecture change and how might practice change?’ - BB

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‘I happen to think if you are a good architect, you have a particular way of actually looking at things that allows you to contribute positively to any type of project and do it in a creative and interesting way.’ - AD

practices can win them. I see the middlesized practice disappearing. So, you will either be a cog in a wheel or run your own business.

AD: The other thing I would say about how practice might change is that, in the United States, architectural practices often have elements within them which diversify and take on specialities. I think that sort of specialising is happening in the UK in large practices - they are specialising in things such as sustainability, health or schools.

I happen to think if you are a good architect, you have a particular way of actually looking at things that allows you to contribute positively to any type of project and do it in a creative and interesting way. However, now I think that as a consequence of actually bidding for projects we are now taking a leaf out of what happens in the US and have started bringing in specialists. Big architectural practices have architects who are directors of education or whatever, so I can only see that diversifying and becoming more acute. We seem to be specialising more and more.

even although for me it is absolutely crystal clear… you’re either a wolf or you’re a lion!

A lion is on the savannah, it sits there waiting on the wildebeests to go past them, so they can eat. But if the wildebeests don’t go past them they die because they don’t move with the herd. A wolf is a much smarter beast, they travel great distances to get its prey, it can do that on its own and it will work hard to bring it down a bison or something. But it will also eat berries, it can eat other things.

So, you can either have a practice that is prepared to do other things, as well as mainstream work, purely to survive or to make the practice much more ambiguous.

The problem with our practice is we consider a wildebeest as the right prey, we are constantly looking for this decent project of about £15 - £20 million, on a 4 or 5% fee which we can do properly and make models and drawings.

BB: When I was your age, I remember having family that would ask, “What are you going to specialise in?” but unlike doctors, architects didn’t specialise. But now increasingly you could answer that question and say I am going to specialise in this or that, though I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but that is what’s happening.

DM: There is an interesting question here which relates to that metaphor…

Architecture in the UK was arguably at its strongest and most ambitious when it was supported by the government and the post-war welfare state, so how much do you see the current architecturally produced built environment as a product of current political and social conditions? I guess what you are saying Neil, is that we need to be the animal that operates effectively in that environment?

NG: I think the difficulty with that is if you are going to be a healthcare architect, and follow the healthcare herd, I would use this analogy that I’ve been using for years but nobody in the office has ever understood,

NG: Yes, exactly! You either take part in it or you have to become like the wolf. If you take part in it you become party to the market, and the market at the moment is you don’t work for the client you work for

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the contractor. You work for fees that they imagine you can survive on, and they treat you exactly the same way as they treat the supplier of plasterboard!

architect, you can come into the process with a different mindset and the positives that come out of the difficulties of being an architect today, are things like that.

AD: Christ! Neil, my god I’m getting depressed myself… I’m just about to burst into tears here! [Audience Laughs] NG: This is the problem, I feel that the profession has sleepwalked into this situation. When we’re offered a fee of say 1.4%, instead of saying no we’re off, we can’t survive on that, we think there must be an idea or a way of doing this. We’ve actually been the authors of our own slide in standing.

AD: Yeah, it’s subject to the vagaries of politicians and how procurement is actually structured, but is there anything else you’d really rather do?

BB: What you do see in some younger practices is that they are becoming much more clever and fleet of foot about what they do, so the nature of practice for them is changing as they are finding different ways of working. In London for example, small offices are collaborating to become a bigger entity, so they can do these bigger jobs and instead of waiting for clients to come to the office and say what they want, they go out and invent the projects themselves and then find someone who will fund it.

There are things you can do as a young

DM: Everyone is here because they are passionate about architecture, and the question is really how we mutate as a profession to operate within your environment productively.

DM: There’s a question here that you began to answer Alan, which is what will the design processes be like in 10 years’ time. We think about virtual reality, we think about real time collaboration, all that kind of thing. What is your vision of these processes and what will be the practice environment for students in 10 years’ time? In terms of the evolution of technologies, for instance?

BB: I’ll be even further behind the technology than I am now, because I can only use my pen. In a way, everything that my role requires is with that. It’s all I need.

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‘I feel that the profession has sleepwalked into this situation... We’ve actually been the authors of our own slide in standing.’ - NG

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‘CAD is just another form of a drawing board. It can convey exactly the same piece of information as you used to do with a parallel motion and a pen and a piece of tracing paper.’ - BB

AD: Well, the thing you have to ask about these things, is, has the advancement of technology actually made the quality of architecture any better? And I don’t know whether it has. It’s allowed us to think about things like parametricism, and creating these incredible shapes, and this fluidity in buildings now, but I don’t know whether the quality of architecture or the thinking behind it has actually improved.

it’s up to you. Technology is just another layer, which is useful. Actually, we’re finding that a lot of clients are suspicious of renders. They’ll ask you not to do a render.

Please no computer renders. Planners, for example, start to get nervous about them, because council committees are swayed by a beautiful render, and so the planners are asking for models, so that they can challenge the councillors to actually look at the scheme and not just look at this beautiful thing. I think these things come and go.

NG: I was in a prehistory museum on the west coast, and we were speaking to an archaeologist and he showed us a diagram of what prehistory looked like: here’s the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, all the different ages up to present day, and he was saying that that was a totally false diagram, because his point was were still in the Stone Age. We’ve never left the Stone Age, because we still make things out of stone. We still make things out of iron. We still make things out of bronze. All that happens is, their importance tapers, because we don’t make everything out of stone. And all that technology does, is that it adds on another layer to the diagram.

So, to think that you don’t need to do models, or drawings, or go for a walk, is folly. Everybody can still do those things,

BB: CAD is just another form of a drawing board. It can convey exactly the same piece of information as you used to do with a parallel motion and a pen and a piece of tracing paper. The difficulty is that the CAD machine has every single layer in it, and so drawings become more and more complicated, because people stop freezing the layers. You may only need to draw the outside bit of the wall because that’s the only bit you need to communicate in that drawing, so in a way the drawing was quicker and simpler with a pencil.

DM: Is there anybody from the audience that would like to challenge that?

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‘From my own experience, even just taking a line for a walk, things happen, and ideas are generated, before you even realise what exactly it is you are doing. So that element of it, the creative element of it, is not evident when you use the computer.’ - AD

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think this is a case of two different generations, for us it’s giving us a different tool, like a sixth sense, we can challenge our own designs through the computer. And the older generation is used to doing that through the pencil and paper.

AD: It’s not to do with the process that leads to the architecture. It’s hard to think that the best, most creative thinking comes out of that very simple elementary process. I like to encourage people in my unit to draw. Not because I like drawings, though I have yet to see a computergenerated drawing that I would be happy to put on my wall, for instance, however, even the slightest sketch, there’s a personality to that, there’s a quality of thinking in it, that I think is not immediately evident in a computer-generated piece of work.

And I also happen to think, that when you are drawing, and this is a quote from Glenn Murcutt, “the hand makes movements, and resolves things, before the brain actually registers that that is happening”, and I think that’s absolutely true. From my own experience, even just taking a line for a walk, things happen, and ideas are generated, before you even realise what exactly it is you are doing.

So that element of it, the creative element of it, is not evident when you use the computer. As Bill says, and from my own experience with students, you draw an elementary plan, you press a button, and all of a sudden you have a three dimensional image that you can take a walk through, and you think you have cracked it. And so that’s a regressive rather than a progressive thing.

These two guys here, Richard’s office and Neil’s bison-chasing office [Audience Laughs], they’re guys who actually seem to follow Kahn’s principle, ‘I always start with squares’. There’s a methodology, you look at both their buildings and you can understand how they were built. You know where the entranceway is, you understand what’s supporting, what’s the lintel, what’s the structure, things like that.

These are principal basic architectural elements, form following function, and they still produce for me the best architecture that there is, and the best architects are for me still guys like Aalto, the masters, Mies van der Rohe, Louis Kahn obviously, Aldo Rossi, Alvaro Siza, these great guys who I don’t know whether they could ever work with a computer. Kahn died in 1974 – he had emails, but nevertheless the architecture that they produced is kind of universal in time.

NG: My issue with technology, with CAD particularly, is that ability to come across something by chance, because you select the view you are going to look at, don’t you? It’s two-dimensional, it’s on a screen, you zoom in and zoom out. For me, models are the best, the best vehicle, because you can come across them unaware, you come across an idea unawares, because you suddenly see it in relation - it falls on the floor and its upside down and its better [Audience Laughs]. The thing about drawing and model-making is chance, and I think that is huge.

Was anyone here when Tim Ingold came up at all? He’s an anthropologist at Aberdeen University. The trouble is, you can only sit through about ten minutes before your head explodes because you

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‘The highest social standing in Japan would be a potter. Somebody that can make a tea cup - an imperfect tea cup with a thumb print in it.. That is the most expensive thing you could buy - they’re thousands of pounds.

And that’s because it’s got a spirit of that maker and I think the same goes for architecture.’ - NG

haven’t got a clue what he’s talking about.

But anyway, he talks about an education of attention, which I thought was really interesting. He was saying that it’s the job of the tutor to bring the student out to find something, not to instruct what to do. What he said was that imagination always precedes experience, so the trouble with a computer is, the experience precedes imagination, because you have to put in hard fact to make a drawing, you have to define A, B, C before it will draw that rectangle. You’ve already made a decision, and what he was sort of saying was we need to – academics need to – understand that you should be talking about imagination first and then bringing experience in.

DM: Any other questions?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I had one question about the proceeding specification of the architectural build. I was wondering whether you think that we are witnessing something in architecture that we witnessed a hundred years ago, in craftsmanship? So this interest in industrialisation – do you think that we are victims of the economy, and that it is no longer feasible to make architecture as we used to make, and that we are sort of destined to work in those big companies and the architecture as we know it will become a niche or very niche part of the market? Do you think this is how the future will look?

NG: I think it’s a really difficult question, because, I mean craftsmanship is a really fascinating subject. If you took that bottle [holds water bottle], and showed that to someone two hundred years ago, then they would be astounded by

the craftsmanship of that bottle. And if you then said to them that there’s 75 billion of them, and they are all identical quality, and they couldn’t believe you. So, craftsmanship is an abstract notion.

So, with the people who made the machine that made the thing that did that – these are incredible pieces of craftsmanship. If you are talking about something different, which is about humanity or something, where – and the Japanese have got a lot to say about this, haven’t they? Now there’s a culture than can embrace technology at the highest end, and at the other end.

The highest social standing in Japan would be a potter. Somebody that can make a tea cup – an imperfect tea cup with a thumb print in it. And you’d see them if you went into a department store. That is the most expensive thing you could buy – they’re thousands of pounds. And that’s because it’s got a spirit of that maker and I think the same goes for architecture.

DM: Moving to education, and that idea of relevance, there is a great dichotomy that’s set up by what you’ve said. We hear practices immediately saying ‘we want to be able to make sure that the students and graduates we actually employ, are immediately usable’. We hear that from employers all the time, and usually because to the generation that are the employers, ‘usable’ means they can use the technology that they, or ‘we’ can’t use, and therein lies a problem.

There are certain skills that are valued by the profession in graduates, thinking forward do you think schools should impart skills in the future that are different to what they are now?

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AD: There is a debate in architecture at the moment with offices being under constant pressure, so they require students leaving schools of architecture to be what they call ‘office ready’. There’s even discussion about reducing the length of an architectural education.

‘office ready’. Part of the processes that you are actually involved in, working at the computer etc give you a set of transferable skills that you can use, but that’s not my primary concern. My primary concern, or my motivation for this, is to try and instil in you a sense of critical engagement and enquiry, and that’s what I think makes an architect capable of tackling any type of project. There’s a degree of thoughtfulness, imagination and critical enquiry, an in-depth level of thinking, that is perpetuated and developed through architectural education that allows you to tackle most challenges, and I think that is what makes us as a profession unique.

My job as an architectural Professor is not to help you find a job after architectural education. My job – I see - is to try and teach you how to be an architect, what it is to be an architect, to get you thinking creatively and getting involved and thinking at a level of critical enquiry that I think is necessary in order for you to perform effectively as an architect. And to do that, it seems to me that even seven years is not enough, as far as education is concerned.

My thinking as far as this is concerned is contrary to the thinking of various members of the profession that you very often hear the complaint that we are getting students coming out of schools of architecture and they just don’t know how to run a job or tackle a job. I think there are office protocols that are the responsibility of practice – it’s not the responsibility of an architectural education to make you guys

NG: I think there is a huge confusion about what school of architecture is about because what we have done is merged professionalism with learning about architecture. They are running two courses at the same time and I think that is where the problem stems. I think the school of architecture should be challenging the society out there, about what it’s about, its ideas - that’s what it should be talking about.

DM: To finish we have a couple of lighter questions. The ‘grand tour’ was once a

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‘My job - I see - is to try and teach you how to be an architect, what it is to be an architect, to get you thinking creatively and getting involved and thinking at a level of critical enquiry.’ - AD

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‘Glenn Murcutt has this idea that you can judge a building by how far you would travel to see it. If you can’t be bothered to cross the road to look at a building, it’s really not very good, is it?’ - BB

traditional part of an architect’s training.

Do you think this is still valuable for students today, and if so, where would you go in your modern-day equivalent?

single minute of the 4000 miles I travelled to get there.

AD: The quality of architectural magazines and websites is just extraordinary these days. But, for you to fully appreciate the work of the architect and the architecture you need to go there, so the idea of the grand tour and architects - young architects getting up off their backsides and going visiting buildings - is right. I wouldn’t really want to go anywhere other than the United States. But, saying that, I would go to India and to Dhaka. I would like to go there and see some of Kahn’s parliament buildings.

BB: Glenn Murcutt has this idea that you can judge a building by how far you would travel to see it. If you can’t be bothered to cross the road to look at a building, it’s really not very good, is it? So, if you travel 10 miles it’s moderately okay, if you travel 500 miles, whatever. I was recently in New York and had the opportunity to go and visit Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright which is a six-and-a-half-hour drive to get there and an overnight stay. But, at the end of it all, I can say that it was worth every

NG: When I was your age our Grand Tour was Scandinavia. Lewerentz, Asplund, all these guys. And out of that came Spain, because of the Scandinavian influence in Moneo, and the like. I think they’re interesting but recently, for me it would be three places: I’m fortunate to have been to Japan twice – not so much for, well of course for the architecture, but for that change, for a culture that you don’t understand. But actually, I’m a stay-athome kind of guy – there’s a lot in Fife! No! [Audience Laughs]. There is actually!

Then it would be Switzerland and Portugal, because I’ve never had an inclination to go to America. I’ve never understood Frank Lloyd Wright, and I’ve never seen his relevance, to my work. [Audience Laughs].

With Siza, there’s a relevance that I can relate to.

With Switzerland, it just amazes me that you get places like Vrin – with a population of six and a half or something – and yet it’s got world class buildings in it. You travel five, ten miles down the valley and up another one, and you’ll hit another world

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class architect. Go down another one, and you think what is going on here?

Populations of hundreds are commissioning buildings that are globally significant. I don’t know what the connection is between the populations of Switzerland and Scotland, but we’d struggle to scrabble together a couple, wouldn’t we? So, for me, it’s kind of both, I like to travel, but I need a reason – otherwise I’ll stay at home.

DM: The final question that came up from somebody was that killer question: If you were to give one piece of advice for students in terms of actually how they take their careers forward – what would it be?

AD: Don’t do anything for nothing.

[Audience Laughs]. Because the work that you produce will have very little value.

NG: I’d agree with that! No, I’ll do anything for anything! [Audience Laughs].

BB: I’ll do what Alan’s not doing! [Audience Laughs].

NG: I mean, I sound miserable, I know that.

AD: No you’re not, you’re a happy-go-lucky guy! [Audience Laughs].

NG: No, as a child I was miserable [Audience Laughs]. My granny always said that. It was the weight of being a middle child. No, I think, you know, we sound really negative about a lot of things.

AD: Actually, I’m really positive about architecture.

NG: Yeah, about architecture – that’s a different thing. Architecture’s got nothing to do, as I said, nothing to do with professionalism, or practice, or anything, it just exists. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t – sometimes by architects and sometimes by people who are not architects. I think just take courage, be brave, and do your own thing – which I didn’t, but I think you should. That’s what I would advise myself if I was your age.

spend, as I just have, nine years doing one building, and you walk into the end of it through the doors and it still gives you goosebumps. That’s what this is about. If you’ve always got some ambition about what you are doing, and a real desire to pursue an idea in what you make, then you’ll always enjoy it.

AD: You just about brought me to tears there! [Audience Laughs].

‘What’s a fantastic feeling, is when you spend, as I just have, nine years doing one building, and you walk into the end of it through the doors and it still gives you goosebumps. That’s what this is about.’ - BB

DM: That’s twice tonight Alan! Next time we’ll bring the Kleenex and do it properly.

AD: Oh that was brilliant Bill, really!

DM: I’m sure this could have run on and on and on, but I guess we should finish. I think it’s been great getting the questions from the students. They were good areas and good themes so thanks very much for that, whether asked here in person or through the background of technology.

Can you show your appreciation to our guests? [Audience applause].

BB: There’s this one piece of advice.

What’s a fantastic feeling, is when you BACK

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The Future: Reflections on Technology

Scott Sutherland School

Reflections on Technology The majority of my own research over the years has concerned the use of digital technologies within our industry.

This has mainly concerned the impact of digitisation of the processes which can be used to help the users of buildings participate in design, and in recent years has looked at the ways in which design teams themselves can cooperate, work together and share information.

Richard Laing shares his thoughts on digital technologies and the future of the construction industry.

These topics are not new, and have been the subject of research and development since the 1960s (with regards to participation, certainly), and have been a supposed driver for change for well over 20 years. How many students of the 1980s and 90s could ever forget the excitement over ‘coordinated project information’, and the aspirations of Egan?

What is perhaps different now is that digital technology has almost reached a point where one no longer needs to become a pseudo computer programmer in order to make the technology ‘work’.

Laser scanning requires the press of a single button, and augmented and virtual reality can be used by anybody owning a smartphone. Nevertheless, and as we are continually reminded, digitisation of the industry (including building information modelling) is not about the technology – it is about changing the ways in which we work, cooperate and collaborate.

What has also been striking in the past 2-3 years has been a shift in the emphasis of discussion about smart cities and smart technology. Although it was necessary for early developments to concentrate on making sure that the technology worked (including sensors, data storage, file formats, access, and so on), the bigger and more important questions relate to why we might actually wish to engage in the use of digitally enhanced buildings at all.

Thankfully, for the meantime at least, discussions have moved towards the notion that smart technology can and should be used to improve quality of life. That much of this might happen

in a way which is largely invisible to the occupants of a city is perhaps the point – we don’t need to know that air quality, traffic emissions, energy use and refuse collection are being informed and controlled using a sensor network, but we might notice the effects, and for the better.

Recent societal debate concerning data privacy will come to affect all aspects of society in the coming years. The fact remains that the study of our academic disciplines has always recognised the complex yet necessary combination of technology, social sciences, politics and democratic concerns in the design and use of buildings. Therefore, Scott Sutherland is well placed to address the societal and technological challenges which lie ahead.

Just as leading social media firms have come to realise that information can be used for a whole range of purposes - not all of which are acceptable to society - we must as an industry work to ensure that our built environment can be inclusive, recognise the needs of people and the constraints on resources which will come to affect us all. These concerns will drive our research and teaching in urban design, digitisation, community engagement and project management in the coming years, and perhaps point to ways in which the School can play an active role within our wider society.

Professor Richard Laing

2018 Yearbook

Perspectives: Architectural Technology Graduate

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Tom Dryburgh Architectural Technology Graduate

‘I realised I had plenty to offer and my experience at Scott Sutherland had assisted me in this advantage. Whilst studying, I learned a wide range of skills which made me more flexible in the workplace as a fresh graduate.’

Since graduating from the Architectural Technology course at Scott Sutherland School, I have spent nearly 12 months living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

I have been working as a Junior Architectural Technologist in a large international architecture firm whose projects are predominately large scale, high quality buildings in Dubai. The opportunity arose initially as 6-month internship, but I quickly settled in and was delighted to be offered to a more permanent position. I realised I had plenty to offer and my experience at Scott Sutherland had assisted me in this advantage.

Whilst studying, I learned a wide range of skills which made me more flexible in the workplace as a fresh graduate - I could go from producing concept imagery for client presentations to drafting up construction details for contractors. So even as an employee with relatively little work experience, I felt confident that my skills could be used on a variety of different tasks.

architects, another Brit and an Australian in the Ho Chi Minh City office. We also communicate and work very closely with the Dubai office as well. When you are part of a multinational and multi-disciplinary company, you can really learn a lot.

Living in Vietnam has also been a great experience, when I finished university I felt an urge to travel and see more of the world and it happens that Ho Chi Minh City has been a great hub for doing this. I’ve since visited Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar and many places within Vietnam itself. But to be honest, in many ways, every day in Ho Chi Minh City feels like an adventure and I think that’s why I like working abroad. I’ve come to realise I’d really like to continue working abroad, and not necessarily just in Vietnam.

In the last 12 months, I have quickly realised what I have to offer and now after my experience of working abroad I feel self-assured that I could continue to develop my career in many countries worldwide.

The little experience that I did have however, came through the Architectural Technology course in the work placement during stage 3. This placement allowed me to understand what it is like to work in an architectural practice and so I had a clearer vision on what to expect for future employment. This experience was a key part of my CV which allowed me to stand out and give my employer confidence that I was ready to work in a professional environment.

Working abroad has been fun, I work with around twenty-five Vietnamese BACK

UNIT 1

AVIEMORE Unit 1 of Stage 6

Architecture concerns

itself with the exploration of the issues of identity

and resilience in focussed urban and rural contexts.

For the past two years, this

focus has been on the rural settlement of Aviemore.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Aviemore

Scott Sutherland School

How can architecture help a town with a wildy different perceived and real identity?

Unit 1 have been studying the Aviemore and the Cairngorms National Park, responding to the town’s decline with a proposal to densify around a new town centre.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Aviemore

Unit 1, also known as the Housing Research and Practice Unit, is an experimentally minded, research-based design studio which explores issues such as identity and resilience within focussed urban and rural contexts around Scotland.

residents who work in Scotland’s larger administrative centres and cities or holiday retreats and second homes for visitors and outsiders. Over the past two years, the unit has explored these contemporary issues in relation to the Cairngorms National Park.

In the advent of technology and the move towards multinational chain retailing, town centres and high streets, as we know them to be, are quickly becoming a thing of the past. At the same time, much of the housing estates we see today have not been the work of architects, but that of developers who believe the tastes and aspirations of new buyers can be reflected through the delivery of generic, budget homes in high volumes.

The loss of individuality inherent with these trends has led to the homogenisation of many of our towns, and even where the grasp of chain retailing and developer culde-sacs has not yet reached, the story is equally bleak. Bereft of purpose and of the crafts and trades which once established them, many of Scotland’s more rural towns and villages have been left increasingly isolated by our modern way of organising business. In such a context, they often become mere dormitory villages for

The proposition and challenge of the unit was to explore new housing typologies (in the broadest sense), that could interpret and accommodate relevant social, cultural and technological tendencies. We sought to develop strong and sustainable local economies within the park which, whilst being resilient to future changes and pressures, could increase the prosperity and opportunities available to the people who live and work there.

Incorporating some of the most spectacular scenery in the country, with its vast glens and valleys, the park comprises 4,528 square kilometres, which accounts for almost 6 per cent of Scotland’s total land area and is home to around 18,000 people. Tourism is very much the lifeblood of the area, with the 1.5 million visitors that flock to the park each year accounting for almost 31% of the economy.

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The proposal for the town is ambitious, focussed on densification and diversification, and creating a new centre to be used by both tourists and locals.

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Aviemore

Scott Sutherland School

This reliance is reflected also in the fact that 43% of total employment in the park is in sectors directly related to services which cater for tourists. The corresponding out-flux of the younger generation to bigger cities in search of education and work in skilled realms, and the influx of short-term seasonal workers to cope with the demands of tourists has fragmented the social and spatial fabrics of many of the small towns and villages in the park. A particularly salient, but unique example of a place affected by such issues is the settlement of Aviemore, located within a natural corridor known as Strathspey.

purposeful market and service centres by the notable improving lairds of the 18th century, Aviemore grew as a result of the connections which were being drawn between other places with the arrival of the Strathspey Railway.

To those who know it, Aviemore today is often seen as a byword for tacky tourism as a result of the ad-hoc nature of its development and the particularly incoherent state of its built environment.

The settlement has always differed from the traditional Highland villages of the Cairngorms in this respect. Whilst the others were formally planned as

Despite the flaws of its built environment, which were the product of its rapid expansion and the subsequent waning of the winter sports industry, the outstanding location of the settlement alongside the major A9 road and the main railway line to Inverness makes Aviemore one of the best connected rural towns in the country.

It has access to a whole range of natural resources, attractions, and outdoor activities on its doorstep and, with over 3,000 inhabitants, continues to boast the largest population in the Cairngorms National Park.

Recognising the inherent potential which exists within the settlement, we studied Aviemore and its development in great depth and have used it as a vehicle

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Aviemore

through which to explore the fundamental issues of identity and resilience which are central to the work of this unit.

along key north-south transport routes.

Buildings increase in height and density towards a public square surrounded by civic and mixed uses at the heart of the new centre. From the square, a new bridge link with integrated railway station runs off towards the proposed new settlement of An Camas Mor masterplanned by Gehl Architects in the east.

Could Aviemore be re-imagined as strong Highland hub, fit for purpose in the 21st Century? And, could a sustainable centre be established in the town for the benefit locals and for tourists? In exploring these questions, the unit produced a strategic proposal for the reimagination of the highland town during Stage 5 and subsequently developed a series of individual projects within the context of the proposal during Stage 6, including new housing initiatives, a culturehouse, market hall, music venue, timber research centre and distillery.

The proposal for the town is an ambitious transformation that focuses on densification and diversification, creating a new centre to the town to be used by both tourists and locals alike. Using the traditional fishing village and herringbone street patterns of historic high streets as precedents, the new proposal is arranged as a one-sided element, opening up the town to the extensive landscape to the east and south-east, and building on the linear character of the existing settlement

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Whilst the proposal, at first glance, may seem radical and inappropriate for a small town in a National Park, we can say that Aviemore is a town which has experienced rapid change several times throughout its life, and the community has continued to survive and prosper. It seems reasonable that the town should transform itself once again to prepare itself for the future.

Calum Dalgetty, Stuart Dilley, Neil Mair

BACK

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Calum Dalgetty

Scott Sutherland School

Culture as a Social Engine for Change Calum Dalgetty

The culture house has long been a key element of northern European society, however, the economic, cultural and social benefits that they generate haven’t been embraced in the UK to the same extent.

Aviemore and the wider Cairngorms present an opportunity to bring together a range of cultural, social and economic activities together under one roof. The brief comprises a hybrid programme including a community library, cafĂŠ, retail

gallery, a 300-seat cinema theatre and a town room.

Conceptually, the building has been conceived as a solid stone plinth on top of which the timber box of the theatre sits surrounded by a screen of stone fins.

This plinth allows for the incorporation of a substantial supermarket unit to the rear which will provide it with a sustainable rental income.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Neil Mair

Frame + Infill Neil Mair

This project is a proposal for a Food Centre, comprising a Market Hall, Street Food Hall, Cookery School, and Serviced Apartments. The different activities of the brief function on an inter-dependent basis with the aim of embedding food and drink as part of the Cairngorms visitor experience, improving collaboration between local producers and suppliers, and enabling opportunities for community engagement and food education for all.

Founded on the principles of order and grid in the form of two linear volumes, the project seeks to establish a sense of legibility within the existing disorder of Aviemore. It also facilitates a system of frame and infill to provide a degree of adaptability for future contingencies of use, given the rapid change experienced by the settlement in the past, and the demonstrable inability of its building stock to cope with such change.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Olivia Johnston

Scott Sutherland School

Ceol an Aire Olivia Johnston

The project is designed to allow music to flow around a building and be heard in every part; the spaces should feel like they are carved from one solid material; and the building is to be a journey up and around the music.

The building revolves around a central brick atrium space which is then encompassed by a three metre thick inhabited brick wall; this space allows for

an informal bar and seating area in which to listen to live music.

It is intended the music would be heard wherever you are around this informal space, with spaces interlinking between different levels. Contrasting this, a more formal private performance area is situated above the first area, which contains a different musical experience for the user.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Fiqry Fadhil

Aviemore’s Transport Future Fiqry Fadhil

The role of railway stations has become increasingly more important in the 21st century. Many urban planners have featured them at the centre of their transportation and urban regeneration strategies.

A new station would not only enhance the prosperity of Aviemore, but could also create economic growth and opportunities for major investment in the town centre.

Aviemore is experiencing rapid but uncoordinated urban development, and a new station could become the urban hub that brings all commercial and mixed-uses together. Evolving into a transport hub gateway, connecting the central belt to the north, a Business Centre next to the station will spur a new form of tourism for Aviemore – business tourism.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Katie Rice

Scott Sutherland School

Cairngorm Sheiling Katie Rice

With Aviemore’s popularity as a tourist destination, much of the available work is low paid, unskilled and seasonal. This project aims to create a contemporary ‘sheiling’ to accommodate workers of the industry.

The Scottish term ‘Sheiling’ refers to a dwelling or collection of dwellings built for seasonal use and can be found in the rural hills and mountains of Scotland.

This project explores the concept of co-housing as an alternative means of addressing the huge demand for studio and one-bedroom units in the town. This allows higher density building in a pattern of buildings, lanes and courtyards – creating a micro society within the town where residents have everything at their fingertips with housing above and public functions below.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Jennifer Robertson

Im/position Jennifer Robertson

This project explores an alternative to the light-touch, low-profile approach taken to building in ‘natural’ landscapes, in order to provoke the user to consider their imposition on such a landscape. Precedent for this was taken from sculptors and artists who work in the landscape, as their work is a response primarily to site or situation, rather than to a functional brief for human occupation. The proposal is the result of observations made when walking

in the landscape; intended to demonstrate that this landscape, marketed for its wildness, is actually highly industrialised.

To allow the building to be experienced by many people, the chosen functional brief is tourist accommodation. The tourist industry is one of the most excessive in terms of its consumption of natural resources so the brief serves to augment the notion of imposition.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Darragh Martin

Scott Sutherland School

Aviemore Sports and Wellbeing Darragh Martin

This project seeks to refurbish and extend the vacant Strathspey Hotel in providing sports and wellbeing facilities for Aviemore and the greater Speyside region.

in each of these three storey blocks and ensure a distinct connection with nature is achieved which will help in the patients recovery process.

Medical disciplines including rehabilitation, minor surgery and mental health services are each accommodated in independent three storey blocks distributed throughout the proposed fifteen storey tower.

Dedicated healing gardens are placed

The building form and facade treatment seeks to create a sculptural tower in the landscape on a site which historically has accommodated some of the most dominant buildings in the Cairngorms.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Connor Inglis

Architecture in Detail Connor Inglis

In a town such as Aviemore dominated by tourism, what entices locals to become more involved with their society? A shortage of dedicated community space sparked the idea of an adaptable building forming a hub for all current and future interests within the town.

A cluster of flexible modules are arranged randomly beneath a floating, undulating canopy in an attempt to allow the structure

to integrate seamlessly into the landscape of the National Park.

The proposal accommodates intriguing recreational areas including classrooms, a lecture theatre, conference rooms, meeting rooms and computer labs. It also houses vibrant social spaces such as a cafĂŠ and bookstores. All of which fuse together, offering opportunities and entertainment to residents of Aviemore.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Stuart Dilley

Scott Sutherland School

Cairngorm Timber Research Campus Stuart Dilley

Aviemore currently does not have any further or higher education, therefore leading many young people to leave the National Park and not return. This project seeks to diversify the economy of the park by introducing education to the town, focussing on timber technologies, forestry and timber craft.

Buried into the surrounding woodland, students and academics can feel engaged

with their field of study and have a real world impact.

The campus takes the form of a solid stone plinth, within which teaching spaces are found, with lighter timber elements above. Student accommodation is located within a timber tower, the tallest timber structure in the world. It is designed to be as visible as possible, to inspire and educate students at the campus.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Vicky Mitchell

A Spirit of Place Vicky Mitchell

Like a sculpture in the landscape; this project set out to create a contemporary distillery and visitors centre experience with a focus on craft and people within the industry.

The whisky process was the real driving concept and is represented by six stark charred timber cubes, floating above a pool of water and contrasting against the beautiful landscape; merging the process,

the materials and the beautiful context for people to experience.

Just as an understanding of whisky is enhanced through materials, light is also employed in this project to guide visitors through the spaces, drawing parallels between the light of the space and the visitors understanding of the whisky industry and its processes.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Matthew Holmes

Scott Sutherland School

Social Courtyards Matthew Holmes

This scheme’s concept is focussed on creating tight, social courtyard spaces that people could enjoy. A window is not just a window; it is a place for someone to sit. The design arranges the courtyards to create a spatial hierarchy between the private spaces and the public spaces.

The design clads the homes in shingles and shakes appropriate to a human scale, with a different material assigned to each

courtyard cluster so that people read them as smaller groups of buildings rather than one large development.

Galvanised steel provides a clean edge that wraps around all of the shingles. The residents are able to change their own cladding over time without disrupting the appearance of the buildings as a galvanised steel strip creates a clean edge and maintains coherence.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Kristine Senko

Conifer Glen Kristine Senko

This project focuses on a high end private housing development in Aviemore consisting of 49 units. The site layout is derived from a monohedral tiling pattern which means all plot shapes are identical and fit together seamlessly. This allows for placing the 3, 4, and 5 bed houses individually at any corner of the shape to benefit from maximum views, privacy and daylight. The proposal differs from standard private housing developments

by increasing density and by removing front gardens, leaving the whole street environment a completely shared space for the users.

The materiality is black brick and copper for the houses and stone cobble with gravel for the street surface. The garden walls stretch across the whole site and blend in with the houses as a monolithic form of continuity.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Eddie Hughes

Scott Sutherland School

The Man in the Shed Eddie Hughes

This project investigates the opportunity that communities have in being at the forefront of a medical crisis ripping through Scotland; mental health. With increasing mental health issues within all demographics, coupled with the lack of services, the Scottish Government does not have the resources to cope. ‘The Man in the Shed’ is a concept studying social isolation within men and

the capabilities that communities could have in being a first step intervention for such mental and social issues.

By creating a communal relationship through the integration of many different age groups, the intention is to create a strong social space in the already existing context of Aviemore, void of remoteness and scrutiny.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 1: Reflections

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Reflections: Resilient Cities and Towns Stage 6 Unit 1 have completed their two year study of Aviemore and the Cairngorms National Park (CNP). The proposition of the unit was to explore new building typologies, which could interpret and accommodate current social, cultural and technological tendencies. The primary challenge was to deliver social and economic benefits for communities, visitors and businesses, whilst having resilience to guard against future pressures. The unit studied how history, resources, and landscape had informed the development of places in the CNP over time, including the planned Scottish towns and villages of the 18th and 19th centuries, where aesthetic, structural, political, and social orders were reinforced.

Aviemore became the focus of the unit’s work. It was never a planned town, but rather grew sporadically following the arrival of the railway and later with winter tourism.

It has remained a prosperous town despite uncertainty in its tourist market and despite a lack of architectural identity. There are ongoing proposals for new development in and around the town including the planned new settlement of An Camas Mor. The students visited and interviewed Aviemore residents, seeking to understand their opinions of the town today. One of the main findings identified was a perceived lack of a defined ‘centre’. Indeed, when probed, most

residents would define the centre as either being the local Tesco or the public toilets!

The proposal for Aviemore was to both densify and diversify, creating a new town centre that can be identified and used by both residents and visitors and adding to the range and mix of activities and businesses and places to live that the town might offer. Taking inspiration from planned Scottish towns and villages, the final proposal emphasised a relationship between ordered built form and position in the landscape by creating a new ‘edge’ and public square facing the mountains.

The students discussed the proposals with landscape and town planners who are based at the CNP Authority, along with local landowners and business and community representatives. The individual projects promote new activities in Aviemore, including new housing typologies and accommodation for tourists, and projects ranging from a whisky distillery, to further education and community and cultural buildings and even a new Tesco! The School hopes that, by flying this kite, we have provoked and enhanced a debate in the community about the future of a more resilient Aviemore.

Professor Gokay Deveci, Bill Black BACK

UNIT 2

SCHOOL Unit 2 of Stage 6 Architecture considers itself to be a ‘typological’ rather than a ‘geographical’ unit. This specific cohort focussed on school design, with students free to explore a location anywhere in the world within their project.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: School

Can architecture have a positive impact on education?

‘School design is one of the few areas in architecture today where designers are still able to define and influence human conditions.

School buildings require striking a balance between use, performance and an architecture informed by education.’ - Herman Hertzberger

Scott Sutherland School

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: School

As a unit, we aim to understand whether we can influence the facilities that provide such a valuable service such as education to our young people. Following a debate that took place after a Scottish Primary school’s construction failed, we decided to investigate what went wrong with educational architecture in Scotland and what we, as architects, can do to improve the situation.

learning capacities. They should leave the academic environment as wellrounded young adults who have bright futures and can adapt to a fast-paced world.

We researched different forms of education worldwide and delved into the procurement methods, technologies and curriculums that are behind them in order to better our designing for the next generation.

Education is a vital part of development and the school building is where this happens on a daily basis. Therefore, it cannot simply be regarded as a building, a general curriculum or a physical entity. Its complexity lies is in its purpose and responsibility to educate and develop children in preparation for their futures.

A school should be a place where children go with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds and a willingness to take risks in exploring the parameters of their

Unfortunately, throughout Britain, there is a sense of disarray and unease in the education system due to the 2016 PISA results. It is our aim to change this and research the best school designs throughout the world, which in turn will allow us to create a positive impact on the education system in Britain.

As a whole, we can conclude that successful schools lie in the hands of the architects. We accept that there are variables that affect school design such as curriculum, pedagogy, procurement, education system, and the students themselves. However, our research has established that coherent design of learning spaces has implementations upon the educational success of the school.

In summary, we have come upon the decision that there is no ideal solution to designing educational facilities, but there are solutions specific to certain places and times. There are crucial elements that must

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: School

Scott Sutherland School

be considered in order to create the perfect environment for education.

Internally, school buildings should be a place of safety and inclusion, an environment that can enhance learning through means of architecture. This can be achieved through the quality of light, acoustic performance and the ‘inbetween’ spaces that make up the rest of a school outwith the realms of the classroom. Natural daylighting is a free resource that we should utilise as research has shown that it’s more beneficial to the performance and wellbeing of children.

One element that must be considered is the institutional identity within the social and religious context; the physical identity of a school is secondary to this, although they both contribute to how children create their own identity and formulate their own perceptions.

Communities aid the success of schools by giving the students crucial social skills, in return, schools can help communities by providing facilities that they wouldn’t otherwise have. An aspect of this connection with community is security: this should not just be a physical fence or a barrier around the perimeter of the school. The feeling of safety should be implemented through innovative technology and landscaping, along with a consideration for the schools’ particular context, in such a way that doesn’t take away from the children’s freedom.

As a group, we understand that every child deserves a place at a good school and we hope that our research can provoke a discussion in a positive manner towards modern school design.

Along with this, acoustics must be considered during the early stages of design to produce a coherent scheme which doesn’t require later alterations.

Acoustics are vital in classrooms, not only for the concentration of students but also to assist the teacher and prevent them from having to strain their voice.

Every moment that students spend in school is precious - they are learning and absorbing continuously. Unfortunately, a

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: School

third of all school buildings are taken up by circulation spaces that aren’t used to their full educational potential, therefore, to heighten the learning experience throughout the school, these spaces should be utilised as learning areas not just a means of transporting students from one class to the next.

result for school designs in Britain and, on a wider scale, the world.

When designing school buildings, we must consider modern teaching methods, curriculums and technologies. These are continuously adapting and altering to suit our world, and so when designing learning spaces, it is crucial to not place too much emphasis on them - particularly technologies. Students need a teacher to encourage independency and the ability to think for themselves, developing problem solving skills without relying on the internet and technology.

As a group, we understand that every child deserves a place at a good school and we hope that our research can provoke a discussion in a positive manner toward school design.

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Within our society, we have manifested many different forms of teaching and curriculums that categorise the skills of our society into a refined format that we can communicate to the younger generations that drive our community forward.

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2

With the advancing world and the technologies that come with it, our society has adapted to teach our children how to become better citizens in the 21st century. Procurement across the globe is presented in various ways but we can unite them together through comparative studies to give the best BACK

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: Mariem Ahmed

Scott Sutherland School

Islamic Academy, Glasgow Mariem Ahmed

Pollokshields hosts Scotland’s largest Muslim community where 48% of all school-age children are Muslim therefore, the demand for a faith school, integrated within a western society, is high.

The design accommodates for the children of Glasgow by forming a contemporary and fitting design within its setting and also, relating to the architectural styles of the East.

The site is occupied with trees of great height surrounding its perimeter. Without affecting the beauty of the fully developed trees and in attempt for a close connection to nature, the majority remain on site. The form of the school is rotated at an angle, to accommodate both prayer halls that face the direction of worship towards Mecca at 118 degrees. The form is then created by using a grid that faces 118 degrees which sits cosily between the trees.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: Charles Follett

Aviemore Academy, Highlands Charles Follett

The design is intended to visually embody a sense that the school is moulded with the landscape. To the east of the site, at the base of an on-looking hill, named Craigellachie, sits a silver birch forest that scatters off around the town of Aviemore.

The natural context can now become a part of the school for practitioners to utilise as a way of integrating the latest factor in the curriculum for excellence: outdoor learning. Its design is made

for intuitive way-finding so the children can identify with the school’s spaces independently.

The roof is a literal representation of the surrounding, made up of a custom timber structure. Its geometry is decided from the plan beneath, making the largest assembly space at the centre of the school, to allow teaching spaces, offices and ancillary rooms to circulate around it.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: Rikki Geddes

Scott Sutherland School

Nhulunbuy High, Northern Territory Rikki Geddes

In 1955, The Northern Territory was explored for natural resources, with the creation of a mine, refinery and factory.

Being in such a remote location a settlement was also required, resulting in the town of Nhulunbuy.

In 2014, the Australian government set in place an initiative where hub schools in prime locations would support surrounding villages. With the areas being vast the

schools offer living accommodation along with advanced learning capabilities.

With the added flux of students and the age of the existing facility, I felt it was of high importance that a new school became available to all attending. The school is to be used as a place of learning and socialising for all attending but also for all the inhabitants of the town.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: Yevgen Gozhenko

The Red School Yevgen Gozhenko

The project is located in South East London, Peckham - an area with an extremely diverse and rich culture, but where anti-social behaviour is common.

With a push from the Council, the momentum is there to make a change. My ambition is to make a statement; a new hope for a brighter future in Peckham.

Highly inspired by the surrounding context, the building explores the brick exterior and

takes it further by seamlessly adding other materials to the tectonic mix. It is no longer a brick building, it is a colour building.

Concrete, anodised aluminium, even the mortar, all match in colour to create a uniform facade. The concept of the facade responds to the highly diverse population of Peckham. Mixing the materials as one aesthetic symbolises different communities coming together under one roof of the Red School.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: Joe Leask

Scott Sutherland School

Anderson High School, Shetland Islands Joe Leask

School as an experience takes up a large portion of time in one’s life. In this initial phase you progress as a person, learn key skills and you are prepared to take your place within society.

My project looks closely at the school experience on the Shetland Islands. The long overdue need for a new hub super school facility in the main town of Lerwick and the issues involved in introducing a

modern large-scale building to a place beautiful and sensitive in context.

Furthermore, I looked to offer a solution that is unique aesthetically and in experience, responding to the strong culture and character of the islands. This was to be a design that is contextually focused, site specific and that utilises local expertise and materials for construction.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: Julie Neilson

School for Autism, Aberdeenshire Julie Neilson

There are around 50,000 people living with autism in Scotland; equating to just less than 1 in 100 people. Unfortunately, education has lagged in architecturally catering for the needs of the autistic user, and there are currently only two autismspecific schools located in Scotland.

Therefore, it is my aim to select a site which caters for autism in the north of Scotland. Marykirk is located 30 minutes

from both Dundee and Aberdeen. This is a highly rural area and another key aspect of design was to integrate and encourage the community into the school with a sporting facility, swimming pool and usable hall.

The key aim was to create a safe environment with a connection to the landscape, and an architecture which is adapted for the learning requirements of children with autism.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: Nathan Noble

Scott Sutherland School

Montessori School, New York Nathan Noble

The Montessori Method aims to provide children with a rich learning environment based around self-directed activity, hands on learning and collaborative play. Through my project, I wanted to investigate how the built environment could enhance this type of teaching. Although subjective, the six key parameters of Montessori - freedom, beauty and atmosphere, order, nature, didactic materials, and community life have driven my project.

The challenge was to design a Montessori school in a heavily urban environment as part of a mixed-use development which consists of commercial units, a gym, a school, and residential units. I put emphasis on nature, providing each classroom with access to a garden space.

This is further exaggerated through the facade which consists of a seemingly solid volume with large cut outs to represent the gardens.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: Hannah Skyner

Architecture and Pedagogy Hannah Skyner

There are three key subjects which The Parkmore Schools addresses: adaptive reuse as a form of sustainable design; integration of all ages including the wider community; and the requirement for variation of teaching spaces in contemporary schools.

An aspect of our group work which all of us had considered in depth was the importance of pedagogy and how it

affects the requirements of a learning environment. The aim of my final semester was therefore to expand on our group research and consider how the way children learn will transform in the future, primarily due to technology. This correlates with my four-semester thesis being to create the schools of the future within the buildings of the past. I presented ‘Architecture and Pedagogy’ at the RIAS Convention 2018.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: Rolands Ziva

Scott Sutherland School

Vocational School, Liepaja Rolands Ziva

My Vocational School of Computing and Digital Technology is a response to the changing economy of Liepaja. An open plan building will accommodate a school, co-working spaces and start-up incubator.

The concept of the building included placing different professionals under one floating roof, designed to promote the possibility of accidental interaction and knowledge sharing between groups.

In-between spaces have been created to accommodate different uses required for the school. Spaces are created for smaller meeting areas, more private areas for individual work and studios for bigger groups. Circulation has been designed to go through these different areas. The heart of the building is a central courtyard, which is perfect space for presentations, exhibitions, events and learning purposes.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 2: Reflections

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Reflections: Architecture and Education For the past 20 years education has been at the centre of the political debate and substantial amounts of private and public money has been invested by various governments into the improvement of the school estate throughout the UK. The Scottish government’s ‘Creating Places; a policy statement on architecture and place for Scotland’ seems to stress the importance of good design and the fundamental role of the architect, particularly at the heart of creating new learning environments and well designed and constructed school buildings.

A worthy ambition, which has been poorly realised, with the emphasis more on cost control, delivery and the ‘financial benefit’ of creating design prototypes.

The work of Unit 2 was initially inspired by the BBC Investigates programme ‘How Safe is My School?’ broadcast in August 2016. Students researched the construction failings and poor design quality of contemporary school buildings and stage 5 and 6 worked on a single brief; to investigate the quality of school design throughout the UK and internationally and into procurement, construction,

Curriculum for Excellence and the work of the Scottish Futures Trust.

The outcome of their research work, some of which was presented at the beginning of this chapter, was a publication which brought together a history of education and school buildings in Scotland, alongside building studies of great schools globally. Approaches to education and teaching and their impact on the built form were compared.

They then selected a location and a site for their own school projects and prepared designs for primary and secondary schools in Scotland, the UK and internationally from what they had learned.

Their individual projects were further developed during their third semester to a highly detailed level, as published here. In the final semester, students could choose to pursue any specialised aspect of their design work.

Professor Alan Dunlop, David Vardy

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UNIT 3

QUOTIDIAN Unit 3 of Stage 6

Architecture considers

architecture as the backdrop of everyday, ‘quotidian’

human activity, and explores

this notion within the context of Aberdeen’s periphery;

focusing in particular on the

floodplains of the River Dee.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: The Quotidian

Scott Sutherland School

Unit 3 has long been interested in the peripheral and the marginal, focusing our research on the urban sprawl of Aberdeen.

Unit 3 of Stage 6 took the somewhat unusual step of identifying the River Dee as a potential arterial route into the city, and chose to develop their masterplan on the challenging floodplains.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: The Quotidian

Unit 3’s research began by looking at the everyday or as we called it, the Quotidian.

This investigation was purely within the context of Aberdeen, continuing the Unit’s tradition of identifying different conditions around the city and working on a masterplan relating to them.

grows in the future, we realised that the city has mostly grown in-between its two rivers, the River Dee and the River Don. The AWPR encircles a larger area outside of this traditional boundary, including the area south of the River Dee and north of the River Don.

The newest of these conditions is the new bypass of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route. We started by studying the city as it currently exists and how it has grown up to this point, before developing three strategies that attempt to control and offer some kind of structure to any future growth.

With this in mind, we wanted to consider how the rivers could cease being a barrier for the city and instead become a potential arterial route. This was when we decided that combining our three strategies along the River Dee would be how we would develop our groupwork and create our masterplan.

The first strategy involved confining Aberdeen’s future growth to the arterial routes leaving the city. This was a reflection of how the city is currently growing and purely formalising this. The second involved a radial strategy where the growth would be collected into rings around the city. The final strategy was about identifying where the arterial routes joined the AWPR and creating nodes on these intersections.

By developing around the river, we needed to have an understanding of how to build on floodplains. This led us to looking at precedents around the world and identifying three main flooding strategies that could respectively be used on the three masterplanned sites.

After considering how the new AWPR might change the way that Aberdeen

The first site deployed the first flooding strategy, avoiding the river. This meant that the buildings would be raised above the floodplain on stilts so that when flooding happened, the buildings would be unharmed, allowing the everyday to

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Scott Sutherland School

continue as normal. This site is located just across the river from the Robert Gordon University and so would be used to connect education with industries and new businesses.

are present on the site, and nearby Blair’s Seminary with its associated walled gardens, led to the idea of creating a series of flooding levees around the masterplan, redirecting the river so that three protected, and inhabited islands were created as a result.

The second site is located just south of Cults, near Inchgarth Reservoir. This is proposed as a sports and leisure hub focusing on creating a new sporting environment for the University as well as a night life scene for the area. This meant that the buildings could potentially be fairly large and so we decided that they should try to resist the flood waters.

This was another flooding typology which meant that the buildings needed a solid, unfenestrated ground floor made from a strong material. Access to these buildings would be achieved through the introduction of a series of walkways at the first floor level.

The third and final site lies closest to the AWPR and draws inspiration from its surrounding context. This includes the communities of Camphill and Newton Dee, which are both inclusive developments for people with additional support needs.

A number of existing raised banks which

Our individual projects, designed over the course of the master’s programme, and published here, were developed within the context of the three sites identified by our masterplan.

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: The Quotidian

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: Andrew Kirwan

Scott Sutherland School

Living Bridge Andrew Kirwan

The inception of this expansive project came from two primary questions. How to solve the problem of building on a flood plain, and how to connect the Robert Gordon University Campus to the Southern side of the River Dee. Rather than adhere to the tenants we had set out in the group masterplan stage, I decided to take the idea of a single large piece of infrastructure, the bridge, and inhabit this with a diverse range of functions.

The horizontal nature of the bridge led me to the two anchor points at either end. The Northern end houses the Aberdeen Tattoo Academy, acting as the essential gateway from the south. The southern anchor point developed to become a soaring residential tower of glass and steel in the vein of Mies Van Der Rohe. Below this, the southern abutment of the bridge runs through ninety degrees and becomes a fresh food market for all of Aberdeenshire.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: Kirsten MacFarlane

Biodiversity Research Centre Kirsten MacFarlane

The aspect of flooding and the conditions it creates has been a pivotal focus over the two years of master’s. This project was focusing in on a site and project that dedicated itself to the research and discoveries of the effects that flooding has on biodiversity.

The floodplain on which the building sits was designed to have a lattice of retention ponds that provide different frequencies

of flood occurrence in each section for the scientists to research and also for the public to enjoy.

Within the building itself, it provides public, educational and research facilities with a drive to constantly to be connected with the natural surroundings, further emphasised by the implementation of a temperate greenhouse.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: Thomas Perritt

Scott Sutherland School

Creative Hub Thomas Perritt

This project sits within a radical masterplan raised above the River Dee’s floodplain in Aberdeen, envisioned to be a fastpaced environment where learning and entrepreneurship overlap, creating exciting opportunities for the passionate and ambitious.

Designed as a mixed-use co-working facility for start-up businesses, freelance workers and students, the Creative Hub

aims to express the authenticity and reality of its occupants through its architectural character, contrasting with the ‘complete’ nature of corporate offices.

Inspired by Constant’s homo ludens, the top of the masterplan consists of a lattice of interconnected public roof terraces which challenge traditional ownership boundaries and remain free for play and leisure activities.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: Patrick Sim

Food Research Centre Patrick Sim

This project explores the relationship between climate change and agriculture within Aberdeen.

environments are intentionally generic spaces which allow for a range of activity to occur.

The focus of the research is on looking at alternative food sources (such as exchanging cricket protein for beef) in response to environmental concerns existing food systems are causing. The form and expression of the building relates to its place and site while the interior

This creates durability in terms of function which is the main environmental strategy for the project as this allows the building to evolve over time. The architecture aims to balance the pragmatism of efficient design with the joy and delight a building requires to make it worth maintaining.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: Fiona Logie

Scott Sutherland School

The Theatre Fiona Logie

Password: ‘Spectacle’

The focus for the individual project was a theatre exploring transparency and flexibility. The design explored the use of economic, industrial and utilitarian materials while being situated on a challenging floodplain. A concrete protective wall surrounding the building, allows it to sit within, like a fragile crystal.

The basis of the thesis, ‘Spectacle of the Temporary’ was to gain an understanding

of temporary structures as a response to the individual project.

The research involved a wide exploration of temporary precedents. Using this knowledge, a design project of an ephemeral structure was undertaken.

The construction process was recorded through video, highlighting the everyday movements, craft techniques and the presence that temporary installations bring.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: Danny Whitelaw

Cycle Hostel Scotland Danny Whitelaw

My projects over the last couple of years have been driven by my will to create and explore ideas about what architecture, buildings and society could be like in a world opposed to the norm.

My studio project started as a Cycle Hostel that could be used by cyclists touring the country. The building bridges between the two sides of the River Dee through a series of concrete piers and steel trusses which

give an atmospheric value that you might not expect from a cycle hostel.

This led into my thesis where I developed this oppressive feeling by circling Aberdeen with a structure akin to my studio project. I then explored the relation between this and the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route, creating iPad sketches referring to Japanese Manga artists like Tsutomu Nihei and Katsuhiro Otomo.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: Sophie Perrott

Scott Sutherland School

Resomation Complex & Memorial Gardens Sophie Perrott

Inspired by Neolithic recumbent stone circles found in North-East Scotland; the design relies on a procession through the site, taking mourners on a journey through grief to find inner peace. The design is a complex filled with sadness, yet enables people to see the light.

It maintains the memories of loved ones lost immersed within the architecture and mostly within the nature of the woodland

environment surrounding the complex: keeping them alive forever.

The thesis, ‘Morphing Two Worlds’, explores the reality of the complex; realising how it feels to be within this ‘other world’. Created using CGI/VFX animation and filmography software; through merging the world of imagination and creative media it brings communication of architecture into the future.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: Emily Fawdon

Healing Through Making Emily Fawdon

The two projects carried out during the master’s years have provided opportunities to use architecture as a vehicle in addressing mental health rehabilitation.

Whilst efforts are currently being made to address the stigma that is attached to mental health within the medical profession, the use of design could see a more effective change in engaging the public and collaboration with communities.

My interest throughout the master’s years was how to design in such a way to address this issue. The dramatic sculptural nature of origami and Japanese influences lead me to designing a bold building that engages with the community, artists and mental healthcare professionals.

In doing so I have designed a building type to accommodate a model of mental healthcare that currently does not exist.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: Sophie Houston

Scott Sutherland School

A Whole of Parts Sophie Houston

My main project proposes a new typology for health and social care for the elderly, to better integrate people with dementia into the wider community. A small respite centre is combined with a café, learning centre and library, as well as various therapy spaces. A central, sheltered courtyard links the three main aspects of the brief and becomes a temporal space for the residents, integral to their everyday life – the on-going theme of Unit 3.

The thesis concerns the ‘afterlife’ of the respite centre and the adjacent gardens, investigating how these spaces could potentially be inhabited and experienced.

The fragmented experience of the users - a result of their illness - inspired an exploration into more abstract representation techniques such as timebased drawing and textile art, focusing on the senses, textures and experiences found within the garden.

2018 Yearbook

Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: Nikhil Mair

Outdoors Activity Centre Nikhil Mair

The master’s course has enabled me to look at architecture in relation to the outdoors. In this forever growing age of technology I wanted to create a new gateway to the Scottish outdoors, a place where you can not only go out and explore Scotland’s beauty, but also require respite and relaxation within the building and its courtyards. With the centre appealing to many generations, people will visit this social hub from all over the UK.

As well as improving the health and social skills of these people, the image of Aberdeen can be improved by drawing people into the vicinity. By following geometries of the surrounding landscape and the masterplan, I have created a design that features alluring courtyards, handsome interiors and intriguing interactive deck spaces, all whilst selling the Scottish countryside.

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Stage 6 Architecture Unit 3: Andrew Pacitti

Scott Sutherland School

Walled Garden: Therapy & Recovery Centre Andrew Pacitti

Throughout my master’s years, I have been interested in two themes which have driven specific architectural studies in the design studio.

Health and nature have motivated my research and informed my core project ‘Walled Garden: Therapy and Recovery Centre’ which explores architecture and gardens as an integral part of recovery for injured people.

My thesis, ‘A Sequence of Garden Experiences’, is an extension of my studio project and a portrayal of the notion that gardens have healing properties whereby I have designed each individual garden within my scheme and portrayed them in a simplified and bold graphical style.

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Reflections: On Difficult Ground Stage 6 of Unit 3 have heroically completed the last stage of our peregrination around the marginal lands of Aberdeen. Over the last six years the work of Unit 3 has been predicated on the periphery, peripheral geographies that host peripheral communities. Students through their commitment, scholarship, energy and talent have taken a view on Aberdeen and its relationship to the coastline to the east and the backlands to the west. Invariably this view has been critical, surprising, challenging and accomplished.

Historically buildings tended to occupy difficult ground, reserving the best land for cultivation, the modest croft house that sits on the outcrop of rock. Christopher Alexander in his Pattern Language called for architects to build on the worst sites.

Today however our banal, mono-cultural suburbs spread across useful land.

Driven by a desire for private ownership represented by a detached house and garden our shared landscape is being devoured. The margins of all Scottish towns are smeared with dreary acres of, ironically, mock traditional farm houses.

Two years ago, Stage 6 selected a critical territory for the two years of their master’s course. Metaphorically they have connected the opposing arcs of sea and land bringing the unit’s explorations back to the beginning. The group adopted a radical approach to one of the arterial routes that join the city centre to the bypass and beyond. Instead of using the road, North Deeside Road, as the armature for their studies they proposed using the River Dee itself - a watercourse of great cultural, historical and economic significance to the City of Aberdeen.

While an architectural school is charged with rehearsing the origins and language of our discipline it must also be a place of research, speculation and scholarship.

This year has shown courage in proposing the difficult ground of the flood plain of the Dee as the vehicle for their architectural speculations. In return we have been rewarded by work of quality.

Professor Neil Gillespie, David Vila Domini

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McMemory:

McMemory

Scott Sutherland School

A Charity for Graeme McRobbie

The charity McMemory maker aims to provide families who are affected by life limiting illnesses with the equipment they need to create and remember lifelong memories.

2018 Yearbook

McMemory

Everyone deserves to have the opportunity to remember special moments with their loved ones. Life can be tough, time moves on and those cherished moments pass albeit never forgotten.

event his children will have as they grow up, from going to secondary school, higher education, getting married, first home - so that he will be part of it.

The charity McMemory maker aims to provide families who are affected by life limiting illnesses with the equipment they need to create and remember lifelong memories so that they can remember loved ones forever. The charity will also offer suggestions and help in creating and making memories together, as well as leaving very personal touches for loved ones that help a legacy live on.

This charity is set-up in memory of Graeme McRobbie who was a lecturer in Architecture. He was sadly diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer in August 2016 and died in September 2017. He was 36 and left his wife and two young children, aged 3 and 7.

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At the funeral #colourforgraeme was introduced and everyone was asked to colour in postcards of significant places to Graeme and his family. McMemory maker hopes to help any family in difficult situations to create memories that will last a lifetime and help a legacy live on forever.

If you would like to donate to the McMemory charity you can do so via JustGiving. justgiving.com/crowdfunding colourforgraeme

Despite his illness Graeme worked hard to create memories including a memory jar, lots of videoing and photos, writing a story and poems for his children, creating a memory box and writing letters and having a gift ready for every significant life BACK

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Alumni

Scott Sutherland School

Alumni Keep up-to-date with RGU or contact the Alumni Team Facebook: RGU Alumni LinkedIn: Robert Gordon Alumni Twitter: @AlumniRGU Email: service@alumni.rgu.ac.uk Phone: +44 (0)1224 262 285

For those of you who have come to the end of your course, congratulations on becoming a graduate of Robert Gordon University! You’ve now joined an influential global community of more than 84,000 alumni.

By staying in touch with the university, RGU will support you with access to networking programmes, career and professional development opportunities as well as offer you exclusive alumni discounts.

Many of the benefits and services are only available to graduates with a valid RGU Alumni Network Card. To get your card, contact the RGU Alumni Team with your name, date of birth and current address.

You can use your card to get discounted membership at the world-class facilities of RGU Sport, free library membership with a borrowing entitlement of five books and continued access to the Library Tower on campus.

For card holders that want to maintain their link with the students’ union, there is the opportunity to become an associate member. Membership costs £50 and allows alumni to maintain access to all of the union’s bars and facilities.

RGU’s physiotherapy clinic and podiatry services give Alumni Network Card holders a 15% discount off a comprehensive range of treatments to help you get back on track after illness or injury.

The university will also provide many opportunities for you to build your professional network and reconnect with your fellow alumni. These not only include alumni-focused networking programmes but opportunities that students, staff and the wider community will be invited to as well.

RGU wants to be a partner in your lifelong learning and professional development. Through the Employability

& Professional Enrichment Centre, you can have continued access to free career information, advice and guidance to support you in attaining a rewarding and meaningful career.

If at any point you’d like to return to RGU for further study, the university will welcome you back with a generous 20% loyalty discount on course fees.

To find out more about the range of benefits and services now available to you, email service@alumni.rgu.ac.uk and get in touch with the Alumni Team. Your student email account has even been transferred to a prestigious email-for-life inbox to help get you started.

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