Urban Realm Spring 2020

VOL10 ISSUE41 SPRING 2020

C E LTI C CONNE CTIO N: TUNNEL VISION

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01

M

I F TO AN ES

Black swan events shock by their very nature and the traumatic beginning to 2020 will create ripples that may take years to settle. Amid these ruptures however come opportunities as we all find time to re-assess entrenched ways of doing business.

The knock-on ramifications for already struggling town centre’s would seem to be unremittingly grim, with the likes of Paisley (pg 66) already grappling with a retail collapse. Intriguingly this may ultimately be a benefit in disguise for our ‘clone town’ society.

In the midst of the pandemic it can be hard to view the future with optimism but if you look closely the seeds of a better world can already be glimpsed. Tom Morton is among the first on the scene with a Phoenix of his own, banging the drum for a co-housing (pg 13) revolution, which promises to bring about a more collegiate form of living.

Self-isolation might be the mantra of the moment but rather than follow Trump’s lead in building a wall Boris has begun his premiership with calls to build a tunnel to Ireland (pg 74) - but is it any more likely to be built?

The shutdown also provides breathing room to develop new supply chains and production avenues as we find with our in-depth look at mass timber (pg 80). Its potential is well known but can a shock to the system spur adoption?

Elsewhere we mark the end of another era with a look at the life and work of Charles Jencks (pg 88), identifying how one man reshaped our collective landscape.

I hope these reports provide some comfort during the lockdown.

John Glenday, editor

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03

CONT ENTS QUARTERLY DIGEST 13 CO-HOUSING 23 KING’S STABLES ROAD 30 GEORGE STREET 34 EGYPTIAN HALLS 40 INTERIORS REPORT 55 TEAM ESTEEM 61 THE BARBICAN CENTRE 66 PAISLEY 74 CELTIC CROSSING 80 TIMBER DESIGN 88 CHARLES JENCKS 96 DIRECTORY 97 PRODUCTS 04

Cover image: Alan Dunlop

OUR EDITORIAL PANEL INCLUDES:

John Glenday

Mark Chalmers, architecture writer and photographer

Leslie Howson, director Urban Design

Thea McMillan, director, Chambers McMillan

Jonathan Reeve, architect, Voigt Partnership

Keri Monaghan, architect, Stallan-Brand

Alistair Scott, director, Smith Scott Mullan

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06

Q U A R T E R L Y D I G E S T J A N

CANDLERIGGS SQUARE Ongoing consultations have delivered several adjustments to the planned Candleriggs Square proposals in Glasgow, including a modest increase in height for its tallest element.

Led by Drum Property Group and

Stamford Property Investments with Stallan-Brand the new visuals demonstrate the evolving design intent for the site following submission of an overarching design framework for the site to Glasgow City Council.

BRIEFS Glasgow Airport could benefit from a Copenhagen-style automated Metro connection following an agreement between Glasgow and Renfrewshire Council’s to fund a new Metrostyle connection to Paisley.

The latest iteration of long-held plans to plug the airport into the rail network would see a spur track laid to Paisley Gilmour Street. If built this would serve as the backbone of a potential city-wide network to connect areas presently ill-served by public transport. For more on the regeneration of Paisley please see pg66.

Edinburgh’s Cameron Toll Shopping Centre is in line for significant expansion with the submission of plans for a new cinema and additional retail.

Lady Road Investment has appointed 3Dreid Architects to deliver a 10-screen multiplex and ground floor retail, detached from the body of the current centre by a new square with enhanced paving and planting.

AYR AMENITY

PURE DEAD BRILLIANT

Ayrshire Housing Association has firmed up plans to create 31 homes in the heart of Ayr with a full planning submission for their Carrick Street build.

Conceived in partnership with Alloway, owners of the Kyle Centre and Arran Mall, the gap site plan is being spearheaded by local practice ARPL to provide high amenity accommodation primarily geared toward the elderly.

Clyde Gateway together with Sheppard Robson and Inch Architecture & Design have presented proposals to transform a disused gas works in Dalmarnock, Glasgow, into office accommodation.

The regeneration plan seeks to safeguard the Victorian industrial survivor by repurposing an unlisted gas purifier shed and meter house to deliver 3,746sq/m of new floorspace.

COMMUNITY CARE Craigmillar has been chosen to host a mixed-use dementia care development comprising a care centre, assisted living homes and student accommodation.

Plans submitted by 3DReid detail an intergenerational approach which seeks to provide non-institutional care by engaging more broadly with the local community.

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Halliday Fraser Munro are to further change the face of Aberdeen with an application to build 33 apartments at Union Glen.

The proposal calls for the regeneration of an urban lane just a stone’s throw from Union Street by demolishing three separate warehouses in favour of a 5/6 storey apartment block with private gardens and deck access balconies.

The Scottish Prison Service has tabled plans for a new HMP Glasgow on vacant National Grid land at Provanmill, adjacent to a decommissioned gas storage site.

Designed by BakerHicks to provide replacement accommodation for the overcrowded Barlinnie jail the proposal of application notice calls for a ‘geology’ inspired facility for 1,200 offenders. finished in timber-effect cladding, photo engraved concrete and coloured render panels.

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Q U A R T E R L Y J A N D I G E S T COWIE UNCOWED

LEEDS PLAYHOUSE

BRIEFS

3DReid Architects have applied to build a new community hub in Cowie, Stirling, procured through the local authority on behalf of Hub East Central.

The Main Street build will centre on a double-height library addressing an enhanced streetscape with two flexible meeting spaces in the guise of a retail-style ‘shopfront’.

Page\Park Architects have followed up their work at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal with a radical overhaul and extension of Leeds Playhouse to improve accessibility and establish a colourful new frontage.

Driven by a need to rationalise a confused internal plan, the £13.4m transformation pivots the institution to St Peter’s Street.

A consultation is underway for a city-wide connectivity revolution in Edinburgh which could see the tram network extended north to Granton and south to the Bio Quarter while clearing vehicles from city centre streets.

The ambitious goals are laid out in a draft City Mobility Plan (CMP) which seeks to unclog the city’s arteries within a decade as part of efforts to become carbon neutral and respond to growing population pressures.

GARNOCK HUB North Ayrshire Council has granted planning consent for a community hub at Kilbirnie Loch, Garnock, which will double as a focal point for the Lochshore area.

Delivered by Hub South

West,Collective Architecture and Hirst the new hub will include a visitor centre and changing facilities for a local rugby club on the site of the former Glengarnock Iron Works.

The former College of Building and Printing in Glasgow is to begin a new lease of life as grade A office space in a joint venture between Osborne + Co and Scotsbridge Holdings.

The B-listed Metropolitan Tower will be subject to a full ‘defurbishment’ at the hands of Cooper Cromar architects to provide accommodation for 1,200 office workers in conjunction with up to 30,000sq/ft of retail, leisure and food & drink outlets within a co-working market hall.

A high profile southside housing development has taken in shape in Glasgow with completion nearing at CCG’s Riverford Gardens development in Pollokshaws.

Built alongside the White Cart River at Auldhouse Park the 156-home development includes a mix of apartments and threestorey terraced villas, conceived as a contemporary twist on a traditional terrace by Mast Architects.

The University of St Andrews with BMJ Architects have completed a marine research centre to support oceanic science via a bespoke temperaturecontrolled aquarium.

The £16.5m Scottish Oceans Institute is built on the site of the original Gatty Marine Laboratory at East Sands and incorporates a mix of open-plan offices and public engagement space on an exposed beachfront under a roof modelled to resemble a rolling wave.

08

Q U A R T E R L Y D I G E S T F E B

NEW MONKLANDS

NHS Lanarkshire has begun the process of delivering a new University Hospital Monklands with the launch of a series of engagement events for the public and staff.

This will provide an opportunity to

provide feedback on a shortlist of three potential sites for the hospital, which will be located at Gartcosh, Glenmavis or Wester Moffat. The technical team includes Keppie Design; WSP; TUV SUD and Currie & Brown.

HOME WORKING

FACTORY RESET

Edinburgh’s Annandale Street has been targeted for an 11-home infill development by Hackland + Dore Architects, which will see the practice demolish their studio to capitalise on the air space above.

Designed to fund the director’s pension pot the build would abut a Georgian tenement gable on the edge of the New Town Conservation Area, marrying contemporary design with traditional ashlar sandstone broken by precast concrete bands.

Access is provided by a vertical glazed recess adjoining gable wall, doubling as a transition element between the pair, with matching cast iron balustrades.

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BRIEFS Environmental consultancy LUC has become a full employeeowned business under the management of an employee ownership trust to permit broader-based governance.

The change in ownership will see profits and decision making shared between all employees under the direction of three trustees appointed to represent their interests: namely managing director Jon Grantham, finance and operations director Andrew Clarke and non-executive director Sue Sharland.

A disused school in Kirkcaldy has been taken on by Whiteburn Projects and LBA Architects who aim to build 96 homes within the main building and surrounding grounds.

14 of these homes will be inserted within the C-listed Viewforth High School with a further 82 new build dwellings earmarked for its surrounding grounds.

Scottish Borders Council has presented its vision for the future of Tweedbank in draft documents designed to guide a new masterplan for the village.

Tweedbank – A Vision for Growth and Sustainability has been prepared by LUC in tandem with a Proctor & Matthews masterplan.

An application for planning in principle has been lodged for a significant mixeduse development on the site of a former IBM facility at Spango Valley, Greenock.

Led by Advance Construction the £100m masterplan has been drawn up by Barton Willmore to provide up to 450 new homes together with complementary leisure, community and retail spaces.

A mothballed station will be reopened to the public as part of the works, with a network of parks and paths planned to improve the local environment. Further discussions will take place with Inverclyde Council ahead of construction.

An A-listed garage has brought a taste of Thailand to Glasgow’s West End courtesy of Scoop and Mosaic Architecture + Design, who have converted the basement into a £1m themed restaurant.

Ka Pao sits in the bowels of the former Botanic Gardens Garage on Vinicombe Street, bringing a 120-seat dining area and adjoining bar.

Sundial Properties have lodged plans for a mixed-residential development at a former gasworks in Leith, Edinburgh.

Surviving industrial architecture on Baltic Street and Constitution Street will be retained where possible.

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Q U A R T E R L Y F E B D I G E S T KILMARNOCK EXEMPLAR

ROCKET READY

A small-scale residential project in Kilmarnock has been cited as the future of town-centre regeneration following the adaptation of former council offices to form five flats.

Once occupied by East Ayrshire Council the King Street property had lain derelict for 12 years before conversion of the upper floors to housing by the Sweeney Group.

Plans to build a £17.5m vertical launch spaceport in the Highlands have emerged with the submission of detailed plans for a launchpad and associated infrastructure on the A’Mhoine Peninsula, Sutherland.

Space Hub Sutherland is being led

by Highlands & Islands Enterprise with Norr Architects, Arup and ERZ, who will transform 307 hectares of moorland into a launchpad complex capable of propelling small satellites into orbit, including a control centre, antenna park and rail track for transporting rockets to the launch pad.

A key consideration of the design was to minimise visual and habitat intrusion by adopting a living green roof for the control centre and retractable lighting columns.

ON THE BALL

BRIEFS Queensberry Properties have applied to convert and extend a disused office block at Orchard Brae, Edinburgh, to provide 170 additional homes for the city.

Proposals call for the part demolition of Finance House to accommodate its new use with 7N Architects overseeing the remodelling work, which will include replacing a seventies-era rear extension with a new build element.

Glencairn Properties have published plans to complete an unfinished Georgian street, by building new student accommodation at Montrose Terrace, Edinburgh.

Most recently left to languish as a disused petrol filling station the site has been taken on by Susan Stephen Architects who have penned a low-key infill scheme which takes its design cue from its unfinished neighbour, which currently ends abruptly at a rough exposed gable with exposed fireplaces and bricked up openings.

A pre-coronavirus hotel bonanza in Glasgow showed no sign of abating with plans brought forward for a further 252-bed venue on St Vincent Street

by Artisan Real Estate and Hawkins/Brown.

A fourteen storey four-star hotel is envisaged taking the place of an eighties-era office block at the junction with Pitt Street to cement the prevailing grid-iron road pattern.

Cameron House has obtained planning consent from Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park to erect a bedroom and ballroom extension to the five-star resort.

Designed by 3DReid with Hirst,

Thomson Gray and Greyline Design the 7,345sq/ft extension will provide an additional 68 beds, an outdoor terrace and capacity for up to 400 guests in a ground floor function suite by summer 2021.

A Govanhill gap site is set to be transformed by the creation of 24 flats under new plans championed by Govanhill Housing Association and Coltart Earley Architecture.

The team have earmarked the site of a former drill hall on Butterbiggins Road for affordable housing, including ground floor wheelchair accessible properties, close to a separate housing development led by the Link Group which is already underway.

10

Q U A R T E R L Y D I G E S T M A R

BIOQUARTER Edinburgh BioQuarter has published fresh details of a planned ÂŁ750m expansion which is set to deliver a mixed-use neighbourhood on a 160-acre site three miles south of the city centre.

The long-term vision builds on success

BRIEFS to date in establishing a health and research campus by allocating space for new residential development alongside commercial offices, retail, a hotel and leisure facilities in partnership with NHS Lothian and the University of Edinburgh.

MILL SAVIOUR

COASTAL CITY

Hillcrest Housing Association with developer AG Akermo has held preplanning discussions around there bid to repurpose a former Jute mill to provide 69 flats for social rent.

Gary Paterson Architect has been commissioned to oversee the transformation, working with the imposing stone-built structure to accommodate the required mix of one to three-bedroom flats, each with a balcony.

The City of Edinburgh Council and Collective Architecture have opened a public exhibition on their plans to develop Granton Waterfront into a new community of 4,000 properties lining active streets mixing homes, work and learning. A strategic plan and development framework have been developed in partnership with Studio for New Realities, AECOM, Arup and LUC, encompassing some 250 hectares of greenfield and ex-industrial land situated on the shores of the Firth of Forth.

FAIR ISLE PHOENIX A Fair Isle bird observatory devastated by fire is to rise again following the submission of plans for its replacement by ICA. The all-new observatory and guesthouse will stand in the most geographically remote inhabited island of the United Kingdom, standing over 20 miles from Shetland and Orkney.

A vital breeding ground for seabirds and migrating species the island has become a hub for research and tourism.

URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

Nominations have closed in the latest round of leadership elections for the post of president of The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland.

The leadership role will carry a one-year term through 2020-21 and takes place in tandem with the appointment of five council representatives. The winning candidate is set to assume their role from 3 June.

Kiltane Developments have brought forward plans to replace warehousing with 217 student beds and 59 residential apartments on a backlands site off Edinburgh’s Gorgie Road.

Accessible from the ground floor of the current ELS House, which will be refitted to serve as an entrance and amenity space, the plan has been overseen by Susan Stephen Architects to establish the Water of Leith as an urban corridor.

Michael Laird Architects have prepared plans for a National Robotarium spearheaded by Heriot-Watt University to serve as a centre for robotics and autonomous systems research.

Part of a broader masterplan for six new buildings arranged along a landscaped ecological corridor to the northeast of the main campus the development will meet the street via a series of pedestrian bridges spanning a watercourse.

Manchester-based Oliver Smurthwaite Architects are to tackle their first Highlands project after submitting plans for a mixed-use residential development on Union Street, Inverness.

The proposals call for the conversion of the B-listed main building and associated warehouse, with later additions to be demolished to allow a new build addition and improvements to the Riverside Conservation Area.

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Q U A R T E R L Y M A R D I G E S T CROSS STITCH Third phase plans for expansion of Glasgow’s Laurieston district have been beefed up in response to the city centre leapfrogging the River Clyde at Buchanan Wharf.

With the latter serving as a commercial hub for the area a public realm and landscaping strategy will enhance connectivity to neighbouring Laurieston which will receive an increase in both density and scale through the introduction of a third grid line to the interior streets and upping the scale along Norfolk Street at Gorbals Cross.

GLASGOW MEANS BUSINESS

The University of Glasgow has obtained planning consent for an £86m business school offering 11,600sq/m of postgraduate teaching and research space.

Designed by Hassell the hub features a precast vertical concrete façade, cantilevered to form a double-height entrance plaza. Internally the facility is arranged around interconnected research, collaboration and teaching ‘stacks’ focused on a central atrium and lit by extensive light wells.

BRIEFS Glasgow City Council has commenced work on an £8m active travel project to reimagine pedestrian and cycle movements around the city’s north-west by 2021.

Connecting Charing Cross through Garscube, Woodlands and St George’s Road the public realm project will plug into previous improvements made to Sauchiehall Street and Port Dundas by deprioritizing vehicle movements through redesigned crossings and introduction of infrastructure such as electric car charging points and bike hire stations.

Edinburgh Film Festival is raising the bar with plans for a £50m cinema complex to elevate the International Film Festival to new heights.

A dramatic 11-storey oculus has been conceived by Richard Murphy Architects for the heart of Festival Square on Lothian Road at the centre of a revitalised public space overseen by Open.

Highland Council has given the go-ahead to an 850-capacity primary school at Ness Castle, a new build housing estate to the south of the city, to be delivered in two phases by Stallan-Brand Architects.

The colourful plans call for the creation of an initial 12 clustered south-facing classrooms, playrooms and a nursery arranged around a central gathering place which doubles as a place for play, group work and presentations.

LEADERSHIP QUALITY The Hunter Foundation and Kettle Collective have lodged a formal planning application to build a £10m leadership centre at Ross Priory on the south shore of Loch Lomond.

Delivered in partnership with the University of Strathclyde the Hunter Global Leadership Centre has been conceived as a training hub for teachers as well as the business community and public sector.

Toughened measures to arrest the spiralling coronavirus pandemic shutdown the construction industry.

Businesses have been forced to respond to the outbreak by suspending all nonessential travel and embrace home working - with brutal consequences for supply chains and the self-employed and no end in sight.

ENVIRONMENTAL APPROACH Sustainability and environmental thinking are more than just words. They constitute an integral part of the NorDan identity.

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Two main factors determine how environmentally friendly a finished and installed window is: The expected lifespan of the product and to what degree it can contribute to reducing the buildings’ total energy consumption by reducing either heating or cooling of the room through that lifespan. Every single day the companies in the NorDan Group work with environmental-related activities. NorDan Competence Centers supply product declarations and life cycle analysis of even the smallest component.

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THE PHOENIX PROJECT

13

TOM MORTON

Tom Morton senses opportunity in a moment of crisis to radically reshape established methods of housing delivery

TOM MORTON, DIRECTOR AT ARC ACHITECTS, BELIEVES RESIDENT-RUN COMMUNITIES CAN HELP MEND A BROKEN HOUSING MODEL, EVEN AS MULTIPLE CRISES THREATEN TO ENGULF US. AMID THE CHAOS INVERKEITHING HAS EMERGED AS AN UNLIKELY GROUND ZERO FOR A BOLD NEW BEGINNING.

We live in a time of crisis. Even before Coronavirus and Brexit, the urban realm was struggling to respond effectively to a housing crisis, a climate crisis and a crisis of loneliness.

These challenges are, of course, interlinked and can’t be successfully addressed in isolation. Reflecting this, we can look to co-creative and cross-sector strategies for paths to progress. The Phoenix Project in Inverkeithing illustrates some of the opportunities that exist for delivering progressive change through the built environment, but also highlights some outdated practices that impede innovation.

Inverkeithing (population 5,280) is in many ways a typical Scottish town – a medieval core surrounded by 20th-century housing, and pock-marked with vacant and derelict sites, the legacy of 19th-century industries. The town has the highest percentage of vacant and derelict sites in Fife, and its historic core has just begun a Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme.

>

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THE PHOENIX PROJECT

A Charrette last year spurred the formation of The Inverkeithing Trust as a vehicle to take forward the community’s priorities, while the local authority reviews the future of its community facilities in the context of austerity, recently announcing the closure of the town’s cheerily modernist high school.

One of the reasons towns have such a great future is that they operate at a wonderfully human scale, and this fosters connected communities that are passionate about their place. When this combines with derelict sites, it creates opportunities for transformative change.

Such an opportunity is the 1-hectare site of a big Edwardian primary school lying just off the High Street, which was sold by the local authority in 2009. The site has since lain neglected, with a series of failed attempts at commercial housing, whose design approaches proved unpopular with the community and stakeholders. Just before Christmas 2018, the main building was substantially damaged in a spectacular arson attack.

This provoked a strong reaction amongst the community.

The fire undoubtedly reduced the site’s townscape and architectural heritage value, but it also revealed a strong intangible social heritage in the emotional connection local people had with the site, where many had spent their formative years, building friendships and learning about life.

To some degree, the site has an iconic status among the community, representing the decay of a traditional past and its potential for a better future.

After 88% voted for a community-led future for the site, the Architectural Heritage Fund, Fife Council and the Scottish Land Fund financed a feasibility study, led by a partnership of the Inverkeithing Trust and the Vivarium Trust, a housing charity. That financial support reflected the breadth of potential public benefit, while the primacy of local community control ensured its core values. The study, just completed, sets out a vison for the site that is radically different from the one offered by commercial redevelopment.

That difference founded in two things – public benefit values and a long timescale. These undoubtedly made a project slower and more complex than a commercial approach, where priorities are private profit in short timescales, but the outcomes are so much better they are worth waiting and working for.

A new kind of process The project focuses on the key areas where it could make a difference, measured against the metric of improving the wellbeing of the people of Inverkeithing.

To develop a shared understanding of what wellbeing is, the project brought together local people with Fife Council officers, the design consultants, experts from the NHS, A+DS, academics and other organisations, using non-hierarchical processes that were developing out of the European JUMP URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

project on innovative training for change. These processes aimed to avoid the normal barriers of power dynamics within projects that impede effective sharing of expertise and experience between communities, experts and stakeholders, to achieve a co-creative dynamic. When nobody has authority, everyone has influence.

That process demonstrated that mental health and community were seen as much more important to local wellbeing than physical health or wealth. When these characteristics were mapped against the potential initiatives that local people said they wanted, it demonstrated a strong and diverse inter-connection between place and wellbeing.

Those results formed the basis of an approach to the project as a public preventative health intervention, aiming to enhance the wellbeing of the people of Inverkeithing though place regeneration, with a focus on mental health and community resilience. Further research identified 3 key areas that the project could make a significant difference, not

15

The importance of nature to improve mental health is recognised with ivy walls and dense planting

addressed by the public or private sectors, and these formed the core of an integrated design and business plan.

1. Accessibility as an Ordering Design Tool Inverkeithing’s medieval High Street is the location of most of its key services – shops, health facilities, civic centre, public transport. It runs roughly level through the town, cutting across a hillside, with the later housing expansion up and down the slope to either side.

That housing was built at a time when accessibility was not a design consideration. The legacy of 19th and 20th-century planning is that almost all the town’s residents cannot walk to the High Street without going up one of 24 sets of steps or 40 pavements steeper than permitted by Building Standards for access.

Inverkeithing’s public realm thus discriminates against people with disabilities, older people, pre-school children and people who do not drive cars because of health, age, poverty

or environmental concerns. One of the great advantages that towns usually have is their size, which brings proximity to services for active travel, empowering life without cars.

But in Inverkeithing, the topography of the town negates this and disadvantages the more vulnerable members of its community.

As its population ages over the next 40 years, Inverkeithing’s footpaths will exacerbate inequality and fuel social isolation, leading to a disproportionate increase in demand for health and social care support. Loneliness is already at epidemic proportions in our country and more damaging to your health than smoking.

The defining primal move in the project design was therefore to create an all abilities public pedestrian route through the site, providing the only accessible way to the High Street from the west half of town. Who but a community would begin development with this?

The interesting consequence of this decision is that it then >

16

THE PHOENIX PROJECT

Grounds for hope are taking root within the ashes of the former Inverkeithing Primary

attracts all the people in the community who will benefit most from other wellbeing interventions to pass through the site.

The route was therefore developed as the string in a line of pearls, with other wellbeing interventions clustered along it.

2. A New Kind of Housing The Scottish Government’s 10-year Strategy on Housing for Older People states that ‘we need nothing less than an urgent and sustained programme of reform’ to adapt our housing to the needs of an ageing population.

Housing designed for older people is different – it is accessible, comfortable and easy to heat and maintain, within walking distance of services, and crucially it is socially clustered to avoid isolation – but we are just not building it. This a looming crisis facing all communities, and Inverkeithing is again URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

poorly placed to meet this challenge because of past design and procurement decisions.

Southwest Fife has the least amount of housing designed for older people in the region. In Inverkeithing, there are only 39 retirement flats for the 898 people aged over 65, and 311 of whom are on the waiting list. When a waiting list gets that long people stop joining, so the real demand is even higher.

The town is in the process of filling up to its natural boundaries, with consented housing developments of 3, 4 and 5-bedroom suburban family homes for people with cars. We are building houses for today’s baby boom peak of people in their 40’s and 50’s because we are building for short-term profit and poorly targeted state incentives, creating a legacy of people under-occupying inappropriate and isolated homes as they get older, with nowhere else to go.

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Health and Wellbeing

At the moment, older people are 18% of Scotland’s population but make 40% of house moves because they are trying to downsize to more suitable homes. But, less than 3% of new homes are designed for older people, and that was before McCarthy & Stone withdrew from Scotland last year.

What this means for Inverkeithing is that over the next 40 years the proportion of older people will at least double. With no new housing for older people planned, the waiting list for the 39 retirement flats will grow towards 1000, and people will be stuck in their existing homes, fuelling under-occupation and social isolation, amplified by the town’s poor accessibility.

The Phoenix Project uses its accessible proximity to the town centre to host an innovative housing development for older people. The fire-damaged building will be re-purposed with a block of 24-32 flats inserted inside its historic shell. The >

The foundations of our current public health system were laid back in the 19th century. At the time hundreds of thousands were dying prematurely from both contagious and non-contagious disease such as cholera and life expectancy was roughly half of what it is today. It was recognised then that the key drivers were environmental; for example the water people were drinking or the conditions people were living in. This led to the creation of the first public health act in 1848 and actions that followed to improve environmental conditions significantly improved public health. Fast forward to the current time and we now have a wealth of high quality evidence demonstrating that the places and communities in which people live, work, learn and play are fundamental to their health. For that reason improving places and communities is one of Scotland’s six national public health priorities.

The Phoenix Project in Inverkeithing is so exciting as it will help to mitigate against many of the key issues we know drive poor health. It will provide safe, efficient, warm and affordable housing for people who are at increased risk of illness. This comes at a time when the proportion of older people in Scotland is expected to rise sharply in the coming years. It will also reduce the loneliness and social isolation often experienced by older people and develop a strong sense of community, both of which we know has a huge impact on health and wellbeing.

In addition to directly benefiting the residents the project will also have considerable benefits to the wider population of Inverkeithing. It will help reconnect large residential areas of the town with key local services, provide areas for structured and unstructured play, give access to good quality diverse greenspaces and help bring together different groups who wouldn’t normally interact.

Again, all of these things we know are vital to the health of individuals and communities.

One of the most exciting elements of the project is the opportunity it will provide for other towns and communities across Scotland to learn from it.

Hopefully in time we will have a network of similar places that collectively will help improve the health and wellbeing of the country.

Dr Matt Lowther, head of place & equity, NHS Health Scotland

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THE PHOENIX PROJECT

1 and 2-bed flats are clustered in groups of 4 either side of shared spaces, in a development designed and managed by the residents themselves.

This is cohousing, where people live independent lives as part of an organised community of neighbours who share some facilities. Cohousing began in Denmark, where it was supported by the government specifically to address loneliness and it now forms the majority of new housing for older people.

Other European countries with more participatory planning processes and more pluralist and localised housing delivery have followed suit, but the UK housing sector has been slow to adapt.

Scotland has policy and frustrated communities, England has a £163m budget, support centres, targeted financial schemes and a landmark exemplar, the OWCH project in London.

It is important to recognise how unusual the UK is in how it does housing, and that this is the root of the problem with poor housing supply for communities. No other comparable country provides most of its homes through 6 dominant commercial companies, not has structured its market to be so polarised between the two extremes of commercial developers and state-funded ‘affordable’ housing.

Commercial developers control land supply for housing and very efficiently provide repetitive small houses for maximum short-term profit. Homes for Scotland (representing 95% of new homes) recently gave evidence to the Scottish Government that their members had no interest in developing housing for older people.

The same working group heard evidence that government grants to support affordable housing suppress innovation and actively discriminate against older people. Social Housing grants can only be designated based on need, so cannot be used by people who want to cluster by age for mutual support. Mid-Market Rent is specifically designed for people in employment with rising income well above the state pension.

Both need to be owned by an RSL (except in rural areas), which in practice prevents communities from creating housing in response to local needs.

While communities have created arts centres, sports facilities and even schools, the Scottish Land Fund, operating under Scottish Government guidance, will effectively not support community housing projects. This reflects a prevailing attitude that housing is something separate from the rest of life that is long past it’s sell-by date There is now a widespread appreciation that the system of providing housing in Scotland is archaic, failing to meet the country’s needs, and incompatible with the Community Empowerment Act, and the Fairer Scotland Duty of the Equality Act 2010, which came into force in Scotland in April 2018, requiring public authorities to reduce inequalities of outcome when making strategic decisions.

The 2019 Planning Bill places a new duty on local URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

authorities to specifically measure the local housing needs of older people and develop appropriate plans. When this happens, it will reveal how typical Inverkeithing’s dire situation is and the scale of change that is required in Scotland’s housing sector. We will then be desperately looking for models of how to deliver new kinds of housing to reduce the emerging crisis in health and social care.

The current Programme for Government recognises this and promised to deliver pilot projects for cohousing. The Phoenix Cohousing is designed to be one of these pilots, developing a template design, organisational structure, financial plan and grant funding model, which could be replicated by other communities.

In constructing the social architecture of an intentional community of older people, the financial plan needs to be simple and resilient. A not-for-profit community benefit company structure will enable people to join irrespective of their financial means and facilitate a smooth turnover of residents while safeguarding the public interest. This reflects the harmony between the project priorities of wellbeing and community, and personal drivers of residents, who seek company in a thriving and secure later life.

This is in stark contrast to the dominant consumer housing

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A shallow green roof provides habitat for invertebrates and ground nesting birds

model which focuses on personal and corporate financial profit through individualised delivery and ownership, with very little choice. That model fails to reflect the diversity of modern Scotland and the shared stake we all have in a collaborative future.

While the Phoenix Project focuses on housing for older people because of the current demographic imperative, creating a more participatory and pluralistic housing sector will also meet the needs of other citizens of today’s diverse Scotland who are failed by the current system. The recent project in Dumfries for LGBT-friendly housing is a good example.

Another is the group of parents in Aberfeldy who have children with special needs. As the children become adults and the parents become older, they were told they would have to move to Perth of Dundee to be supported, but want instead to build their own housing where both groups can provide mutual support in the physical and social environment they feel part of.

3. Redefining what we mean by Playground The creativity of inclusion as a design agenda also informed the Phoenix Project’s landscape design. If some cohousing

residents will return to find their former school transformed into their future homes, so the tarmac where they played as children will be redefined as a recreational landscape for their 21st-century community.

Fife Council’s Greenspace Audit records that Inverkeithing has a poor provision of green space, with low quality and accessibility but lots of close mown, sloping ‘amenity grassland’.

With physical inactivity now the second biggest cause of mortality in Scotland, the Phoenix Project will create a space for unstructured play, the only playspace in the north half of the town. Rather than a fenced area for specific activities by certain ages, this will be an unenclosed area designed to encourage creative physical activity among all ages, and specifically to encourage inter-generational activity.

There will be an open amphitheatre to promote performance and collaborative events, part of a wider strategy to promote creativity that includes artists’ studios and a community workshop.

A community growing area runs between the public route and the cohousing, fostering skills sharing and providing local food. This is part of a strategy of defining >

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THE PHOENIX PROJECT

The cohousing ethos extends to shared external decks and public woodlands, reinforcing the collective experience.

the public route as a contemporary edible landscape with nuts, berries and fruit freely available for gathering by the community.

This not only enhances nutritional resources for local people but encourages people to spend longer outdoors.

Current research suggests that total exposure to nature of 2 hours a week is the threshold to have a measurable benefit for mental health.

The cohousing residents do not have private gardens but share external decks and have generous private balconies projecting into a wildlife zone wrapped around the housing block. Peripheral parking and level access at first floor allow the creation of a woodland habitat, working with a shallow green roof to promote biodiversity as an example of urban re-wilding.

Our public spaces have an important role to play in URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

countering the decline in intergenerational social contact recorded in recent research, which erodes community resilience. But Phoenix Project’s intergenerational strategy is both between current generations and for generations through time. Epidemiological studies show that the only measurable effect of green space on the longevity of older people is in their exposure to greenspace during pre-school years. So by designing the public realm to expose children to nature, we inoculate future generations of older people to live longer, healthier lives.

Towards a Habitat for Humans The different strands of the Phoenix Project work together to define a new approach to the design and management of the public realm as a habitat for humans, reflecting the diverse physical and cognitive circumstances of our population.

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Town Centre Living: Creating Caring Places Over the past three years Architecture and Design Scotland (A&DS) has been exploring opportunities around town centre living – with a specific focus on care and placemaking, and the challenges of caring for an ageing population. Working with partners we’ve been taking a creative look at how we can use design, innovation, and the principles of collaborative placemaking to make more of the assets and opportunities we already have in our towns and neighbourhoods, to help create caring places and communities to live in.

Addressing ageing is complex. This includes rethinking how we deliver services and community support and how we can enhance self-directed care.

From our perspective it means we need to consider place-based work to shape outcomes that support our ageing population – through sharing resources and supporting action. For us, a key element of this is ‘the space between’; the physical spaces in between housing and services, and the community and peer support in between more formal service delivery.

Our report ‘Town Centre Living: A Caring Place’ sets out a vision to connect caring for people and caring for places simultaneously. The focus is on improving outcomes for older communities in particular by supporting choices for independent living. 10 principles – distilled from stakeholder discussions - describe examples that can help. Within the principles, two specific areas of built environment present short-term challenges:

In designing places to not stress or confuse people with dementia, we also create places that are good for children and people with reduced visual perception. In our diversity, we find our common humanity.

Our generation faces the great changes that are coming with the second digital revolution, and part of our response will be to re-boot and upgrade our humanity. We need to allow machines to become better machines and people to become more human. That means creating homes that allow everyone to live long, thriving lives and ordering our shared spaces to foster positive social interaction.

Community-led processes are the key to moving priorities away from vehicles and private profit and towards the long-term benefit of the people who use our public spaces, and from seeing housing not as a commodity, but as a human right fundamental to public health.

• Designing for intergenerational housing • Connecting intergenerational housing with supporting services, enabled by improved accessibility The work supports the delivery of a number of Scottish Government policy areas including the ‘Place Principle’, the ‘Town Centre First Principle’, ‘Housing to 2040’ and ‘A Connected Scotland: tackling social isolation and loneliness’ – which has come sharply more into focus in recent weeks.

We are applying these principles through our work with East Lothian and Clackmannanshire Councils, providing advice and support to proposed elderly and intergenerational housing projects within town centre sites, and will be sharing the learning from this work for other places across Scotland.

Find out more about Architecture and Design Scotland and our Caring Places work at: https://www.ads.org.uk/town_centre_living_home/ @ArcDesSco #towncentreliving

Steve Malone Principal Architect Architecture and Design Scotland

Construction generally and housing in particular lag well behind other sectors in delivering innovation, which means that change processes will be less efficient. We can see this in the climate emergency response, where construction remains addicted to plastics and cement, which alone at 8% of global CO2 emissions is a bigger problem than aviation, ignored till we move to carbon taxation.

Scotland is ripe for change in housing and the public realm and the demographic imperative may be the trigger point for a wider culture change needed to overcome commercial interests, inertia and risk aversion. Maybe we can learn a lesson by seeing design through the prism of health, where there is an expectation of progress founded in our personal human life experiences. And perhaps we will emerge from the Coronavirus with a greater appreciation of our collective endeavour.

KING’S STABLES ROAD

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JOHN GLENDAY

FOUR YEARS ON ONE OF 12 PRIORITY DEVELOPMENT AREAS ACROSS EDINBURGH IS BRINGING NEW LIFE TO THE GRASSMARKET BUT HAS IT BEEN WORTH THE WAIT? WE PROVIDE OUR OWN VIEWS FROM ITS WYNDS AND PENDS. PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL ZANRE

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KING’S STABLES ROAD

At the foot of Edinburgh Castle, a new mixed-use development is seeking to knit a jumble of forgotten streets and lanes back into the historic fabric of the Old Town, This genuinely mixed-use development thumbs its nose at the sort of mono-use which can all too easily suffocate a place.

Delivered at a cost of around £40m King’s Stables Road refashions a former council depot and nightclub (best known as a gritty backdrop for films such as Trainspotting) into a mix of apartments, student flats and an apart hotel that more befits its World Heritage site, all standing over 5,700sq/ft of ground-floor commercial space. Defined by the spaces between buildings as much as the buildings themselves the resulting fusion of accommodation established a network of public and semi-private courtyards which serve to better knit the Grassmarket with Princes Street Gardens and the west end.

Guiding Urban Realm around these newly formed spaces, ten years in the making, Sandy Deans, an URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

associate at Fletcher Joseph, said: “We’ve done our best to achieve porosity through the site, it’s all accessible on the level with no kerbs and that encourages walking.”

These new wynds restore the original street pattern and connect King’s Stables Road to West Port via a courtyard which could serve as a foodie destination for the Festival subject to buy-in from the hotel operator and residents.

Pitched slate roofs, dormer windows and a muted materials palette of sandstone, brick, grey cladding and render do their best to blend with the surrounding cityscape although this does mean algae growth stands out. Deans said: “The things that we don’t notice on old buildings become noticeable on new materials, it will dull down. As architects, we can spend the whole time looking at everything that’s wrong but you should step back I think that’s one of the benefits of working with Paul Zanre. He manages to capture the building in its best light.” This inoffensive application of sandstone cladding and zinc has been satirised as the ‘new Edinburgh vernacular’ but Deans is clear that this is the reality of

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Left - Lucky rooftop residents command some of the finest views in Edinburgh Right - A varied roofline provides visual interest from Johnston Terrace

obtaining planning permission in the city today. He said: “This is a planning constraint, so we’ve used a stugged traditional finish on the ground floor and Derbyshire sandstone cladding above.

“The planning process was protracted but ultimately favourable, so time well spent. There was a planning constraint that housing must be completed first and that meant a phased delivery of housing, student accommodation and latterly the hotel. That meant that site accommodation had to be shifted and public realm finished. Construction-wise it’s been two and a half, three years which could have been completed quicker on a greenfield out of town site, but again because we’re working in the constraints of the Old Town we had limited access.”

In a city where the past is never more than a foot of earth away the team were restricted from digging down more than 1.5m to avoid disturbing medieval archaeology on a site which was a jousting court before serving as a stable block and latterly, as a seat of the industrial

revolution. This restriction carried a flood mitigation requirement for landscaped elements to double as temporary ‘rain gardens’ to reduce the load on flood prevention infrastructure.

A further reflection of this diverse past comes in the form of a faux chimney which adds interest to the skyline.

“That was courtesy of one of the senior planners,” notes Deans. “The hotel contrasts with the other two buildings which increase in height. It stands on the site of a former tenement and it’s only right that it reflects that. If that was just a big roof it would ruin the view from Johnston Terrace and it also houses a lot of services which would otherwise detract.”

New roads frame views out to the castle and (less salubriously) Argyle House which continues to dominate its surroundings for all the wrong reasons, something Deans was keen to mitigate by increasing scale to the west with sawtooth roofs to help break down its overpowering massing. As one of the closest modern developments to the castle, a key goal was to break up >

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KING’S STABLES ROAD

its apparent scale. Pointing to the corner windows, Deans continued: “The fifth elevation has been so important with the dynamic roofscape to break down the mass of Argyle House. I don’t think you’ll ever hide a building like that but what you can do is create interest around it.

It’s important that as many of these units have a view of the Castle as possible, even at the back of the building.

With the wellness agenda, we’ve become more aware that buildings affect our mental health, so it’s important people have an appreciation of where they are. Although these are just one-bedroom and studio flats, they actually feel spacious because of the generous windows. We worked with BoConcept to ensure they could fit the furniture in.” Clearly, the view is the chief selling point of these flats with six properties also benefitting from their own private terraces.

A historic boundary wall best known as a backdrop for James McAvoy in Filth now supports a mix of accommodation above, with new and re-used openings punched through as required. Deans added: “We’ve adapted some for the ventilation strategy of the hotel and used perforated panels with LED’s behind them to give the effect that they are occupied and make this a more pleasant experience. Above subtle curves have been introduced to soften edges Deans said: “You can’t get a curved traditional stretcher bond so we’ve gone with a Flemish bond which allows you to curve without using specials.”

There aren’t many sites in the world where you have to juggle medieval architecture and brutalism? “It’s been challenging, we’ve had to refrain from being too detailed to avoid the contractor tearing their hair out, but you’ve also got a roofscape which works well for its setting.

Although it’s a new building you’re really working with the historic footprint that existed on the site. The real development was from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries onward and we looked at a lot of maps and all the floorplans of the different buildings that occupied the site and from that worked out where the roofs would have been originally and that informed where we placed our buildings. We need to ensure the numbers stack up but at the same time it’s meant we can knit into the existing and historic routes through the site and at the end make sure it’s an inviting space for occupiers.”

The foot of the Grassmarket has historically been viewed as down at heel, will this be enough to > URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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New elements slot seamlessly alongside the old, opening the full footprint to pedestrians

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KING’S STABLES ROAD

Top - New commercial units bring vibrancy to the bottom end of the Grassmarket Bottom - Pedestrian friendly spaces enhance liveability

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This courtyard has been designed to accommodate future events as required

reinvigorate a long-forgotten corner of the Old Town?

Deans said: “One of the key desires of the planners and key to the viability of the scheme for our client, was making sure the housing, hotel and public realm worked with one another and reinforced by the commercial units, extended the vibrancy of the Grassmarket with a new corridor to the west end.” Moreover, with the Grassmarket firing on all cylinders, a broader appreciation of the Castle can be had by pushing footfall away from the classic Princes Street vista. Deans continued: “From Princes Street the castle is postcard-perfect but distant. Around the Old Town, you’ve got the characteristics of all the different developments to capture the more dramatic views and vignettes from the street. You’ve got a better sense of place and people have a better understanding of where they are.”

As a completely car-free scheme with 100% bicycle storage and pedestrian-friendly access, King’s Stables embodies the City of Edinburgh Council’s draft mobility plan, which envisages a largely car-free city centre by 2030. “They (City of Edinburgh Council) are certainly trying to discourage car use. Edinburgh doesn’t have a grid system like Glasgow. To make it cycle and

pedestrian-friendly is really difficult because there are no routes or safe spaces. To suggest we could be Copenhagen is hard to imagine because they’ve got a completely different urban framework. Speaking as a cyclist I find it hard to get around.”

Edinburgh’s ever-evolving Old Town has shifted guises to suit contemporary needs throughout its long life and with King’s Stables Road that spirit of innovation is alive and well, showing that a Medieval street pattern can be every bit as conducive to modern life as a Designing Streets exemplar.

Main Contractor: Bowmer and Kirkland Structural and Civil Engineer: Cundall M&E Engineer:MaxFordham Project Manager and Quantity Surveyor: Axiom PSL Landscape Architect: HarrisonStevens Planning Consultant: Scott Hobbs Agents: Knight Frank

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GEORGE STREET JOHN GLENDAY

Left - The background build is designed to nestle comfortably within its classical surroundings Right - A generous double height foyer space provides a more appropriate entrance

THE NEED TO ADAPT AND RE-USE RATHER THAN RAZE AND REBUILD HAS DRIVEN THE REVITALISATION OF AN ANONYMOUS EDINBURGH OFFICE BLOCK WHICH SITS DEMURELY AMONG ITS MORE STATELY NEIGHBOURS FOLLOWING A NUTS AND BOLTS REFRESH AT THE HANDS OF REIACH & HALL. DOES THIS HERALD A SHIFT TOWARD MORE SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS IN CHASTENED TIMES? PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL ZANRE.

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Over the past three decades, Reiach & Hall has become firmly established as a leading light in the Scottish architectural scene, a period that has also seen the dramatic growth of the practice in its home city of Edinburgh. These trajectories crossed at 10 George Street where an acute shortage of grade A office space collided with the practices own formative history to prove that travelling a long way can bring you full circle.

Designed by director Neil Gillespie around 1989 for the Life Association of Scotland the office block in its initial guise was finished in 1991, going onto win a RIBA Award, the practices

first, in 1992. Since that time occupier requirements, technology and fashions have moved on while the appeal of the central New Town address has only increased, prompting moves to completely overhaul the structure to meet the needs of a new era.

Guiding Urban Realm around the refitted space fellow director Lyle Christie observed: “The real driver of the project is our client. La Francaise Real Estate Partners, who are part of Sampension KP, a Danish headquartered investment fund. They owned the premises and Ernst & Young were surrendering their lease. They needed to reposition it to deliver value. >

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GEORGE STREET

Left - Thirty years have brought dramatic change to the top of George Street Right - A well-mannered facade prioritises timeless simplicity

“We wanted to reinvigorate what was already a pretty good thing. Buildings, as they age, add stuff and the original project is a little lost amid all the accretions. A big part of what we did was to sweep all that away and put it back as it was originally intended. The floorplans had acquired some curvy partitions and just taking all of that away has brought its DNA back to the fore.”

With the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26 hoving into view the need to reuse infrastructure has never been more pressing as we enter an age where repair and re-use becomes more fashionable and redevelopment a dirty word. Christie continued: “A really big driver for the project was to renew and regenerate an asset for our client in a precious heritage environment in a way that was really sustainable. The way the facade holds the environment is much more efficient than it was because technology moves on.

The membrane that you can wrap to keep the outside out and the inside in means that the energy efficiency of the building is a step-change from what it was. Before it was an air-conditioned gas guzzler at the bottom of the EPC ratings but it’s now C rated.

The re-use of as much of the existing fabric as we could mean that the embodied energy of the building is less than a new build.”

At 10 George Street, the story is very much the technical URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

accomplishment rather than any architectural flair, as Christie freely admits this is a background building which deliberately shies away from commanding the attention of its environment.

“Cities have keynote buildings, but a speculative office is not one of them”, notes Christie. “There are buildings which demand the foreground whereas this is designed to rest comfortably on the street without shouting at you.

“When you see it close up you see the quality. It’s like the difference between an Armani suit and a Versace suit. The Versace shouts ‘look at me’ but when you look closely at the Armani suit you know it’s been beautifully tailored. We 3d modelled, at 1:1 scale, seven or eight different versions of that façade to make sure we nailed that detail. When you stand and look at it the proportions of the bay are slightly different at the main entrance.”

Building anything in Edinburgh carries a weight of responsibility heavier than in comparable British cities thanks to the industriousness of the city’s forebears and it is this rich legacy which can also serve as a trap for architects navigating the fine line between deference and pastiche.

Christie added: “I like the Georgians. We live and work in a Georgian building. A beautifully conceived and detailed window can take repetition across a whole façade. It’s trying to take that

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idea and learn from its context. It’s a quiet building sitting in a dignified way in the street. We met the planners twice before lodging the application. There were no objections, which is pretty much unheard of in the heart of a World Heritage Site. When the planners got the application there were no surprises in it and they were able to get it through their in-house process.

“The façade is quite rich, although not real-bronze, the materials palette for the additions has that appearance of solidity and presence working with The Dome (the Corinthian columned venue next door). Our ambition was to concentrate on the proportions and occasional fine details.”

Internally however the finish is predictably standardised, serving as a quiet backdrop for future occupiers by minimising distinctiveness. Christie explains: “When you’re working for a speculative developer, it’s difficult to carefully tune the interior because you’re trying to appeal to the widest possible market. Inevitably what you do has quite a vanilla flavour because if it was chilli some people don’t like chillies. There’s a straightforwardness to a landlord interior but you’d anticipate a good fit-out designer could bring character to the space.

The outside of commercial buildings are flamboyant to draw attention whereas our client was interested in a good addition to the city and a good investment.”

Perhaps the most demanding critic is not the developer or even the future occupier. Is Neil happy with how his baby has been treated? “Neil and I sit next to each other and I was very mindful that it was a precious thing. The RIBA give you a lead plaque when you win an award and when it was removed I carried it down the road and Neil’s first RIBA Award is now sitting on his desk.

Given the pace of change in real estate is this the final transformation or will Reiach & Hall be here again in 20 years for another refurbishment? Is this the golden goose that keeps on giving? “I won’t be!” exclaims Christie, adding: “The practice could come back again. One of the things we were doing to the existing design was bringing the facilities inside to 21st century occupier standards while giving the exterior a contemporary expression. In 25 years’, time that might need to be changed too.”

If a day is a long-time in politics then a quarter-century is a positive eternity in architecture and it is clear that a quickening pace of change in construction and client demands is feeding through to a sharp rise in the turnover of buildings, which would not ordinarily be considered old. Only by salvaging the bones of such buildings and focusing on the technical details can we avoid a whole generation of fashion victims being needlessly swept away.

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EGYPTIAN HALLS JOHN GLENDAY

STAT E OF DECAY

THE EGYPTIAN HALLS MAY OCCUPY A SPECIAL PLACE IN THE HEART OF GLASWEGIANS BUT THEN SO TOO DID THE SCHOOL OF ART. URBAN REALM LOOKS AT EFFORTS TO SAVE THIS SINGULAR EXAMPLE OF VICTORIAN ECLECTICISM FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS TO ENJOY. PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICK HAYES AND THE ALEXANDER THOMSON SOCIETY. Glasgow’s A-listed Egyptian Halls is back in the spotlight having swung between despondency and optimism in a rollercoaster start to 2020 that began with the owner raising the prospect of possible structural collapse, followed by a renewed burst of optimism courtesy of the Alexander Thomson Society.

Save the Egyptian Halls brought together heritage bodies, architects and planners for a series of discussions designed to break a 40-year impasse by illustrating a variety of concepts imagining a sustainable future for the building after it was shortlisted by Europa Nostra as one of the 14 most at-risk cultural sites in Europe.

In attendance were Historic Environment Scotland (HES), the Glasgow Building Preservation Trust and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

assembling for a meeting of minds in the hope that a way forward can be found now that a sale, façade retention or demolition are considered to be the only options left on the table.

Outlining the present state of play with the Halls the society wrote: “The building is currently in a state of significant decay and is a victim of a myriad of ownership issues which have gone unresolved for decades. The building was scaffolded permanently in the late 2000s to protect the public from falling stone, however, no major repairs project has ever taken place. Glasgow City Council has issued a listed building repairs notice to compel the owner to carry out repairs, including setting a deadline of July 2019 for a timetable to be presented to the council for works to be carried out - however, no such timetable was

>

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The soot blackened facade now lies hidden behind protective scaffolding

EGYPTIAN HALLS

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The deteriorating condition of the building has raised concerns at a European level

provided.

“The owner has indicated that they will legally challenge any enforcement orders issued by GCC and does not intend to finance repair works until a future use for the building has been identified. However, the owner carries out basic ongoing maintenance and has installed a temporary felt roof which arrested water ingress into the building.”

This moment of optimism was short-lived however as conservation efforts have since been stymied by disputes over grant funding, with Souter, the owner, ruling out a full restoration as economically unviable. In the prophetic words of Gavin Stamp, writing as Piloti in Private Eye at the time: “Would the agency (Scottish Enterprise) now help with the restoration of a commercial building by Mackintosh? “… Are they hypocrites or fools – or are these flash executives just reflecting the modern Glasgow culture of loathing good architecture and old buildings?”

The on/off saga traces its roots back to a dispute over ownership, resolved following a compulsory purchase order in 2000 which left Dundonian developer Derek Souter as the lead owner of both ground and upper floors at a purported cost of £5.5m, presaging a full renovation plan drawn up by The Morrison Partnership and Addison

Conservation with the approval of GCC and HES. The owner has already warned of potential structural failure that could knock out power supplies to Central Station and the surrounding area and endanger traffic on Union Street. This dire warning is contained in the latest update on efforts to conserve the landmark and lays bare the cumulative effects of inaction which has seen the continued deterioration of the building fabric go unchecked.

A video posted by Union Street Properties and shared on Urban Realm warns of the ‘very real threat of structural collapse’ with an estimated 85% of the current structure needing to be replaced to stave off the potential failure of floor slabs, supports and beams. This, it was said, could precipitate the collapse of the roof and front façade through a loss of structural integrity and lateral restraint. A graphic demonstration of this ‘catastrophic’ risk is presented in the form of the façade collapsing onto Union Street together with secondary fears relating to the failure of parapet stonework which could present a fall hazard to pedestrians, despite the presence of supportive scaffolding which has been in place as a precautionary measure for the better part of a decade. >

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EGYPTIAN HALLS

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Left - The historic interior remains locked in a state of stasis

Right - Upper floors have lain vacant for 39 years

This is disputed by the ATS which observes: “An independent structural assessment has been carried out within the last six months by a conservation-accredited structural engineer who has found the buildings’ structural integrity to remain intact, and whilst remedial works are required, the building’s structure provides no major barrier to the future use of the building.”

Asked whether discussions were ongoing with the ATS Souter told Urban Realm: “Yes, we are and we expect/ wish these to continue to a status where a final decision can be made. It’s been cathartic from the early provision of information for Europa Nostra to the competition (I attended the winners’ event) to discussing with ATS and the SPAB the options going forward. If the Egyptian Halls can become a non-commercial project but with a tourism/ education focus it can be an award-winning development.

If for example, it became the Glasgow Museum of Slavery (one of the competition entries) it could also attract major grant funding and become part of GCC’s City Avenues Project unlocking further funding sources. Or even a new location for the GSA School of Architecture (controversial for sure but who was the better architect not the most famous?)”

What’s the most likely outcome as Souter sees it? Are

we more likely to see a sale, façade retention or demolition?

Souter said: “It depends on the current structural condition being accepted by GCC and HES once they’ve commented back on the Will Rudd Davidson (WRD) survey, which they both got Dec 2019. Also, since then WRD is going to the nth degree to ascertain if there is an engineering solution that allows the original structure to be preserved by the process of assessing every potential option there is. WRD is to be commended for this proactive approach.

“Once the structural position is accepted and if preservation is impossible then all the options relating to façade retention come into play. New build is the option nobody wants but is also the option that does not require grant funding. And that’s where the pragmatic comments from HES’s Dara Parson’s are very welcome and HES has an influential developing role to bring together all relevant stakeholders and build a process of engagement and proactive delivery sooner rather than later.”

Amid worsening coronavirus angst the prospect of a swift resolution to a dispiriting saga seems more remote than ever but that is not for want of an explosion of ideas, interest and passion on the part of all concerned to achieve the best result possible. Whatever happens, the Halls cannot afford another 40 years of inaction.

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3DReid have observed a softening trend toward hard elements within buildings, just as architects adopt interior elements externally URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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AS RESTRICTIONS ON MOVEMENT USHER IN A CLOSER AFFINITY WITH THE INDOORS THAN EVER URBAN REALM PUSHES BEYOND THE FOURTH WALL TO ESTABLISH HOW NEW TECHNOLOGIES ARE TRANSFORMING INTERIOR DESIGN IN WAYS WHICH WOULD HAVE SEEMED UNIMAGINABLE A FEW SHORT MONTHS AGO. WHAT ARE THE KEY TRENDS GOVERNING PRESENT THINKING IN A SECTOR WHICH MUST NOW EVOLVE FASTER THAN EVER BEFORE?

Scott Torrance Head of Interiors 3DReid How is the relationship between interior design and architecture evolving?

There has always been a relationship between interior design and architecture (casual or causal, everyone has differing opinions) and we have seen this evolve across our practice more strongly over the last few years. We have spoken before about the benefits of interior designers and architects coming together in the early stages of a project to design the building from the inside out and this is leading to further collaboration in other areas of the buildings.

For example, in the past many of the architectural hard elements were being used within the interiors by designers but we have noticed a softening of the hard elements within buildings and a reversal of this approach with architects adopting interior elements externally. This has been more noticeable in the hotel and hospitality sector where we undertake the majority of our work but is now permeating into other sectors, such as workplace design.

Are your clients becoming more design conscious?

Clients are becoming more design conscious with every project that passes and it is an essential part of establishing a good brief if the client has an active interest in design and wants to collaborate with their designer. We always >

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find that this results in the best projects being delivered when the client is hands-on and has a good understanding of what they actually want to achieve as an end result. Of course our expertise then comes into play to help them realise their end-goal where we can advise on the technical aspects of the design or performance related issues, such as fabric rub tests and suitability of product.

How is new technology impacting you?

We haven’t seen many major technological changes in the last year but some recent products are becoming far more commonplace in the industry. One example of this is Guest Engagement Apps where you can download an app for a particular hotel then check in remotely, order room service before you arrive and also bypass reception when you get to your hotel as your phone becomes your room key. These are becoming much more sophisticated with tech savvy operators and there are many benefits to these systems, particularly from a sustainability viewpoint. They are removing much of the paperwork within the hotel room such as room guides, hotel guides, menus, etc as these can now all be placed on the app. Because your phone becomes the digital key it removes the need for the plastics typically found in the room key and saves staff cutting new keys, replacing lost ones - the list is endless. As we all become more climate aware we see these as a great way of reducing paper and plastics within the hotel industry and also provide the guests with a slicker user experience.

Ross Hunter Director Graven Images Ltd

How is the relationship between interior design and architecture evolving?

Well you really can’t have one without the other. For Graven the starting point is always about getting the spaces and journeys right, before we start to refine finishes, details and furniture. I think most architects understand that > URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

© RENZO MAZZOLINI PHOTOGRAPHY

Is the profession still attracting and retaining the talent it needs?

There is always talent out there…but we would like to see better education for designers. Most of us are not really exposed to design as a thinking discipline until we go into further education. The quality of design education in schools is lamentable and that puts designers at a disadvantage, even with a four-year degree course. We often see graduates with very poor design process and no real sense of how to think like a designer. So, the good ones are valuable and worth hanging on to. I’d love to see design studios offering placements to high school teachers and it is essential that they get better resources.

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Graven Images are championing the offer of studio placements to High School teachers to kickstart design education

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Left - Keppie’s Andrew Murray partners with architectural colleagues from the outset Right - HLM have become adept at visualising spaces

interior design is all about the specialism of close-up detail… the things you can touch. On large projects architects have so many challenges to negotiate that an early and collaborative approach on the interiors can really help to maintain design quality. I also believe that interior design is a way into thinking about brands, and how these are reflected in architecture.

How is new technology impacting you?

Technological change has had huge impact on how we work and on how our clients and partners work. BIM has driven efficiencies and changed our processes. Output quality is higher than ever. Universal mobile devices in the workplace have allowed clients to seriously adopt agile strategies and this has changed the size, shape and nature of offices worldwide. And at last, video conferencing has come of age with Zoom and Teams, reducing unnecessary travel, reducing carbon, saving time, improving communications across projects and enabling self-quarantining. Of course, only if we all have access to fast internet…governments please take note!

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Andrew Murray Interior Designer Keppie What has been your proudest achievement?

I am very proud to have secured my place in the team at Keppie after completing several work placements to build my experience, however being accepted to and graduating from Edinburgh College of Art are equally my proudest achievements. Securing only one of five spaces on the Interior Design course at ECA still seems surreal even after studying there for three years and being a graduate for almost two. It was great to share this milestone with my family being the first graduate of us all - which they made sure to celebrate. It’ll be a tough one to top.

How is the relationship between interior design and architecture evolving?

As a designer early in my career I love that I’m encouraged to be curious, have an opinion and offer ideas. The productive and engaging atmosphere is great

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and encourages easy collaboration. I appreciate it hasn’t always been so well connected, but a shift in office culture has allowed us to overcome barriers and create a more fluid, positive relationship. We’re problem solvers with different priorities. Together we plan, design and deliver award winning, life changing buildings and spaces.

Being involved from the outset allows me to inspire and challenge my architectural colleagues, as they are me.

How is new technology impacting you?

There’s no doubt technology is all around us, especially in our industry. Surrounded by talented colleagues with strengths across an array of platforms I am consistently discovering new potential for ideas and outcomes which is exciting. Revit is the baseline here and I’m on a steep learning curve but one that’s hugely benefitting the coordination dialogue. Enscape allows me to visualise spaces easily and quickly while VR, AR and MR take our concepts to the next level. These tools are fantastic and dramatically transforming our ability to share and collaborate, I’m excited to see what’s available in years to come.

Lindsey Wilson Interior Designer HLM How is the relationship between interior design and architecture evolving?

It is much easier to create innovative, homologous interior solutions in respect of the proceeding intervention of modern technology. BIM, and Twinmotion, has enhanced our design interaction, providing clarification of ideas prior to build, in addition to identifying new inspiring opportunities within existing structures. HLM’s refurbishment of the University of Glasgow’s Boyd Orr Building is implementing just that, its 1960/70’s brutalist architecture with austere, geometric monolithic form may have seemed ‘stylistically’ in contrast to modern ways of learning and teaching, but with the aid of technology we can successfully transform and adapt architecture of this period into innovative aspirational, teaching and learning environments. >

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Left - Ingram blur the boundaries between architecture and interior design Right - MLA are embracing the rise of co-working spaces

Are your clients becoming more design conscious?

Clients now anticipate a further refinement of innovation, having appreciated that there are a lot of unfolding strategies, trends and ethos to the continuing evolution of modern interior design, considering one basic space is not the same as another. Interior fraternity is now witnessing a shift, new approaches and different expectations from users picking up on the new opportunities created from developing technologies and brand awareness. Such as the vision for the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) Project to be an Industry- led International centre of Manufacturing expertise where research, industry and the public sector work together to transform skills, productivity and innovation. The Interior will provide a series of different themed modern research workspaces and learning environments to meet with varied modern workstyles.

Is cross-disciplinary collaboration as effective as it could be?

Creating strong design solutions in collaboration with colleges, consultants, clients and end users requires a cross fertilisation of Ideas towards a common consensus, in par with the format supplied by the client. Working relationships are invaluable to any project whilst in sync with enthusiasm and commitment, if successful, should make useful progress towards consolidation of the project. For example the NMIS project utilised feasibility studies informed by Stakeholder consultation and brief development in order to comprehend the particular URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

requirements of the plethora of users involved within the facility, to summarise thoughtful design is fully considered creativity whilst understanding the brief.

Avril Cranston Director Ingram What are this year’s key trends?

The climate emergency is to the forefront of our minds and this is creating some very interesting design trends. We are looking at the environmental credentials of all of the materials we specify and are really pleased to see the lengths that some manufacturers are going to, to create beautiful, environmentally friendly and sustainable materials. My current favourite is a newly launched fabric created from plastics from the ocean.

As architects and designers we are at the forefront of design.

We play a key role in advising our clients and can play a very important role in advising them on materials and assisting them in considering the impact we and our projects have on the environment and our earth.

How is the relationship between interior design and architecture evolving?

At Ingram Architecture & Design we don’t see any difference between architecture and interior design. Interiors are integral to the whole design of a project. The best projects are where the architect and interior designer collaborate closely from an

© MCATEER PHOTOGRAPH

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early stage. This is starting to happen a little more, but has a long way to go.

Are your clients becoming more design conscious?

Definitely! We have a wide variety of different types of clients and they are definitely becoming more design conscious. We are surrounded by social media and design programmes on tv which on one hand make many people feel as if they are actually designers. But on the other hand it is also opening up their eyes to much more exciting possibilities.

Kenny Fraser Director Michael Laird Architects What are this year’s key design trends?

The rise of ‘co-working’ under its many guises has probably been this year’s key trend.

We have helped a variety of clients and developers enter the fray with co-working, community offerings in their new speculative developments to attract and retain exciting tenants.

We have also seen, however, some of our corporate clients reel back from the centralised, co-working facility....particularly the further you move away from London.

Their staff groups are instead placing real value on keeping teams together as much as possible with an increase in flexible worksetting choices within the locality of their teams......what we used to call ‘breakout space’ I suppose.

How is new technology impacting you?

Our focus at MLA is ensuring that we align new technology with the communication of ideas.

We find that it’s all well and good having these great, creative ideas, but if we can’t communicate how fantastic or clever our proposal is....well, what’s the point? Who cares?

The successful communication of ideas is fundamental to our design industry and we find that new technology in this endeavour plays a very important part in this.

Whilst the classic (analogue) sketchpad and pen still has a place in everything we do at MLA, the integration of numerous tech ‘platforms’ and applications enables us to design, draw and communicate our ideas in exciting ways that few of us could have imagined only a decade ago.

Is cross-disciplinary collaboration as effective as it could be?

Linked to the impact of new technology, as discussed above, the effectiveness of cross-disciplinary collaboration is becoming increasingly dependent on how we integrate this technology into our normal working lives.

Weekly team meetings using Teams / Zoom / Skype video conferencing platforms are now common place and the increasing use of Revit allows many of us to collaborate effectively in a ‘live’ situation whether we are in the same room or not.

As we all adapt and immerse ourselves in these (relatively new) technology-driven work patterns, we firmly believe that the effectiveness of this collaboration will improve as this becomes the new ‘normal’. >

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45 West Nile Street Glasgow G1 2PT T: 0345 271 6350 E: glasgow@3DReid.com 36 North Castle Street Edinburgh EH2 3BN T: 0345 271 6300 E: edinburgh@3DReid.com Email: scott.torrance@3DReid.com Web: www.3DReid.com Twitter: @3_D_Reid 3DReid is a creative design studio specialising in the design and delivery of complex new build and refurbishment projects throughout the UK. Our interiors team work across all major sectors designing 3, 4 & 5-star hotels, bars and restaurants, hospitality lounges, residential including student residences, leisure, retail and workplace environments.

We believe our experience working across sectors has given us expertise and insight to understand client’s aspirations for the design of interiors, products and finishes.

Current and recent projects include British Airways Lounge at Aberdeen Airport, Goodwood Hotel in Chichester, Hotel Indigo Manchester, Mamucium Restaurant & Bar in Manchester, V&A Hotel in Manchester, Sheraton Grand Hotel in Edinburgh, The Combworks Student Residence in Aberdeen, The Fishmarket Newhaven in Edinburgh, The Rutland Arms Hotel in Newmarket, Village Hotel in Basingstoke, Village Hotel in Bristol and Cheval Gloucester Park Residences in London.

Sectors: Community-use, Civic & Cultural, Education & Healthcare, F&B, Hospitality & Leisure, Hotels, Offices, Residential, Restaurants & Bars, Retail, Workplace.

Services: Architectural Design Interior Design Design Strategy Engagement & Brief Building Environmental Branding FF&E Specification Space Planning 3D Visualisation

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Above - The Fishmarket Newhaven, Edinburgh. © David Cadzow Right - Cheval Gloucester Park Residences, London © Cheval Gloucester Park

The Fishmarket Newhaven, Edinburgh Client: Roy Brett ‘Ondine’ and Gary Welch ‘Welch Fishmongers’.

The Fishmarket Newhaven brings to life an unused portion of the historic Grade B listed Victorian Fishmarket. An insertion of a restaurant to the front façade, with the relocation of the existing fishmonger to the rear part of a pier-side development at Newhaven in Edinburgh.

The interior reflects the Victorian heritage of the building and surrounding neighbourhood with emerald tiles, brass fittings and soaring rafters. With its huge floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the harbour and minimalist tiled decor, a classic metal takeaway counter and beyond that, a simple dining room. Outside is all about the view, with fishing boats, the landmark Newhaven lighthouse in the foreground and the three bridges of the Forth.

Cheval Gloucester Park Residences, London Client: Cheval Collection / APML Estates Comprehensive refurbishment and remodelling of 98 upper luxury serviced apartments at the Cheval Gloucester Park Residences in Knightsbridge.

As well as lead architect we undertook the interior design strategy to upgrade and maintain the high quality luxury offer in line with the Cheval brand and this re-positioned offer.

The remodelling of the ground floor and basement enabled the creation of a Cinema Room and larger Gym as well as feature ‘Library’ lounge spaces in the east and west wings for guests to meet and relax in, providing a sense of ‘home from home’.

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175 Albion Street, Glasgow G1 1RU Tel: 0141 552 6626 Email: info@graven.co.uk Web: www.graven.co.uk Twitter: @GravenHQ We love to be part of skilled and experienced teams working on ambitious projects. In more than three decades we’ve had the privilege of doing exactly that in more than 40 countries. Our people, our knowledge, our processes and our technologies are constantly evolving to respond to a changing world. It’s fun and it’s exciting and there is nothing more rewarding than standing back from a completed project to see real people enjoying something new.

Great environments give people confidence and energy, and encourage everyone to raise their game. © RENZO MAZZOLINI

Chivas Relocating Chivas from their historic location in Paisley, this project allowed Graven to combine their wealth of experience designing hospitality environments and luxury brands with their awardwinning expertise in workplace design.

The brief demanded a reimagining of the work environment.

Chivas Brothers needed a space that could positively impact the work culture of the organisation, encouraging an attitude of conviviality – the very foundation of the company and its products.

The design embeds opportunities for the Chivas team to meet and to share experiences. Social spaces are paramount. This included a ‘convivial lounge’, coffee bar, technologically enabled meeting rooms, and a super-flexible kitchen. There is a fully equipped bar where, as well as occasional relaxation, the team and its business partners can train and develop their skills and knowledge.

Graven prioritised a flexible working environment to support the organisation’s future growth plans, effectively combining architecture and technology to enable staff to get the best out of all areas of the building depending on their task or needs.

There is a level of quality, comfort and luxury that not many workplaces can enjoy. But if anyone needs a change, just around the corner is the Graven-designed Kimpton Blythswood Square Hotel.

Services Interior design and architecture Workplace strategies Hospitality design Strategic design and concept development Brand strategy Wayfinding

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Ailsa Court 121 West Regent Street Glasgow G2 2SD Tel: 0141 226 8320 Email: glasgow@hlmarchitects.com Web: www.hlmarchitects.com Twitter: @HLMArchitects Thoughtful design to make better places for people.

We listen and respond to the ambitions of our clients and understand the needs of the people who will use the places and spaces we create.

We strive to create places of education that inspire, healthcare environments that nurture, homes that are part of thriving communities, and infrastructure that is sustainable in every sense: environmentally, economically and socially.

Our sector-led approach and dedication to retaining our deep rooted regional connections, coupled with a thoughtful approach to design, enables us to differentiate us from our peers.

Services: Architecture Interior Architecture Landscape Architecture Masterplanning Environmental Sustainability

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National Manufacturing Institute Scotland, Glasgow Client: University of Strathclyde The National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland (NMIS) will provide support for manufacturing businesses, help to attract investment and connect all of Scotland’s engineering Universities and Colleges.

The vision is for the NMIS to be an industry-led centre of manufacturing expertise where research, industry and the public sector work together to transform skills, productivity and innovation to attract investment and make Scotland a global leader in advanced manufacturing. This will include the establishment of a new joint Centre for Manufacturing Excellence and Skills Academy to provide businesses with access to expert services, advanced demonstrator facilities and training programmes focused on innovative manufacturing.

In essence, this facility is about creating an open and collaborative environment where knowledge and creativity can be shared. It should be an exemplar project for the best of Scottish construction technology and engineering, demonstrating new technologies and methodologies. Located at the heart of the new Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland (AMIDS), it should act as a catalyst for future development attracting world leading companies and institutions involved at the cutting edge of advanced manufacturing.

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227 Ingram Street, Glasgow G1 1DA Tel: 0141 221 5191 Email: getus@ingramarchitecture.co.uk Web: www.ingramarchitecture.co.uk Twitter: IngramArch Principal Contacts: Stephen Govan, Director Avril Cranston, Director

SP2, Two storey office building, Glasgow Client: Hermes Investment Management The building is formed over two levels, has curved external walls and a sloping roof. The existing fit-out was bright, brash and consisted of a dreary standard palette of materials. The dated suspended ceiling, which was sloping at first floor, combined with the curved external wall gave a feeling of sea-sickness!

Our brief was to bring it up to date for the landlord to allow them to bring it to the market.

The budget was tight, but we were determined to create an interesting fit out so we focussed on limited areas of interesting materials and used other standard materials in an interesting way.

We removed the dated suspended ceiling, exposed the services and incorporated limited areas of raft ceilings and cool linear light fittings.

It was a complicated exercise to coordinate the services/ ceiling finish and light fittings within an unusually shaped building. Thankfully we had a great team on board, we worked together with the M+E engineers (Atelier Ten) and the contractor (Interact Interiors) to ensure everything was perfectly coordinated. We softened up the industrial feel by using a mixture of floor finishes and incorporating a natural timber screen spanning the full height of the stairwell.

Ingram Architecture & Design is a creative commercial architectural practice based in the merchant city in Glasgow. We work on a diverse range of interesting projects and have a wealth of experience across a variety of sectors including Office, Retail, Leisure, Residential, Hotel, Industrial and Mixed Use across the UK. We work with a wide variety of fantastic clients and provide them with our services from early inception to project completion.

Design and Delivery are core to our beliefs. We are committed to creating the highest standard of design whilst ensuring projects achieve the very best solution.

We are passionate about what we do and provide a service that is efficient and creative within an atmosphere of honesty, integrity, knowledge and professionalism.

Services: Architectural Design Interior Design Concept Design Masterplanning Workplace strategy and space planning Project management Conservation design

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160 West Regent Street Glasgow G2 4RL Tel: 0141 204 0066 Web: www.keppiedesign.co.uk Email: info@keppiedesign.co.uk Twitter: @Keppie_Design We take pride in being extremely easy people to work with and are of course a trusted partner on private and public sector projects. We’re regularly collaborating with exciting people within the biggest names in construction, engineering, architecture and design across the globe. From Arts & Culture to Healthcare, from Education to Sport, from Finance to Retail - we have a fully exportable skill set that makes a real difference wherever we work. Our global agility allows us to lead and collaborate on a fantastically diverse and inspiring portfolio.

Services Architecture Interior Design Planning

TECA (P&J LIVE) Aberdeen Client: Robertson Construction Group / Aberdeen City Council The relationship of architectural spaces to human experience is an acknowledged central consideration - the important ‘experiential’ factor. Our work at TECA (P&J Live) created several such spaces focusing on user experience, wayfinding, orientation and human interactions. The 195 Bar & Grill is TECA’s signature restaurant enjoyed as a member of the VIP Hospitality Club. As a space it has its own personality, one which evolved through a fast-track process where brief, capacity and budget changed often. The response is an attractive intelligent collection of spaces offering complimentary atmospheres.

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5 Forres Street, Edinburgh EH3 6DE Tel: 0131 226 6991 Email: edinburgh@michaellaird.co.uk 83a Candleriggs, Glasgow G1 1LF Tel: 0141 255 0222 Email: glasgow@michaellaird.co.uk Web: michaellaird.co.uk Twitter: @MLA_Ltd We are passionate and committed to creating spaces that connect people in simple, intuitive ways. We use our creative approach to deliver pragmatic, effective and commercially-astute buildings, transforming places to make them better to live, work and play in.

As multi-award-winning architects and interior designers we take pride in the spaces we design to make them really work. We care about delivering a premium service on time and on budget, which means you can get on with enjoying a building that delivers what you need.

Services: • Architectural Design • Interior Design • Workplace Strategy & Planning • Masterplanning & Urban Design

Sentinel Building Refurbishment, Glasgow Client: Ardstone Capital MLA have recently completed the comprehensive refurbishment of Glasgow’s Sentinel Building on behalf of Ardstone Capital. First completed in 2005, Sentinel is well known for being a landmark development, but the common areas and services were in need of updating.

The refurbishment includes a new remodelled reception space with working lounge, redesign of the core areas with increased WC provisions, and a new wellness suite in the basement. Services, lighting and ceilings were replaced throughout the floors and new branding was developed by P4P to support the redesign. All works we’re completed whilst the building was partially occupied.

TEAM ESTEEM

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BY MARRYING THE POWER OF THE SUN WITH THE LATEST TIMBER CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGIES A GROUP OF FORWARD THINKING STUDENTS FROM HERIOT WATT UNIVERSITY ARE HITTING THE WORLD STAGE TO SHOWCASE NEW WAYS OF WORKING IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS.

An exploded axonometric view shows the intricacies at play in this three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle

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Above - At the heart of the plan is a signature 3d printed concrete windtower Below - An unrelenting sun guides all aspects of the design from the need to provide shade to the potential to provide power

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Slanted roofs hint at the Scottish climate with ornamentation rooted in its context

A group of students at Heriot-Watt University are taking to the world stage with preparations for their participation in the World Expo 2020 and Solar Decathlon Middle East (SDME) competition in Dubai. As sole British representatives of an international student showdown the team will employ the first cross-laminated timber (CLT) to be manufactured in Scotland courtesy of the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre.

Dubbed Team ESTEEM the multi-disciplinary group will take the lead on all aspects of constructing a demonstration one-bedroom home from design through to marketing and the use of intelligent systems to harness the power of the sun to power a fully functional home while taking into account the cultural, climatic and social context of the Middle East.

To that end, the team proposes to build a Passivhaus home from recyclable materials such as bricks manufactured from waste products, cork insulation and cross-laminated timber, all conforming to a modular design which permits assembly in as little as 14 days.

The project will begin with the construction of a full-scale prototype in Edinburgh this spring to serve as a testbed for the various products and innovations on display.

A second adapted version of this model will then be shipped to Dubai for assembly on site.

Appraising Urban Realm of the project aims via video link amid the coronavirus shutdown team leader Jessica Haskett said: “We are using low carbon, non-toxic construction as well as smart technologies to monitor the wellbeing of occupants. We’re also making it modular to suit a family or its occupants through their changing needs. That includes enlarging or shrinking the house to accommodate children or to take care of the elderly. The fact that we can move this house from Edinburgh to Dubai means that the occupants can move this house wherever they choose to go. This is something that we’re thinking about innovatively, we’re challenging the perceptions of construction and how we live with the tools, products and choices we are given”.

Around 60 students will be split into 12 sub-teams, each of which must collaborate, innovate and inform the project >

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to create the best design possible. Haskett added: “We’ve engineered our design to suit the climate of Dubai, tackling the challenges of a hot climate. The structure is super thick and oriented to minimise solar gains. We want to harness the suns energy and use materials to produce a house that is suitable for anywhere and can be moved everywhere.”

Key design features include a decorative carport for shading, a 3d printed concrete wind tower for natural cooling and light materials designed to reflect heat but the priority throughout the process was function over style. As Martin Juricek, architecture and interior design lead explained: “The design of the house cannot depend solely on the visual aspects. In this competition, we are judged more on the efficiency of the house rather than the aesthetics and therefore we kept reshaping the design based on where the wind blows and where the sun shines until we found the best balance between efficiency and aesthetics.

“It was also important to us to make clear that we’re a Scottish team, so we tried to take influences from both cultures such as the pitched roof, wind tower, arches and ornaments. Particular focus was given to the comfort and wellbeing of the residents. The major role was played by the floorplan which allows for separation between the kitchen and the living room and has a courtyard in the middle with bi-folding doors to open up the huge space.

“We also created a hobby room area in the heart of the floorplan so people will be able to adjust that space to their needs. From the beginning, we wanted to create a comfortable space but realised early in the design process that this is very subjective and depends on the individual.

We benefitted from having an international team of students when making decisions.”

Another key element was landscape design, led by Pietro Donatelli, who faced the onerous task of taming the arid landscape. “Our team has students from different academic backgrounds and collaborates with the architecture team,” Donatelli said. “Our task concerns the placing and type of vegetation and considers what will work in the harsh climate to improve the wellbeing of occupants.

Placing plants on the rotating louvres will screen the house from both sudden dust storms which occur during the winter months and the powerful sun. Rainwater is collected for irrigation and plants have been chosen which can resist the heat. To do this we relied on professional consultancy from the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh to advise on which are the best plant species to be used.”

Rather than view an extreme climate as a challenge the team saw it as an opportunity, utilising an array of energy management systems and solar technologies to power the house and keep it cool, including integrated photovoltaics on the slanted roof and a heat battery. Defining the overall design is a concrete windcatcher, modelled on a traditional URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

Middle Eastern design to provide natural ventilation and evaporative cooling. This contemporary sculptural chimney will introduce a cool breeze to the interior courtyard while demonstrating the effectiveness of current 3d printing technology.

Focussed on planning, reuse and prefabrication the aim is to create as accurate a model as possible to evaluate performance before progressing the structure Engineering lead Ellenor Witton, said: “The main structural components

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Taking inspiration from the past the contemporary home focusses firmly on the future

of our house are designed to be built from engineered timber. More specifically the roof and the walls are going to be built from CLT and the floor is made up of glulam beams that join our Terrapod (a structural pedestal designed to transfer building loads to the ground) foundations with CLT panels between. The CLT provides many environmental benefits over other materials such as half the embodied carbon of concrete. Its overall net carbon footprint is negative due to the nature of timber. We are proud to say

that our CLT will be formed here in Scotland with timber sourced from Glen Almond in Perth.�

The Solar Decathlon Middle East (SDME) will take place between December 2020 and April 2021 when 21 universityled solar-powered homes will go on display, with the winner to be decided on a range of criteria from architecture and energy efficiency to sustainability. Urban Realm will be following the team on their journey of discovery throughout the year and wishes them every success.

Our creativity is rarely seen.

You'd be surprised what we do behind the scenes to help our clients realise what's possible .

Wi l l R u d d D a v i d s o n E d i n b u r g h O f f i c e 4 3 Yo r k P l a c e E d i n b u r g h

Structural & Civil Engineering Undiscovered We can help you realise what’s possible anywhere in the UK www.ruddconsult.com

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THE BARBICAN CENTRE GIOIA SAWAYA

VER T I CAL C I TY TIME IS SAID TO BE GREAT HEALER AND NOWHERE IS THAT MORE TRUE THAN LONDON’S BRUTALIST BARBICAN CENTRE WHERE OPINIONS HAVE GRADUALLY SOFTENED FROM DISDAIN TO DELIGHT. LEBANESE ARCHITECT GIOIA SAWAYA PROVIDES AN OUTSIDERS PERSPECTIVE ON A CONCRETE UTOPIA THAT OFFERS AN IDEAL ENVIRONMENT FOR SOCIAL DISTANCING.

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Left - Hanging gardens and fountains are not usually associated with housing developments of the era Right - Flats have since been snapped up by city high-fliers at astronomical prices

Located in the heart of London, the Barbican Estate by Chamberlin, Powell, and Bon architects extends beyond being a remarkable example of brutalist architecture.

If we talk about solids and cavities in architecture, scale and proportion, rhythm, structure, and balance, the architecture of the Barbican Estate is clearly composed of space and character. The character of its space is composed of the material consistency of elements and their formal appearance. But, since most people judge the external appearance of things; or in other words, their “aesthetics”, it didn’t come as a surprise when the Barbican was voted “London’s ugliest building” in a poll in London in September 2003. Opinions about its design have always been controversial. The project itself has always proposed to emphasize the opposition, focusing its attention on defining a self-contained urban microcosm based on variations that alternate within a strict regularity.

This approach to achieving a character of the place in contrast to what’s existing gives the Barbican Estate an aspect of an ordered complexity, leaving the space to the preeminence of creating itself a great spatial richness, > URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

The Barbican represents a step into a bold new future

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where repetition and order coexist.

Here, a bolder and more resounding type of architecture is introduced. Architecture is meant to be an expressive space, so the architects were interested not only in how people react to their architectural ideas, but also in how they adapt and use these ideas in the created environment.

Similar to Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseille, Chamberlin, Powell, and Bon saw the need for highdensity housing in London after the bombings of World War II that left the area of the Barbican site devastated.

Inspired by Le Corbusier’s famous quote “the house is a machine to live in”, the architects’ utopian vision to transform this bombed area provided them with a radical opportunity.

Le Corbusier’s spatial organization and approach was replicated in the Barbican Estate. His vision of communal living and his idea of the residents gathering together in a “vertical garden city” is evident. Interestingly enough, the Barbican Estate is considered to be a functional and spatial unique walled “city within a city” that is completely optimiSed for its residents.

With its complex multi-level layout, an interlocking

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system of residential blocks is arranged along with outdoor communal spaces. This, in turn, adds a visual interest to the project. In addition, patios incorporate into the façade systems, encouraging exploration and movement.

But what the architects particularly share in common with the work and philosophy of Le Corbusier is that both use a grid that adopts a proportional measuring system, while having a mixed- use, modernist, and residential highrise aspect. Moreover, both projects were large-scale and used reinforced béton-brut concrete. Apart from being a cost-efficient material, the béton-brut gave a rough appearance and a sense of monumentality.

The residential complex is made up of 2113 residential units intended to house 6,500 residents. The integrated Arts Centre includes a concert hall, a theatre, a library, art galleries, bars and restaurants, a conservatory and two schools.

Ever since its completion in year 1982, and being the largest of its kind in Europe, the Barbican Estate has become a symbol of British post-war architecture and a landmark in terms of scale, social cohesion, and community living.

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Above - No mere dormitory the estate offers a wealth of cultural and leisure opportunities Below - The Barbican Centre ushered in a new era of community living at a time when the individual was king

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TOWN CENTRE REGENERATION JOHN GLENDAY

PAISLEY IS MEETING THE CHALLENGES OF A NEW DECADE HEAD-ON AFTER SETTING OUT ITS VISION FOR CONSOLIDATION AROUND A REVITALISED URBAN CORE. CAN THIS URBAN BLUEPRINT SERVE AS A TEMPLATE FOR OTHERS AMID A DECIMATION OF RETAIL WHICH IS ONLY ACCELERATING AMID A COVID-19 SHUTDOWN?

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TOWN CENTRE REGENERATION

Left - Collective Architecture have prepared designs for a High Street learning & cultural hub Right - Retail willcling on around a revamped entrance to the Paisley Centre

Paisley has become a standard bearer for town centre renewal with publication of an ambitious blueprint that sets out to arrest its long-term decline. Vision for Paisley Town Centre 2030 is backed by Renfrewshire Council and Scotland’s Town Partnership, who have chosen Paisley as a proving ground for an audacious revitalization that sacrifices lame duck retail in favour of adaptive re-use and a renewed focus on priceless heritage and cultural assets.

Written by Threesixty Architecture the action plan seeks to enhance the existing Paisley Centre by repurposing vacant upper units as flats, accompanied by a range of new attractions including a High Street cinema and food hall. This town centre first approach will consolidate remaining street-front retail on High Street while establishing new public spaces, lanes and streets URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

to improve accessibility. Ideas to re-use historic buildings such as the Liberal Club, YMCA building and TA Building will also be explored.

Speaking to Urban Realm at the launch of the report Alan Anthony, managing director of Threesixty Architecture, said: “Fundamentally this is about connecting the whole community to the town centre again by focussing on the pedestrianised High Street. The centre has never had a strategy for dealing with falling retail. It’s declining and will only get worse, there’s a dire future for retail and we can’t do anything about it. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to rebalance our town centres and High Streets.”

Turning a crisis into an opportunity is a well-worn tactic in times of strife but is a change in perspective enough

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to reverse decades of decline? Anthony continued: “The opportunity is to say the town shouldn’t be dominated by retail anymore because it never used to be. It used to have the cinemas and workplaces and residential in the heart of the town. It became depopulated for the benefit of retail when the consumerist economy kicked in in the sixties.

Then we’ve had the growth of clone towns where every town is the same as the other. There wasn’t space for the lower rental facilities to give that mix of culture, education and leisure. We’ve now got the chance to rebalance the town and guess what happens when you get that working?

Footfall, who needs footfall? Retail.”

This circular thinking brings to mind the Ouroboros but Anthony is adamant that this approach won’t result in the town merely cannibalising existing assets but rather deliver

a net increase in people and businesses, no-one travels to Paisley to see a Tesco’s after all. “This is a reawakening of what a town centre should be”, says Anthony. “Not what it used to be. Not in terms of the heyday of retail but what went before that when the High Street had three cinemas.”

Is there a danger that in focussing on the centre peripheral areas such as Ferguslie Park will lose out? “Why would you imagine that?” Anthony counters. “The whole premise is can you restart the economic engine of the High Street? The social and cultural appeal will spread out and it will no longer be taking from the economy, it will be contributing and that can only be of benefit to the rest of the town.”

Is the proximity to Glasgow a benefit or detrimental?

“Rename the airport Paisley Airport? We’d never hear from >

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Glasgow again! Paisley is fiercely independent and is proud of its identity but I will happily be considered as being an entry point to Glasgow if that means we can repopulate our town centre because it’s seven minutes away by train to the centre of Glasgow. If you’re a tourist we’re nearer the airport, Paisley concerts and attractions, why not stay here? Paisley Gilmour Street is already the fourth busiest station in Scotland.”

In isolation a new leisure hub or museum might struggle to gain traction but through agglomeration the hope is that each element will interrelate with the next, fuelling a cascade effect which will create a town centre which is greater than the sum of its parts. Outlining how this approach can bear fruit Anthony concluded: “We’re positioning attractors in the right place; the study doesn’t say we need a cinema in the town centre of Paisley. The study says let’s put a cinema in the right place to achieve maximum regeneration because of the businesses around it. You have to look at where people arrive and the economic vitality of the route.”

Phil Prentice, chief officer at Scotland’s Town Partnership is leading efforts to build diversity among secondary urban centres and attended personally at Paisley to champion the proposed programme. He told Urban Realm: “Believe it or not Scotland is seen globally as leading on policy and the statutory approach towards town centres. Japan, Catalan, Irish, Welsh, French, Belgian and Germans have been over to look at the town centre action plan.”

There is no doubt that Scotland can talk a good game when it comes to regeneration, but can such ideals translate into action and implementation on the ground?

“Paisley was the perfect opportunity to get into those systemic problems of the multiplicity of owners, the

>

Left - A revamped interior at the Liberal Club offers eisure potential Middle - A cinema could help set regeneration plans in motion Right - The town centre would be shipshape with a new library URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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Enhanced facilities will make Paisley a more attractive place to live

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Left - A dramatic ‘shop window’ would promote cultural activities over commerce Right - The Paisley Centre could be repurposed as a residential quarter

flexibility of planning, lack of collaboration”, says Prentice.

“There still isn’t much collaboration between the public and private sectors, there’s still mistrust. We’re very risk averse and it’s trying to blend all that together.

“The whole of Paisley is much bigger than the sum of its parts. If everybody sits in a room trying to put the jigsaw together it’s going to take longer than collectively sitting around the table and playing to our strengths.

Scotland has a tribal culture, big egos and vested interests.

Are they prepared to cede power and resources for the benefit of wider society? The key question is whether people are prepared to deliver rather than continue in their silos.”

If the challenges are substantial, the opportunities are even greater with Prentice’s eyes visibly brightening at the URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

prospect of boosting population, culture and leisure while simultaneously delivering on the health and wellbeing agenda. “Think about the climate emergency and the issue of an ageing demographic,” he says. “We can redesign things in consultation with the people who will benefit from them and Paisley gives us the best opportunity to do that.”

Of course, the situation in Paisley cannot be detached from national and global trends which have been in train for decades as an increasingly urbanised society huddles together in burgeoning mega-cities. How can a city like Glasgow compete never mind its satellite towns?

Prentice responded: “Scotland doesn’t have a mega city and never will. We are a nation of towns. The prediction for our population is that by 2040 we will have five and a half million citizens. The fundamental shift will be people

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moving from the west coast and the south west over towards Edinburgh and the Lothians, so Edinburgh will become double the size of Glasgow. All the housing growth is going to be around Newtongrange, Gorebridge and Dalkeith down towards the Borders. Policymakers need to think how to address that anticipated shift by anchoring more economic opportunities. Why do we see growth in urbanisation? It’s where economic opportunity exists.”

“Very often we ignore the fact that we have some brilliant town centres and High Streets. All you need to do is see what they have done. Take Gourock, which has no retail vacancies whatsoever. However, it only has two nationals within its town centre offer, the trick here is no more clone towns that have been given to us by outside developers. Take that space back and create propositions

and services which are relevant to the population of Prestwick or Troon. I’m back from Ireland where the town centres are much more resilient because they’re building family businesses that are experiential and offer products you can’t buy on the internet. The more genuine, authentic and real the experience is the more likely you are to gravitate towards it.”

Paisley’s greatest asset remains the built legacy bequeathed by its industrial heyday which today counts three rail stations within its borders. Nor is the town standing still on this front either with the newly announced Glasgow Airport rail link promising to make Paisley a gateway and first impression for international travellers. In the process Paisley might indeed find itself the origin of a new pattern of renewal.

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CELTIC CONNECTION JOHN GLENDAY

The Queensferry Crossing demonstrates how Scotland can still think big. Image by prof Graeme Hutton URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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TROUBL ED WA T E R S AMID UNPRECEDENTED GLOBAL TUMULT THE TEMPTATION TO BUILD BIG IS ONE CONSTANT. AS UNCERTAINTY LAPS OUR OWN SHORES THE TALK IS NOT OF SPLENDID ISOLATION BUT ENHANCED CONNECTIVITY. CAN THE DREAM OF A BRITISH-IRISH CROSSING SURVIVE THESE TEMPESTUOUS TIMES?

It has been two years since the latest audacious proposal to build a leviathan crossing between Northern Ireland and Britain but in those two years the gap between the vision and the reality seems only to have widened as political divisions have grown. Is the idea now dead in the water?

Ostensibly the concept received a major vote of confidence when Prime Minister Boris Johnson giving green lighting a scoping report to investigate the viability of a link between Portpatrick near Stranraer to Larne, north of Belfast. If its proponents are to have any success they must first bridge a chasm that runs far deeper than 300m drop of Beaufort’s Dyke – the animosity between the SNP and the Conservatives.

Scotland’s Transport Secretary Michael Matheson writing to his UK opposite number Grant Shapps called for the reputed £20bn build cost to be made available for alternative infrastructure projects but the UK government is persevering with its vision, promoting the concept of a tunnel as part of a hybrid bridge-tunnel solution to answer critics concerns around the cost and practicality of a physical connection.

The sub-sea solution would see the crossing dip below the surface of the Irish Sea to enter a 22-mile long tunnel to escape the vagaries of wind and wave action while also reducing costs, amid concern that a single bridge solution would be too exposed to the elements. It is thought that such a tunnel could be modelled on the famous Oresund Bridge which utilises a combination of terrain dependent bridges and floating tunnels to span 12km of water between Denmark and Sweden, mediating between the two via an artificial island positioned mid-way along the route.

Identifying the potential to dig Scottish secretary Alister

Jack made the suggestion during a gathering of the Scottish Parliament’s Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee when he said: “The bridge for me is a euphemism for a link … which is a tunnel. Just to be clear about that. Tunnelling techniques now are quite advanced. And certainly, to go from south-west Scotland to Northern Ireland, it would be less expensive, knowing what we know of the geography of the north channel, to tunnel it.

It’s no different to the tunnels connecting the Faroe Islands, it’s no different to the tunnels going under the fjords. Once we get a better sight of the costs involved, should the Prime Minister decide to press the button, we would then want to engage with both [the Northern Ireland assembly and the Scottish Parliament] to get a better understanding of the benefits and the challenges.”

The concept of building a physical link across the Irish Sea was revived by professor Alan Dunlop who extrapolated public costings for similar infrastructure projects such as Arup’s Queensferry Crossing, the Confederation Bridge linking Prince Edward Island to Canada and Norman Foster’s Millau Viaduct to arrive at a cost of around £20bn for the Larne route but with more recent big infrastructure projects such as Crossrail and HS2 coming off the rails any figure at this stage is open to question.

In stark contrast with America where all the talk is of building walls Britain has been busy attempting to build bridges as a means of uniting a divided populace but as the government seeks to ‘level-up’ the economy outside London is a grandiose crossing the best allocation of resources?

Appraising Urban Realm on the present state of play Dunlop said: “The Westminster idea at the time was for a Northern >

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Powerhouse but they weren’t talking about Scotland, they were talking about Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. I said this could be a Celtic Powerhouse which would rebalance investment from London. I believe this is possible I think we have the talent to complete this but now he (Johnson) has launched the feasibility study I don’t necessarily think that’s a good thing because the comments now are to do with Boris’s folly and fantasy project.

It’s not about ideas, architecture and infrastructure, it’s focussed on people ‘s dislike of Boris Johnson and an anti-Brexit narrative.

“The Scottish Government was positive, I’d talked to Mike Russell (Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, Europe and External Affairs). The Damascene conversion was when Boris Johnson was at the DUP party conference and said we should do the bridge and gave me a namecheck. All of a sudden the attitude changed. People who support an independent Scotland are so anti-Boris Johnson, it’s nothing at all to do with whether the bridge is possible. I think that’s a blinkered opinion.”

Dunlop continued: “People ask me why I’m interested in building bridges. The politics at the moment in the UK and Ireland is in an absolute state of flux. No-one knows what’s going to happen in the next ten years, but my feeling is that a physical connection between these countries to transfer goods is a good thing, no matter what your politics are. There’s nothing like a >

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Above - Alan Dunlop envisages the tunnel approach at Port Mora as a sea cave Below - Initial plans for a bridge link have been superceded by a tunnel

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CELTIC CROSSING

The Galloway coastline is defined by high sandstone sea cliffs which run into the sea, forming a ledge below the wave line, before dropping where the sea gets much deeper. The terminal is intended to suggest that it rises from the ledge.

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Professor Alan Dunlop An underground tunnel connects to the A77 and A75 and breaks the coastal edge at Lairds Bay and Port Mora. The structure that supports the tunnel entrance looks like it might have arisen from the rocks, fragments and mass of loose stones at the base of the sea cliffs that run along the coast in that part of the Galloway.

I believe it would be possible for a structure, tunnel or bridge to be designed to harness wave energy from the Irish Sea on a massive scale. So, in the drawing, pontoons support the tunnel below and are connected to the sea bed by cable stays. Each is set out to allow ships to pass through.

Similar pontoon structures are currently being developed and constructed as part of the Norwegian Coastal Highway, crossing fjords 500 metres deep but here the pontoons are designed also to generate tidal energy.

piece of infrastructure to say these countries are looking forward.

People say never mind the bridge we should fix the potholes, the rail link to the airport is also a good idea - but it doesn’t negate the need to look at this to see if it works. I don’t see it as one or the other it’s a national debate about what we think is important.”

The rise of China is increasingly impacting upon Britain with the country ready to embrace Huawei in the teeth of vociferous opposition from the US and with reports emerging that China is angling to win a lucrative construction contract to build HS2.

Might this be a readymade opportunity to fast track a link? “I don’t think it would be politically possible”, states Dunlop. I was in Wuhan in October and the infrastructure there is phenomenal.

I know it’s a dictatorship, authoritarian and not a democracy but they have a much more ambitious attitude. One of the exemplar projects I looked at was the world’s longest sea bridge between Hong Kong and Macau, it’s 34 miles long and built to withstand typhoons.”

Is there a risk that if the project did get the go-ahead a run of bad news stories and mounting acrimony would end up driving a further wedge between nations? “We’re a democracy and it’s right these issues should be debated and talked about,” says Dunlop. “We need a pro-risk attitude. Look at the Forth Rail Bridge, can you imagine the balls you had to have to do that cantilevered structure? I’d like to have been around to read the

criticism of that. It’s now an icon for Scotland. Very often as a country we’re more likely to be critical and look for things that go wrong.”

Bruising battles have persuaded Dunlop to adopt a (comparatively) low profile, shying away from Urban Realm website and social media after becoming a focal point for critics but he remains unbowed: “I’m not on Twitter, or Facebook because I read enough comments about myself on news articles.

I’d hate to think what it’d be like if the discussion about the bridge goes on Twitter!”

Despite the odds being stacked against it, Dunlop remains bullish about his pet project, with interest at the highest levels of government proving that it’s no mere pipe dream. He said: “I’ve had a good number of engineers and contractors wanting to form design teams. The interest ebbs and flows. I’d like to think in 20-30 years there will be a bridge connection. It’s going to happen it’s part of Celtic folklore about the giant stepping from Scotland to Ireland. It’s part of who we are as Celts.”

With the COP26 climate conference coming into focus this November in Glasgow, sustainable travel is set to become a key battleground in the drive to reduce carbon emissions. With the Scottish Government committed to making every car electric by 2035 the notion of travelling between Scotland and Ireland by rail rather than air may be an idea whose time has come.

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SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION JOHN GLENDAY

ADVANCES IN MATERIALS SCIENCE, MANUFACTURING AND ENGINEERING SEEM POISED TO INTERSECT WITH A NEW GOLDEN AGE OF TIMBER BUT HOPES FOR BROADER ADOPTION REMAIN HAMSTRUNG BY BOTTLENECKS IN FORESTRY, LIMITED PRODUCTION CAPACITY AND RISK-AVERSE SPECIFICATION. WE ASSESS THE PROSPECTS FOR AN ABUNDANT WONDER MATERIAL WHICH REALLY DOES GROW ON TREES.

© DAVID BARBOUR

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An Cala, Assynt, by Mary Arnold-Forster Architects. Image by David Barbour

SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION

Earlier this spring, in one of the last gatherings to take place before the coronavirus lockdown, a group of engineers, architects, academics and industry representatives from around Europe gathered for the Mass Timber Academy’s ‘inspiration day’ – a whirlwind of debate and presentations centred wholly on the use of solid laminate timber in the construction industry. With the climate changing before our eyes is the climate around materials science, building technology and innovation also shifting? Urban Realm attended as a guest of Timber Design Initiatives to see whether inspiration might usher in a new era of manufacturing utilising home grown timber or if the sector remains destined to hold a wooden spoon.

If the dream is to be realised the first task will be to greatly expand forestry. As things stand the UK’s timber producing sector provides around 20% of the country’s needs with 19% of Scotland’s land mass given over to forestry - but there is limited scope to meaningfully expand this given environmental and planning constraints.

Adrian Campbell, director of Change Building, spoke forcefully in favour of a modal shift from a cycle of takemake-dispose to make-use-return, driven by reduced consumption and minimising waste via renewables.

Campbell said: “We have a biodiversity crisis, not just a climate crisis. Forestry could play a major role in enhancing habitats.” Citing figures from the Royal Forestry Society suggesting 25% of waste wood is still diverted to landfill with 75% burned as biomass Campbell said: “We haven’t taken down a mass timber building yet so it’s difficult to get a handle on what we do with mass timber at end of life. I’m worried we’ll use material for burning for energy rather than re-using.

Critical to the success of a recycling approach will be improved detailing to extend durability and a reduction in unnecessary modifications and adaptations which discourage re-use – such as harnessing the intrinsic benefits of cross-laminated timber such as natural connection systems using timber-only connections. “The issue is not the product,” Campbell says, “It’s a fragmented supply chain which needs to be streamlined to allow innovation to happen and to remove barriers with people saying no.”

For Campbell the issue boils down to what we can reasonably do with the resources and climate we have.

He said: “Many of the businesses I talk to say there is a significant shift in thinking. Having been in and around the sustainability debate for 20 years and seen that pushed around currently I see a more focussed attitude from professionals and clients to get to grips with it so I think something can be done. The implication for legislation in doping this for carbon pricing mechanisms, reduction in materials impacts, building regulations planning process and low carbon process – all of those are being debated, we just have to implement them quicker.” > URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

© DAVID BARBOUR

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BDP’s Maidenhill Primary School & Nursery employs timber finishes to dramatic effect. Photo by David Barbour

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Smaller studios continue to lead the way with bespoke solutions, as here at Altarf on Skye by Ann Nisbet. Photograph by David Barbour URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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Addressing the upcoming COP26 climate conference in Glasgow and the potential for this to serve as a springboard for global action Campbell continued: “We don’t have the luxury of time anymore to continue that debate. I’m really interested in what happens in Glasgow, whether it be a showcase of what the industry might do or whether it will represent the body of work that the industry is doing. That is the subtle difference that COP will need to demonstrate whether it is systemic, or a showcase. I went to the Earth Summit in Johannesburg and saw hydrogen powered Mini cars and they were talking about hybrid versus all-electric vehicles and that was in 2002. We’ve gone round and round but you’ve got to make changes. You can’t keep debating what it is necessary to do.”

Unfortunately in Scotland large tracts of land to the north and west, are too exposed and rocky for trees to take root. Kinder climates to the south and east aren’t without difficulties too where conflict with people means the prospect of ramping up acreage at scale (particularly over the short term) seems remote. One solution is to target more marginal sites where the risk of conflict arising with farming is much less. Couple this with the greening agenda and increasing calls to limit the consumption of meat and suddenly the prospect of significant forestry expansion doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Throw the unquantifiable impact of Brexit into the mix and the consequences for farm subsidies and suddenly you have a recipe for significant expansion over the next 30 years.

To meet the needs of the timber industry conifers remain the preference with Sitka spruce (thought to account for 60-70% of all planting) being both the most productive and easiest to establish across a broad range of environments =particularly wetter, free draining and poorer soils. It is estimated that every hectare planted with Sitka spruce will produce around 14 tonnes on average over a 40year cycle. Larch also used to be a popular variety but the slow spread of Phytophthora ramorum a plant pathogen, has put paid to broader adoption. Climate change is expected to further complicate matters with a projected fall in rainfall across the east coast necessitating the growing use of pine, which already accounts for as much as 90% of all planting.

Native broadleaf species such as birch, oak and ash remain the poster child of forestry but constitute just 1015% of planting – predominantly in high-priority areas of high population or degraded native woodlands as slower growth reduces the volume of timber produced per hectare per year by around half on average. A deficit compounded by the relative absence of a hardwood timber processing market in Scotland.

Do we have the capacity and skills to ramp up production at scale? One forestry insider told Urban Realm: > “If the ramp up is swift then probably not. However over

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Left - CCG have embraced timber fram construction as a means to speed assembly and enhance environmental performance Right - This amenity housing scheme in Hurlford, East Ayrshire, was built in a net period of just 34 days to designs by Mast

St Patrick’s Court, Coatbridge, by CCG and Hypostyle provides accessible accommodation to the over-55s URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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the last year or so new planting has been over 10k hectares for the year the highest in a long time and the target is now 15k. We now have 30 to 40 years to get the harvesting skills and resources in place to manage the increase. Increased mechanisation helps to counter the lack of skilled people and, as with many things, if there is work to be done and it is a rising programme then usually there are people to do it.

The home timber processing industry will certainly increase production levels if timber becomes available locally.”

Scotland’s timber needs have and continue to be served by imports from mature native woodlands as far afield as Russia, Scandinavia and Canada, accounting for between 80 and 90% of all timber requirements over the past 40 years at a cost of billions. The source added: “I believe it was an industry standard, when housing moved more to timber frame for the architect to stipulate white wood timber grades which precluded the use of home-grown timber.

This is changing now and the penetration of home-grown timber in the building sector is much better. Personally, I would think that with the green agenda that timber

being used for long term projects such as housing is an easy message to sell. Locked in carbon is the great selling feature of this and it is about getting the right messages to the public so they know better the benefits of growing productive trees in their back yards, so to speak.”

Chief among these is convincing the public, in a country of stone, that wood should be their go to medium: “This is about ensuring that we use the right techniques to guarantee that the timber we would use in facia is preserved properly and people grow in confidence with its use”, the source concluded. “The Scandinavians as we know have had timber finish to their housing for many, many decades. It’s a colder, drier climate but they still get some poor weather. We can surely get better and make it an easier sell to the public.”

The issues of resource depletion and habitat loss that we face from climate change are clearly visible as are the solutions. If we are to overcome such obstacles it is time to accept that industry hasn’t been able to see the wood for the trees for far too long.

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CHARLES JENCKS MARK CHALMERS

© MARK CHALMERS

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RENOWNED THEORIST CHARLES JENCKS BEQUEATHS A POWERFUL BUILT AND WRITTEN LEGACY FOLLOWING HIS PASSING IN OCTOBER LAST YEAR. BEST KNOWN FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TOJOURNALISM, LAND ART AND MAGGIES CENTRES JENCKS IS A TOWERING FIGURE WHO MOVED MOUNTAINS TO INSPIRE OTHERS. HERE MARK CHALMERS WEAVES TOGETHER THREE STRANDS OF A STELLAR CAREER.

CHARLES JENCKS

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© PHILIP VILE

Charles Jencks passed away in October last year. He was one of the best-known figures in architectural criticism and his obituaries covered a career as architectural historian, his role in co-founding the Maggie’s Centres, with a footnote on his landscape art.

In some respects he was a figure out of his time. He lived near Dumfries but cut a dash like a character from F. Scott Fitzgerald in a corduroy suit, floppy hat and silk scarf. His approach to criticism was serious-minded but intellectually playful, and the handful of times I met him and listened to him lecture, I was struck by the intellectual tenacity behind his dapper appearance.

“When I was a young historian studying under Reyner Banham I wrote a paper, ‘History as Myth’, which showed how

Jencks is perhaps best known for his role as a patron of Maggie’s Centres URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

each successive historian rewrote the script of Modernism by putting back into the story some of what the previous critic had excised, only to perpetuate a new bias of his own.”

That was a prophecy for Jencks’s own career, a knowing wink which acknowledged how the art historical machinery which drives architectural criticism works. The canon of Modernist buildings provides endless opportunities to debate, argue and reframe: to lecture, write papers and publish books.

Like Banham, Jencks mastered the rules early and enjoyed playing the game to its conclusion.

Charles Jencks studied under Sigfried Giedion at Harvard Graduate School of Design during the early 1960’s, then Reyner Banham at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London.

Jencks went on to teach Rem Koolhaas. The seeds of Jencks’s

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career lie in challenging the Modernist canon which Giedion helped to establish; the intellectual tools to do so were honed during his time studying under Banham.

Jencks met his future wife Maggie Keswick early in his career: both took a first degree in English, followed by a second in Architecture. Maggie Keswick’s specialism was landscape history and design, and she proved influential in every part of her husband’s life.

In the early 1970’s, Jencks published “Modern Movements in Architecture”, based on his doctoral dissertation written under the supervision of his mentor, Reyner Banham. Like Banham, he was alert to new trends, and he shared his mentor’s enthusiasm for popular culture. The final “s” in Movements was key: Jencks identified six traditions within Modernism and used them to

analyse architecture’s pluralism. Modern Movements was also the first time Jencks discussed the architects who would later become “Post-Modernists”.

“Modern Movements in Architecture” went head-tohead with Kenneth Frampton’s “Modern Architecture: A Critical History”. Those were key texts during the 1980’s and 1990’s, both became set books in architecture schools across the world, and years later I listened to both authors lecture.

Frampton is laconic and dry, whereas Jencks sparked with ideas and enthusiasms. Later, they were joined by William Curtis’s “Modern Architecture Since 1900”, and those three competing interpretations still fight over the territory of Modernism.

Charles Jencks’s defining book appeared a few years later: “The Language of Post-Modern Architecture” explored a new >

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architectural trend which Jencks named Post-Modernism.

Arguably, he served the same role that Giedion had during the rise of Modernism, and Jencks continually refined his analysis through several editions – just as Giedion had through the inclusion of Aalto and Utzon in later editions of “Space, Time and Architecture”.

Architectural history is an eternal work in progress. Each new edition of The Language of Post-Modern Architecture had a new cover which reflected how Post-Modernism had evolved.

Jencks’s third chapter expanded over the years to become a canon of Post-Modernism, taking in Robert Venturi, Aldo Rossi, James Stirling, Michael Graves, Hans Hollein and Mario Botta.

But the book isn’t entirely forward-looking. In this manifesto for Post-Modernism, Jencks also marked the death of Modern architecture, which he located precisely on 15th July 1972, the day the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project in St Louis was demolished. Jencks scrutinised Modernism’s downfall through the lens of Pruitt-Igoe, which he blamed on architectural dogma, formal impoverishment and the abandonment of Modernism’s social aims.

Post-Modernism made Charles Jencks’s name as a critic and polemicist; arguably Charles Jencks made Post-Modernism.

Given his closeness to Academy Editions at that time, and his friendships with the key figures in Post-Modernism, you could also say he became a tastemaker.

A few years later, Post-Modern architecture ran out of steam and Jencks shifted his attention to aesthetic theories which dealt with the beginnings of the universe. In 1995, he published a new book, “The Architecture of the Jumping Universe” in which he identified, “An aesthetic of undulating movement, of surprising, billowing crystals, fractured planes, and spiralling growth … a language more in tune with an unfolding, jumping cosmos than the rigid architectures of the past.”

Crucially, Jencks couldn’t make a connection between this new language and the Post-Modernism which he promoted so enthusiastically during the 1980’s. If Giedion remained the high priest of Modernism and Banham kept faith with the machine aesthetic, Jencks gave up his role as the apostle of PostModernism rather too quickly and easily.

Many lives reach an inflection point where someone has to decide whether they believe in progress, that things will keep improving and the future will be better than the past (the neophile); or recognising that things are in decline, and life was better in the past (the nostalgic). Jencks was definitely a neophile, always searching for the new thing.

The Jumping Universe showcased the work of Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind, but its language wasn’t that of architectural criticism. It was an attempt to relate architecture to fractals, complexity theory and quantum physics. Jencks expected us to follow him down the metaphorical rabbit hole where he equated Modernist architecture to Classical physics, while Jumping Universe > URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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Fife Earth -viewed across Loch Fitty towards ‘Europe’ mound

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Left - Viewing mounds with spiral ramps at Northumberlandia Right - The view from Northumberlandia’s head toward the Shotton opencast mine

architecture was analogous with quantum mechanics.

It was heady stuff, yet perhaps the Jumping Universe was too multivalent and pluralistic, even for Jencks. However, cosmogenesis had a side effect for him. It fuelled an interest in large-scale land art which he had the opportunity to explore thanks to his wife Maggie Keswick, whose family estate in Dumfries-shire provided many hectares of opportunity. In the Garden of Cosmic Speculation at Portrack, Jencks made the leap from critic to creator.

Jencks had assisted Keswick on her book, “The Chinese Garden”, and collaborated with her on landscape designs. His trademarks, some undoubtedly derived from Maggie’s work, became large-scale landforms with sinuous pools of water and paths forming helices and spirals. The garden at Portrack and later the nearby Crawick Multiverse, plus the Ueda Landform at the Museum of Modern Art in Edinburgh, and Jupiter Artland, are all universes in miniature.

I got an insight into Jencks’s creative process a few years ago, on a visit to Scottish Coal’s HQ near Alloa. The company’s directors were keen to pursue environmental improvement at a vast opencast coal mine outside Kelty. Jencks planned his largest piece of land art, known as Fife Earth or The Scottish World, for the worked-out pit which is a couple of kilometres across.

Jencks’s enthusiasm was infectious, to the extent of putting URBAN REALM SPRING 2020 URBANREALM.COM

on a hard hat and getting out on site to direct the excavators, bulldozers and dump trucks. Castlebridge Plant was Europe’s biggest earthmoving firm at the time, and the plant operators were amused that their giant muckshifters might create a work of art.

Fife Eaarth was planned as a celebration of the Scots diaspora, where in Jencks’s words you could “Walk the world in a day”, and discover our global influence. “It is to Scotland that we look for our ideas of civilisation”, wrote Voltaire, and The Scottish World was intended to celebrate the Enlightenment, Scots missionaries in Africa, plant hunters in Asia, merchants who traded in the Baltic, and geniuses of Scots descent such as the poet Lermontov in Russia and composer Grieg in Norway.

Yet Fife Earth is Jencks’s great lost opportunity. Europe was the first of four continents to be formed, its giant conical mound visible from the M90 motorway – but Scottish Coal’s parent company went bust before anything else could be finished. The site lies overgrown today, and without any visitor centre or interpretation boards to explain its purpose, it is as mysterious as the Nazca Lines.

Around the same time, Northumberlandia was created at another opencast coal mine at Cramlington, just outside Newcastle. This time, the landform was the recumbent figure of a woman: a pagan earth-goddess. Northumberlandia plays with scale: miniaturising the landscape of the distant Cheviot

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Hills whilst hugely scaling up the human figure. The goddess’s head overlooks an active opencast where Banks Mining are still digging up coal.

Sadly Maggie Keswick-Jencks also inspired the third strand of Charles Jencks’s career, as the co-creator and patron of a chain of cancer-care centres. In an era when we fight cancer with surgery, powerful drugs and proton beam machines, oncology and cancer care are almost always associated with a clinical environment. The Maggie’s Centres quickly became known for their warm welcome, friendly scale and homely interiors, somewhere for patients and their families which doesn’t feel like an institution.

Jencks told the BBC that receiving a commission for a Maggie’s Centre project was the architectural equivalent of receiving an Oscar. Some of the centres may owe a little to The Architecture of the Jumping Universe; but none to the language of Post-Modernism. That doesn’t matter: Charles Jencks’s impact on healthcare in Scotland, where the first few centres were built, is inarguable.

Charles Jencks’s life demonstrates that architectural theory isn’t the product of impersonal forces, but the work of individuals, many of whom were linked by teacher/ pupil/ mentor relationships. In fact, the succession through Giedion, Banham, Jencks and Koolhaas connects some of the 20th Century’s most influential theorists. Those connections, and

later the formidable address book which he drew upon for the Maggie’s Centres, are his strength.

Jencks’s weakness, noted by Aaron Betsky, Elie Haddad and others, is that he drew meaning from the appearance of architecture. Above all else, he treated buildings as visual metaphors, but showed less interest in plan and programme, and virtually ignored construction and technology – the very things which fascinated his mentor Reyner Banham.

His critique of Post Modern architecture misses the operational aspects of architecture, and completely ignores issues such as energy, ecology and environment which have defined the first quarter of the 21st century. Environmental science, rather than the cosmology of the Jumping Universe, has proved to be the real driver of architecture in recent years.

If Charles Jencks’s name was made by Post-Modernism, his legacy rests on the Maggie’s Centres. They are a lasting achievement which has touched thousands of lives in a much deeper way than architectural theory ever could. But how will his standing change over time?

As the composer Philip Glass noted about reputation, “I don’t know what’s going to happen in ten years. We don’t even get to know what’s going to happen after someone dies. We need to wait until everyone who knew them is dead, too.” It will be fascinating to see what future critics make of Jencks, even as they rewrite the history which he first set down.

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