Event & Community

The Challenge

The Macro Micro group research mapped house deprivation within Dundee Inner City and highlighted the necessity for an architectural intervention on the Hilltown Multi’s which ranks within the top 10% deprivation decile. This is partially due to several social and political factors playing a key role in the decline of this typology, which leads to further underfunding and dilapidation, resulting in demolition. Whilst there is no denying the issues noted within these blocks, there is an argument that the deterioration is largely down to the social and political factors at play, rather than the concept of this typology. Therefore, an architectural intervention could be used as a tool to mitigate the social-political issues noted, avoiding further demolition of these blocks and waste of embodied carbon associated.

The issue with the Hilltown multi’s, as well as most of the council constructed towers, is the duality between the high-rise ideals – the very concept of living in a high-rise - condensing the programme of a neighbourhood into a vertical block - against the realisation of what was constructed. There were too many corners cut by the council in the design and construction of these towers, thus failing to incorporate integral principles of sustainable high-rise living. This retrofit revisits Corbusier’s principles for high-rise living and instils the principles need to retain and reinvent these 1960’s tower blocks into a contemporary sustainable typology – thus mitigating the further demolition of the breed.