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2014 might have been an anti-climax for 45 per cent of the country but the political climate the year fostered lives on in an increasingly vocal public who are not afraid to make their opinions known, as we found out in city streets up and down the country during this year’s Carbuncle Awards.

It is a salutory reminder for others too; notably Glasgow City Council who have just launched a consultation of their own into a new Sauchiehall District (pg 60) and private developers such as The Chris Stewart Group, as they progress their own plans for regenerating St Andrew Square (pg 74).

This is manifesting itself in renewed activism at a local level as campaigners target particular schemes for protest, a febrile environment we explore further with an investigation into accountability in the planning process (pg 54).

Though the planning system gives cause for concern it is certainly not broken, with good work continuing to be delivered, as we discover with Page\Park’s Theatre Royal (pg 12), Anderson Bell + Christie’s Shields Centre (pg 88) and, most significantly, Richard Murphy’s new home (pg 29) - a build which challenges preconceptions of what is achievable on a World Heritage site.

One scheme to strike a particular chord with the public is The Royal High School (pg 66) in Edinburgh, which has drawn hundreds of curious visitors to a public consultation. It is at once a model for how to run such events well and an example of the continued disconnect between design professionals and the people they serve.

As ever good results are less about the decision making process than the people making the decisions and Urban Realm will position itself at the heart of that debate in the year ahead. John Glenday, Editor

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

MISSING LINK Morgan Sindall has prepared finalised designs for a new pedestrian and cycle bridge at Seabraes, Dundee, connecting the University to ongoing waterfront regeneration. The £3.5m bridge is scheduled to open

BRIEFS in May and is being funded by the Vacant and Derelict Land Fund, Scottish Enterprise, Cycling Walking and Safer Streets, the developer behind the Riverside Flats and Dundee City Council.

Plans are being drawn up by Keppie for a £130m film studio near Straiton, Midlothian, designed to draw big international productions by 2017. The Scottish International Studio would incorporate its own film school in addition to 52,000sq/ft of workshop space together with a large backlot for outsize sets. An ancillary hotel, housing and retail are also envisaged for the 29 acre greenfield site. Dundee’s much anticipated waterfront V&A museum has moved on site despite costs having nearly doubled from £45m to £76.16m as contractor BAM Construction faces up to the builds ‘unique’ challenges. These include inflation and an underestimate of the expense entailed in delivering the shell and cladding as specified. Teaching has got underway at Glasgow’s newest school as teachers and pupils move into the £11.5m Garrowhill Primary. Accommodating up to 459 pupils the in-house design also accommodates a 48 space early learning centre together with its own library, assembly hall, gym and even a woodland space for outdoor teaching. The school is built from buff facing brick, timber cladding and coloured precast concrete.

SPORTING CHANCE The University of the Highlands and Islands has revealed plans to build a £6.5m academy of sport and wellbeing at its Perth campus on Crieff Road, incorporating a hockey pitch, badminton and basketball courts. Designed by Clague the new building is finished in red brick to tie in visually with the majority of the existing campus with varying treatments of glazing and matt black metal cladding designed to break down an 86m long elevation. Construction could get underway in July for completion by September 2016.

URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

PARK LIFE Cairngorms National Park Authority is working up plans for an extension to its existing Grantown on Spey headquarters, providing space for an additional 30 staff as well as a new boardroom. Designed by Moxon Architects to provide a new public facing entrance the scheme will play host to exhibitions and informal meetings, whilst offering new connections to the War Memorial. In doing so it adopts a low profile with a new roof terrace formed from an existing high level emergency access point, masked from the street by a sloping, planted roof.

Whiteburn Projects is to develop the B listed former Parkview School, Dundee, with the addition of ’bold’ Page\Park designed mews homes and apartments within its grounds. Finished with zinc cladding and with full height gable windows the 45 properties each has a courtyard facing sheltered balcony on its upper level and private gardens at ground level. CDA Architects are to upgrade an obsolete1980s office block on Glasgow’s Queen Street, adding on a bronze rooftop extension. The ground floor slab will be dropped to create level access and reinstate the building line.

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

DEAN VILLAGE

BRIEFS

Inverclyde Association for Mental Health has received planning approval from Inverclyde Council for a horticultural training and community centre at Broomhill, Greenock. Designed by Inch Architecture and ERZ landscape architects it will see two brownfield sites transformed into a walled garden containing its own orchard, training area and single storey community hall.

A revised planning application has been submitted by AMA for the residential redevelopment of Belford House, Edinburgh. Michael Laird Architects propose converting and extending Douglas House to form nine flats together with the construction of 40 new build apartments and three townhouses. Finished in natural stone and brick the properties would have underground parking

Graham Construction has completed work on a £20m extension of the Silverburn Centre, Pollok, a 120,000sq/ ft block incorporating a cinema, restaurants and expanded retail. Designed by BDP the western extension has been funded by Hammerson to improve the centre’s leisure offer. This is arranged around a central winter garden with a façade of ‘fractured planes’.

WORK OF ART Glasgow School of Art is to remodel and refurbish Glasgow’s B-listed McLellan Galleries to form a new exhibition space at the heart of the Sauchiehall District, see pg58. The £10-20m concept envisages creation of a new central courtyard and exhibition space linked directly to Sauchiehall Street and on to Renfrew Street via a new public route.

MAKING AN ENTRANCE St Enoch Station is making at the foot of Glasgow’s Buchanan Street following redevelopment work carried out by AHR Architects and Graham Construction on behalf of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport. Part of a wider £288m upgrade of the

subway network its completion will allow attention to switch to a twin canopy to the south of St Enoch Square, following earlier refurbishment of the concourse and platform levels, with full completion anticipated later this year.

Work to build a £1.5m Aberdeen mosque has got underway with Chap Construction moving onsite at Nelson Street. A three storey community and prayer hall is being funded by Masjid Alhikmah, taking the form of an extension and re-clad of an existing workshop. A decorative screen composed of glass reinforced concrete relief panels and fixed opaque glass will rise above the fascia line. Phase one works are scheduled for completion by June. Fife Council has appointed Hub East Central Scotland to deliver the new Levenmouth High School as the £42.5m project reaches financial close, paving the way for the 18,100sq/m school to open its doors by August 2016. Built within the grounds of the existing Buckhaven School the AHR designed facility will provide space for 1,800 pupils drawn from both Buckhaven and the nearby Kirkland High. Fife College will occupy a new building adjacent to the school. Preparatory work for the construction of Greenfaulds High School, Cumbernauld, is now underway with Morrison Construction securing the site and building a new access road for the Archial Norr designed school. The £31.2m project will replace the existing Greenfaulds High through Hub South West Scotland for North Lanarkshire Council, creating premises for 1,350 pupils around a central hall, dining space and courtyard.

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

NEW BROOM

BRIEFS Taylor Architecture Practice has undertaken a £3.5m refurbishment and extension of a food processing factory in Kirkcudbright, Dumfries & Galloway, on behalf of Castle MacLellan Foods. Fronted by an ‘expressive’ new entrance building, obscuring the bulk of expanded industrial structures behind, the new-look factory delivers both improved access and increased capacity.

Glasgow City Council has submitted plans to replace the 1950s era Broomhill Primary School, Hyndland, with a £5m new build property on Edgehill Road –part of a city wide commitment to overhaul all primary schools. Occupying a tight one hectare plot

the building is intended to adopt an ‘urban approach’ that reflects the scale of surrounding tenements, bringing the bulk of the building out to the street rather than envelope it within a defensive perimeter of playgrounds, providing 18 classrooms, a hall, gymnasium and drama studio

STUDENT DIGS

MISSING LINK

Work to deliver a 241 bed student residential development in St Andrews is underway at the site of the former Memorial Hospital on Abbey Walk. Ayton House has been designed by Oberlanders on behalf of Watkin Jones and Knightsbridge Student Housing to offer a range of one bed studios and shared apartments within a conservation area. Commissioned artwork will be integrated within customised gates to reflect the sites original use as a hospital, completion is scheduled for the summer.

Clyde Gateway has completed work on the BDP designed One Rutherglen Links Office, delivering 33,500sq/ft of grade A office space. Located close to Rutherglen Station the landmark HQ is clad in fibre cement panels and is the first phase of the Rutherglen Low Carbon Zone master plan for the former Monogram factory site. Highly energy efficient the £5m sustainable building has achieved a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ and EPC ‘A’ rating.

SQUARE OFF Campaigners against a Halliday Fraser Munro designed mixed use scheme at Marischal Square, Aberdeen, have released an alternative mock up design for the sensitive site. The visualisation depicts a more traditional granite building to the south housing a hotel or office space following local anger at the scale of the planned intervention, see pg 54 for more. Despite opposition the developer is pressing ahead with the scheme.

URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

HUB North Scotland has secured planning approval from Moray Council for a JM Architects designed replacement school on the site of the existing Elgin High. In order to minimise internal environments the architects have aligned classroom spaces along both sides of the plan with multi-use spaces arranged along a spine between. Finished in black render, glazing and reconstituted stone concrete blocks, the £26m school will double up for community use when it opens in late 2017. Construction of Edinburgh’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children has got underway after the scheme’s £150m budget was signed off by the Scottish Government. Incorporating a Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service the new building will adjoin the existing Little France Royal Infirmary campus. Delivered by Brookfield Multiplex and HLMAD the project is scheduled to open in autumn 2017, boasting its own central atrium, rooftop helipad and on-site shop and café. Residents have begun moving into a £2bn Aberdeenshire new town following completion of the first of an eventual 4,025 homes given outline permission at Chapelton of Elsick. Located five miles south of Aberdeen the first phase will include 100 homes, a café, nursery and dental practice by the end of the year.

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

AIRPORT CITY

BRIEFS

Sutherland Hussey Architects and David Narro Associates have applied the finishing touches to a £3m creative laboratories building for the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Newhaven. Adjoining the Bill Scott Sculpture Centre the extension incorporates its own foundry, courtyard and project bays offering a mixture of indoor and outdoor workspace for artists, dominated by a 22.5m tall triangular tower.

New Ingliston Ltd has submitted a proposal of application notice for the first phase of its proposed International Business Gateway on farmland close to Edinburgh Airport – a joint initiative with Mirray Estates, Frogmore and Salmon Harvester. The mixed use project has been master planned by 7N Architects and will include a hotel, education campus, retail, office space and up to 2,000 homes, connecting directly to the city centre by tram.

Three concrete towers have reached half their final 210m height as the first segments of road deck are hoisted into position for a new £1.4bn bridge. The Queensferry Crossing is scheduled to offer motorists an alternative route across the Forth by December 2016, easing pressure on the existing Forth Road Bridge which has become congested.

MEADOWBANK STADIUM

JM Architects ,working in conjunction with Southside Housing Association, have tabled plans to build 49 new homes at St Andrew’s Crescent, Pollokshields. This will replace substandard deck access blocks with a series of ‘urban villas’ in a phased programme of works intended to reinstate the historic grain and scale of the Victorian suburb, taking their cue from 20 villas bulldozed in 1969. BAM, in collaboration with Taylor Properties, has filed a £100m mixed-use development in Glasgow’s IFSD for planning, hot on the heels of its sale of 110 Queen Street to Deutsche AWM for £70m. Following that success the developer is retaining Cooper Cromar for Atlantic Square, adopting a similar smoked glass aesthetic for three separate buildings, staggered behind a retained warehouse frontage on James Watt Street.

Edinburgh City Council has released updated plans for its £43m overhaul of Meadowbank Stadium, transforming the dated venue into a multi-use sports centre. Reiach & Hall architects propose demolition of the existing complex to allow

enhanced sporting provision on the site and inclusion of a healthcare centre, café and shops. Councillors have committed to carry out a ground survey and prepare a development brief whilst fundraising is underway.

Barr Construction has been appointed to deliver a £20m leisure centre in Irvine, replacing the 1970s built Magnum Centre with a combined sport, cultural and exhibition centre by January 2017. An adjoining B-listed town house will be refurbished and integrated with the centre.

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

VILLAGE PEOPLE Residents have begun moving into Glasgow’s Athletes’ Village following a retrofit of the 35.8 hectare site, built by the City Legacy Consortium, from temporary accommodation for 7,000 competitors and officials to 700

permanent homes. Over 250 of 300 properties put up for sale have now been sold, with the rest set to be handed over to local housing associations for social rent.

BRIEFS Glasgow City Council has revealed the latest stage of its schools modernisation programme in the form or a planning application for Gowanbank Campus, Pollok. Incorporating Gowanbank and Howford primaries, together with Craigbank Nursery and St Vincent’s language and communication unit, the combined campus will occupy the site of the former Levern Primary. Aberdeen City Council has approved to plans drawn up by Fletcher Joseph Architects on behalf of Central London Serviced Apartments for a nine storey apart-hotel on Union Street. The £15m build would encompass a linear plot stretching to Langstane Place, providing a mix of studio and one bed apartments arranged around an internal courtyard with a café/bar activating both frontages. A C-listed Union Street frontage will be retained whilst unlisted properties to the rear of this will be demolished.

ORANGE PEEL

LAW AND ORDERED

TH Real Estate, developer behind redevelopment of Edinburgh’s St James Centre, has named Jestico + Whiles as the winners of a design competition to create a landmark hotel at the heart of the £850m development. Modelled on a ‘coiled ribbons’ concept the design will play host to a rooftop bar, lounge and restaurant within the Allan Murray Architects masterplan .

The University of Edinburgh has initiated a hunt for a contractor to deliver a £20m refresh of its A-listed Law School Old College building, entailing rationalisation of an internal layout that has become muddled through successive unsympathetic alterations over the years. This will see a new principal stairway introduced to provide unified vertical access whilst retaining period features.

Edinburgh World Heritage has teamed up with the city council and shop owners to refurbish up to 16 shop fronts on West Maitland Street. This will see traditional architectural elements, where they remain, restored together with new joinery, metalwork and painting to match what would have been found originally.

ROYAL HIGH

Highland Council has awarded planning permission to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority for the construction of a £20m Reiach & Hall designed nuclear archive opposite Wick airport. The decision comes as the NDA prepares to name contractors appointed to develop the next phase of design work for the building, which is scheduled to complete by late 2016.

Duddingston House Properties, Urbanist Group and Gareth Hoskins Architects have fleshed out their plans for the refurbishment of Edinburgh’s Royal High School in the latest bid to save the crumbling landmark. This will see ancillary buildings demolished to make way for two new build wings of hotel accommodation. For more details please see pg 66.

URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

Q U A R T E R L Y M A R D I G E S T MALL CASTS A PALL OVER GLASGOW

CANDLERIGGS LIGHTS UP

A £390m proposal to extend Glasgow’s Buchanan Galleries shopping mall has been approved by Glasgow City Council, clearing the way for work to proceed this summer. Controversially the BDP designed scheme will see new parking provision provided in a 1,500 space MSCP overlooking George Square and the Buchanan Street steps will be demolished to make way for a new ‘entrance atrium’ and through route to the bus station.

Mace and Mercer Real Estate, joint venture partners behind Glasgow’s Candleriggs Quarter, have lodged a planning application for a 1.49ha Richard Murphy designed regeneration scheme. Adopting a new central square the scheme offers a range of housing types above retail, food, drink and commercial uses. This includes a total of 512 homes, a 124 room hotel and 597 beds of student accommodation. Works are likely to get underway by spring 2016.

SLEEPING SATELLITE Aberdeen City Council has approved plans for a £1bn satellite town of 7,000 new homes on the outskirts of the city. Grandhome, Bridge of Don, is a 40 year Andres Duany masterplan involving the phased creation of a series of traditional style neighbourhoods each with walkable access to shops, work places, green spaces and community services. Phase one will consist of 600 homes, a central square and a Reiach & Hall designed community hall.

RAISE THE ROOF Hamiltons Architects have fleshed out their proposals to remodel and extend the Millenium Hotel on George Square, Glasgow, to take advantage of planned development work to the north as part of the Buchanan Galleries overhaul.

Millenium and Copthorne Hotels intend to build a limestone and polished concrete clad extension to the rear including a covered courtyard and roof terrace to replace accommodation lost during the station rebuild.

BRIEFS South Lanarkshire Council has given the go-ahead to a £12m education campus incorporating both Halfmerke and West Mains Primary. Off ering 16 classrooms together with a range of quiet, therapy and sensory rooms for pupils with additional support needs the StallanBrand designed build will see each school retain its separate identity whilst sharing a library, hall and dining room. Hub West Scotland and the NHS have unveiled their newly completed Shields Centre in East Pollokshields, Glasgow, a £2.7m community services building incorporating two GP surgeries and social services. Incorporating a walled garden and allotment space together with fi n details created by artist Alex Hamilton, the Anderson Bell Christie design was delivered by contractor CBC. A full review can be found on pg 88. Graham Construction is entering the closing phase of an ambitious renovation and extension of Lews Castle, Stornoway, ahead of an internal fi t-out of the new museum and archive. Led by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar the £13.5m project has seen Simpson & Brown Architects lead conservation of the A-listed Lewis landmark whilst Malcolm Fraser Architects oversaw a new build extension connected to the castle by a long gallery and glass roofed courtyard –off ering improved facilities including a café, shop and gallery space. The Hometown Foundation has expressed its ‘disappointment’ and ‘regret’ following a Scottish Government decision to reject their appeal against the refusal of planning in principle for a £500m new town in South Lanarkshire of 3,200 homes.

THEATRE ROYAL JOHN GLENDAY

PAGE\PARK’S FLAMBOYANT INTERVENTION AT A GLASGOW THEATRE HAS SET TONGUES WAGGING WITH AN OSTENTATIOUS USE OF GOLD BUT IS DRAMA BEST LEFT ON THE STAGE? URBAN REALM LIFTS THE CURTAIN ON THE NEWEST ADDITION TO THE CITY’S OLDEST THEATRE. PHOTOGRPAHY BY ANDREW LEE

Avid theatre-goers will avow that Glasgow’s Theatre Royal was never the city’s grandest institution, from the outside at least, but possesses bags of charm nevertheless. That shy reticence has now been ruptured however by the addition of a brash extension which hands the city’s oldest theatre its newest act and a swish front door to boot. Walking north along Bath Street the neat if understated theatre walls stand much as they have done since 1867 but this restrained glamour is turned on its head upon turning the corner onto Cowcaddens Road. The drab route was surrendered long ago to the car and marks the northern boundary of the city centre before the urban grain disintegrates within the sprawl of Cowcaddens proper (you can find out more about plans for the area on pg 60), so it is perhaps fitting that architects Page/Park should plump for a crenelated gold watchtower to look out across the no man’s land beyond. Sandwiched on an awkward plot overshadowed by the banal bulk of the Broadway office development the theatre’s brief for expanded front of house services within an architectural set piece was already a tough ask but keeping the existing theatre operational throughout whilst also opting for an ambitious curving plan wrapped around a double cantilever would drive anyone to distraction. Designed to bang the drum for a revitalised theatre its cylindrical addition acts as a beacon to draw people into its public spaces whilst advertising the institutions presence to passengers on the many buses wending their way past. Boasting a rooftop viewing deck offering panoramic skyline > URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

The theatre activates a forlorn corner on the busy Cowcaddens Road

THEATRE ROYAL

Right angles are few and far between at the new look theatre

views and a convenient café from which to admire an exuberant stairwell in comfort it is well worth a quick detour, showing that for the new theatre, drama extends far beyond the stage. Guiding Urban Realm around the new space Jamie Hamilton, Page\Park’s depute of creative workspace, told Urban Realm: “I like the idea of a national theatre with a public foyer and terrace, you naturally gravitate toward it. This space is open to the public all day, anyone can come in here. Harry the project manager was going to claim it as his office.” This democratisation of access marks a conscious bid to topple cultural barriers which continue to shape the markedly differing demographics queuing outside to those waiting to buy tickets from Cineworld for instance, harnessing architecture to tackle preconceptions of theatres as elitist spaces and in so doing encourage those who wouldn’t normally dream of going to the theatre to take the plunge and step through the door. “The idea is people come out here with their drinks”, added Hamilton. “The detailing and workmanship which has gone into this is unbelievable, the geometry is slightly different so each section is different. They’re Glasgow guys, a Scottish firm; URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

you can see their warehouse from the roof.” This attention to detail extends to a window salvaged from a back wall within a bricked up archway, now on public display as a viewpoint to the stage from the gallery. Hamilton explained: “When you’ve got a hundred year old volume you just don’t know what you’re going to turn up. The window was one of the good things but there were lots of nasty’s too.” Joining the conversation David Page, Page\Park’s head of architecture, added: “The old bar has become cloakrooms. It’s all air conditioned in here now, before it got a bit stuffy. It’s almost an inverted form, there are a lot of structural gymnastics going on.” Since its opening performance on 16 December the theatre has welcomed its first capacity crowd of 1,400 people, bolstering venue revenue as theatregoers linger longer, spending more time (and money) at the bar, café and newly opened box office (ending an absurd need to send walk-in trade away to the King’s to purchase tickets). Further commercial benefits accrue from the introduction of custom built advertising slots, tempering the temptation to plaster show posters upon every available inch of wall space. Hamilton conceded: “The risk is you get stuff stuck to the concrete but >

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THEATRE ROYAL

URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

Left - A feature stairwell draws the eye (and people) through the building

Above - The historic theatre has already been extensively refurbished

we’ve put our foot down do far.” Another innovation is the incorporation of ventilation into the façade rather than the ceiling, opening up interior spaces. Hamilton continued: “The fins on each of the structural bays and intermediate bays are hollow with grilles at the base to draw air up and through via a motorised louver and the stack effect. There is also a heater hidden inside and they double as a drinks booth to observe the street. You make the most of the space because you’re not hiding anything in the ceiling.” Page added: “It’s nice to see the structure with the ventilators, it’s like our Scottish Power building, all the ventilation ducts and machines are down the sides. It’s like the Pompidou Centre but clad, you couldn’t have all glass, you’re not allowed that due to solar gain.” A feature staircase spirals through the heart of the foyer space, offering strong contrast between its hard concrete and soft leather, timber and carpets, a n aspect of the design lauded by page who said: “The stairs really draw you in, you’re sucked in. I call them the squiggle.” Whilst the results are pretty to look at they were also pretty challenging to build, as Hamilton recalled: “It’s had its challenges. Before the build started we did a six month contract on the existing building just to ready it for closing off the old foyer space and bar and jiggle things around so that they could operate with just the one entrance and reduced toilets. That allowed us to isolate this site for the build although there was also a period in the contract when there were no shows at all. “The stair itself is a cantilevered off a cantilever. Each flight

was six or seven sections, lowered down from the roof. All the steel surfaces are straight and then it was clad with the timber and leather work. The underside is even carpeted for the acoustics.” Describing the stairwell as a ‘chandelier’ for the extension Page observed: “The great thing about a theatre is all the levels change. It doesn’t end up like an office block. The drum circuits the full 360 degrees, it’s not just a façade to the street. Look at the geometry of that, I’ve no idea how it was done, no idea!” Breaking the magician’s code Hamilton continued: “These were built up from individual section with 6mm ply. It was all modelled and then spit out as a kit of parts basically using a CNC machine and then it was a big jigsaw puzzle to put it all together. The timber work was produced by Scottish Opera’s own set designers and it shows in the quality. The whole idea was to lose the idea of a hierarchy, historically the balconies were known as the cheap seats but they’re actually some of the best seats in the house.” It is fitting that one of Glasgow’s most dramatic streets should play host to its most theatrical buildings of recent years Standing tall at the head of Hope Street the Theatre Royal is a fitting contemporary bookend to an historic street, providing vertical impetus in similar fashion to Lion Chambers further down the road or even the Hat Rack. In common with these Page\Park have adopted the very latest construction techniques and the finest local craftsmen to produce not just a functional building but an ornament for the city. That it heals another wound in the cityscape and adds a further eclectic layer of history into the mix can only be applauded.

MULTIS

CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS AND SHIFTS IN FASHION ARE COMBINING TO WREAK UNPRECEDENTED CHANGE ON OUR CITY SKYLINES AS TOWER BLOCKS, ONCE SYMBOLIC OF A BOLD NEW FUTURE, BECOME TOTEMS OF MISGUIDED PLANNING. BUT MIGHT WE ONE DAY COME TO REGRET OUR HASTE? PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS LESLIE.

CASE STUDY ll

FLOWCRETE PAVE WAY FOR SSE HYDRO SUCCESS WITH 9,000 M² OF FLOORING THE SSE HYDRO ARENA HAS BOWLED PEOPLE OVER WITH ITS CURVACEOUS DESIGN BUT IT IS WHAT SITS UNDERFOOT THAT REALLY FLOORS VISITORS Isocrete Project Management, Flowcrete’s full service project management team, has played a key role in delivery of the SSE Hydro, working directly with the main contractor from initial project consultation through to warranty and aftercare. Flowfast Quartz, Flowcrete UK’s rapid installation MMA acrylic resin flooring solution, was installed across 8,500 m2 of the Main Bowl Arena, creating a hard wearing and decorative finish able to withstand heavy traffic, impacts and continuous wear. This product is ideal for commercial sites that want to speed up constructions that would otherwise incur weeks or months of problematic downtime whilst the

floor cured. In comparison Flowfast Quartz can be trafficable in as little as two hours, meaning that follow on work can begin again the same day the floor is laid. This was a particular asset for The SSE Hydro project, as high-profile concerts and sporting events had already been booked, meaning that a fast construction turn around, without any delays, was essential. Flowcrete’s seamless terrazzo system Mondéco Classic was also applied over 511 m2 of the arena. Containing 50% recycled glass aggregate, this solution creates a hard wearing, eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing finish. This system is a popular choice as it is available in a wide variety of colours and aggregates.

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Previous page - The Sun sets on this Scotstoun tower block Above - The writing is on the wall for many of Glasgow’s high rise estates

Edinburgh College of Art’s move to launch a digital archive of British tower blocks, curated by Miles Glendinning and financed by the Heritage Lottery Fund, comes at a critical moment in the history of the typology, with demolitions now taking place almost as quickly as they were built. The Tower Blocks – Our Blocks will see 3,500 photographs from the 1980s digitised documenting estates ranging from Glasgow’s iconic Red Road to the Barbican in London. Asked to describe the goals behind his pet project Glendinning told Urban Realm: “These images show people’s lives in everyday environments, many of which have since been demolished. We had an intuitive feeling that local communities have generally been more positive about these environments and we think there could well be a lot of interest in it.” That said Glendinning is well aware of the dangers of over romanticising, acknowledging that it would be ‘a bit tricky’ to apply the language the style of language more commonly associated with country houses or 19th century buildings. “They are still a bit controversial, so I think recording is more important than trying to preserve,” Glendinning concludes. Whilst the first phase will take the form of a simple archive Glendinning hopes that later phases will involve

local communities and he is already working with local communities in Wester Hailes, Wolverhampton and Birmingham to make it more interactive. In other words housing typologies are nor black and white or good versus bad but grey, so to speak. Glendinning remarked: “One of the problems with discussing housing types in Britain and to some extent the United States, is the culture of extreme opinions. They’re either very, very good or very, very bad. The idea that you should put them all up or pull them all down can lead to wasteful solutions. “Refurbishment would be prudent if possible given the affordability issue, the difficulty being the high land costs driving all this, which is a global phenomenon. It is difficult to see how any individual nation state or national authority would be able to tackle the problem. It would make sense to build at higher densities to try and get round this but the property ownership and house price speculation has gone so far that I don’t think even building at the densities of the 1950s and 60s, which are probably about the maximum that would be culturally acceptable, would be enough to tackle affordability. I think you’d need to build at a Hong Kong scale which would be ruled out by people’s prejudices and preconceptions. Living in standard social housing blocks >

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Mind the gap: Stripped to its bones this climb is not for those with vertigo

of 41 storeys up to 800 flats in Everyone in the 1970s accepted that 19th century tenements a block has some benefits of and houses looked horrible, were built by a horrible system accessibility to community and commercial services. and should be demolished “Private developments seem superficially very different. They seem to be laid wrought around us Glendinning believes we’re in the out for show with a gestural feature whereas public midst of an ‘era of transition’ akin to past frenzies familiar housing was about having standards you applied evenly to those longer in tooth. Rather like everyone in the throughout the development. I don’t find the approach of 1960s and 70s accepted that 19th century tenements and show blocks very attractive with the glitzy marble finishes houses looked horrible, were built by a horrible system and bronze windows but that’s just my personal view.” and should be demolished. By the end of the seventies Acknowledging that in the Prince Charles era of almost everybody, including the inhabitants themselves, ‘monstrous carbuncles’ anyone saying concrete buildings recognised that they were nice, symbolised community are nice and brutalism is good would have been laughed and should be preserved and rehabilitated. The course out the room Glendinning believes attitudes are of tower blocks may be slightly different in the way it will beginning to soften following an intellectual shift led by happen but it will stay on the same trajectory.” authors such as Owen Hatherley. Glendinning doesn’t Despite all this Glendinning doesn’t believe that believe such sentiments are limited to the intelligentsia tower blocks have failed, labelling such a narrative either, pointing to anecdotal observations of his own as counterproductive. He said: “They became very that local communities are becoming interested. “We unpopular with many inhabitants and opinion formers have a group in Wester Hailes called Our Place in Time but I think the whole idea of discussing housing types in led by Euan Howard. There’s a lot of public interest and a terms of success or failure is part of the problem rather huge amount of recording of the built environment and than part of the solution.” That said, he is no advocate for heritage there.” the opposite extreme of listing and conservation either. Mindful of the scale of transformation presently being “Public patience would start running out if you started >

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Above - Clues to the lives of past tenants abound, including this burger fan Below - A fragment of sixties wallpaper is all that survives in this corridor

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Pigeons are now the sole tenants of these Gallowgate twins

listing housing projects, it’s an elite type of conservation devised for churches and country houses,” he noted. At the forefront of the current wave of demolitions is documentary filmmaker and photographer Chris Leslie who has been tracking the demise of public housing for the past seven years from behind his lens. Leslie remarked: “Glasgow Renaissance comes from a term the city council used in 2006 when they said that Glasgow is going to undergo a renaissance, the skyline was going to be transformed and they weren’t going to repeat the mistakes of the past. It is a campaign they’re heavily pushing.” This work chimed with Leslie, who’d spent a good deal of time in the Balkans. “I spent a lot of time in my early twenties in Sarajevo just after the war ended; it was a compact city of high rise flats, very eastern bloc in style. For me that’s what got me interested in the built environment, there are many buildings in Glasgow that are so run down that they could be on a front line in many ways.” Commenting on the biggest and most controversial estate, Red Road, Leslie added: “The buildings themselves are iconic; to be in that exposed state for so long is really interesting. It’s just amazing to be alive at this time when URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

you can witness it all happening. There are whole areas of Glasgow which have been completely transformed in seven years, that’s quite an incredible thing to think about. “Yes, a lot of these places are run down, terrible places to live with people having a miserable existence for the past twenty odd years but a lot of that is down to management. There are a lot of residents I speak to who think high rise flats have a shelf life of about 40 years, they are just so demonised at that point that they have to go but a lot of them with a wee bit of imagination perhaps could stay. We have a housing shortage in the UK; it just seems crazy to demolish these flats. “The difficulty is that these buildings are in areas where the problems are so endemic that the only alternative is to blow them up and have a big celebration on the front of the Evening Times about it. It’s sad that it’s come to that, because it should never have got to this point. “Market forces encourage new build and a knock them down build them up again approach as part of the economy but you wouldn’t have residents of the west end or more affluent areas being shifted every 40 years, Glasgow’s always on this generational cycle. There’s

Photographing redundant tower blocks is not for the faint-hearted

never any end game, is it just The way high-rises have been demonised by the city going to keep going? It will be council and the press certainly doesn’t help matters. interesting to see if the houses we’re building now will still What kind of message does that give to residents? be there in another 30 years. further Leslie added: “I’ve managed to track residents It seems to be a really brutal approach as regardless of down from letters and photographs that I’d found in their where you live its people’s homes and memories. house. Even when flats have been stripped you always “A lot of people are tarred with the same brush so if find something. I’d photograph what I found, find these you’re from flats that have a bad reputation you had to people and interview them. Some people found it a bit get out. But that’s where they were brought up, that’s weird but were more than happy to talk when I told them where they knew, even if it was a very different place what I was doing. If you’re in a tower block no-one speaks from when they moved in. I’ve spoken to a lot of people to you because your just one unit within this large block who have moved and they now have front and back known as a haven for drugs and crime so people are quite gardens and they’re delighted with their new homes, happy to tell their story before the building is gone. Nothere is a positive side to it as well of course and people one else is really doing that so it’s nice to give the people are in better accommodation now and happier. living in the flats time to reflect on their history within it.” “The way high-rises have been demonised by the city Whilst demolition marks the end of a physical era council and the press certainly doesn’t help matters. The in Britain the rise and fall of multi-storey housing lives city has lost something like a quarter of its high rise flats on in the minds of those who lived there and, now, in an since 2006 but you only have to look around to see how archive of images which document the highs and the lows many people are still housed in those flats. What kind of of living in the sky. You can’t throw your pieces from a message does that give to see them brought down and 20 storey flat, but it seems your 20 storey flat can go to told they’re no longer fit for purpose?” pieces. Taking parallels with the Bosnian front line a step

CASE STUDY

MURPHY HOUSE

JOHN GLENDAY

Whilst some may have sloped off Murphy persevered in the face of opposition

IF AN ENGLISHMAN’S HOME IS HIS CASTLE HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT DESIGNING A RETREAT IN A CITY DEFINED BY AN EXISTING FORTIFICATION? FOR RICHARD MURPHY THE ANSWER IS A STONE CLAD TOWN HOUSE THAT EXALTS IN RIPPING UP THE NEW TOWN RULEBOOK. PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN LEONARD.

Many of us dream of building our own home but few have the skills or the opportunity to do so, for Richard Murphy however these challenges were a source of relish as the shackles of building for others were thrown off to finally do something for himself. If the goal was one of rest and comfort though the journey was anything but as the architect launched head first into the delivery of an uncompromisingly modern property within one of the most restrictive planning environments in the world, Edinburgh’s New Town World Heritage Site. Driving a wedge through planning (and some locls) the sloping home has endured a tortuous ride through planning but has delivered one of the city’s most adaptable and sustainable homes. Describing the house as ‘something of an architectural >

MURPHY HOUSE

Left - An unrivalled location brings with it compromises in terms of space Right - An existing garden space to the rear is protected

and environmental experiment’ Murphy is proud of what he has achieved, practicing what he preaches to realise a vision for how contemporary design can contribute positively to the unique setting of the New Town, rather than (as is too often the case) meekly cowering behind a reconstituted stone veneer. In an effort to better understand this approach for ourselves Urban Realm popped along for a tour of the home to see at first hand what six years of perseverance can deliver. Repairing an unresolved New Town corner the distinctive form of the home was guided by tight site constraints, leading to a ‘bookend’ design to mask an exposed gable which was never intended to be on view. Within these limitations Murphy has been careful to preserve the privacy and views of his neighbours, delivering its distinctive sloping roof. Having just moved into his new pad over Christmas Murphy is still dealing with a procession of tradesmen applying those vital finishing touches, not least sourcing a window cleaner willing and able to take on the idiosyncratic geometry of skylights and customised glazing. More frivolous items such as artwork and a set-piece grandfather clock await the day when budget allows. URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

Despite containing three bedrooms, a split level living/ dining/kitchen area, study, basement storage, garage, utility room and roof terrace Murphy points out that “It’s a very small house in terms of its footprint,’ stretching to a mere 165sq/m on a footprint of only 11m x 6m –defined by the boundaries of part of a garden and basement apartment around which the home is built. “It’s smaller than some people’s living rooms in the New Town”, explained Murphy. “It’s packed in and that’s part of the agenda really.” Ushering Urban Realm through the hall Murphy said: “Every architect wants to build a house for themselves; I’ve had the unusual experience of living in two. I previously lived In Regent Terrace Mews which I designed for a client and then bought off her and sold it back to her.” Internally the home is dominated by a large open-plan living room/diner resting on a giant Tata steel girder. At the heart of things is a log burning stove from which heat can be extracted for hot water, an important resource for one of the main bedrooms in particular. Climbing a narrow staircase Murphy motioned past some dry cleaning toward a wooden cabinet beside his bed, remarking: “This is the bath,” before proceeding to slide and swivel the top and sides, latching them into place to reveal the hollow chamber within. “This is the more eccentric side >

NEW PRODUCTS OUR NEW RANGE OF CHARRED & SEARED CLADDING WILL BE AVAILABLE FROM EARLY APRIL Russwood’s Charred Larch (top left) is European Larch which has been produced in a controlled factory environment to create a textured black finish. It is stabilised in a cold water bath after charring and once dried, is sealed with a specialist oil prior to leaving the factory. European Larch is naturally durable and the charred look has long been sought after by architects to provide a novel look to projects. The Charred Larch displays a textured black finish; the patina on the surface of the board catches the light producing a subtle variation in tone and colour, whilst a soft sheen is evident as a result of the factory finish sealant. The pattern and texture makes for a unique, natural and artistic effect. Russwood’s Seared Larch (bottom left) is Larch which has had the exposed face burnt and brushed in factory conditions to a consistent quality.

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26/03/2015 14:20

MURPHY HOUSE

URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

A snug living space maximises the constrained dimensions of the site

of things’, added Murphy, as he swung open a masonry wall panel to reveal an open view of the street below. “So now you can have an al fresco bath, which I have done, I can’t wait till Summer. I’ve had one so far on Christmas morning to try it out. It was a bit chilly.” Like a tactile magic box these tricks and surprises are present throughout the home, which can be reconfigured to suit the occasion with bedroom walls folding away to open out onto the living room for true open plan living. Murphy said: “I’m very interested in the Sir John Soane Museum, you’ll see many mirrors and moving elements here.” Another influence is Reitveld’s Schroder house which makes an appearance in the aforementioned “disappearing corner” stone panel opening, designed to the same proportions as his famous window. Another set-piece is ‘probably the biggest mirror in Scotland,’ sourced from Yorkshire it stands 4.6m tall off the main living room. Another purpose for the house is to act as a repository for Murphy’s collection of art, including works by his friend Linda Green. “I don’t have any money for any art, that’s my problem. I don’t have a collection like Soane did. But I enjoy his spatial tricks with mirrors.” Soane isn’t the only influence on Murphy however with the biggest being Italian architect Carlo Scarpa, for whom Murphy has written extensively. He said: “Of course the terrace and the tiles are entirely stolen, or a homage, of the garden at the Querini Stampalia

in Venice.” Using the same exposed aggregate finish and sourcing tiles from Scarpa’s original Italian manufacturer. Internally, the Venetian ‘stucco lucido’ coloured plasterwork is also used extensively. Pointing to the first floor terrace Murphy said: “The water comes off the roof down the wall, into a pond and then off into rainwater tanks in the basement. It will be much nicer when the trees are in leaf and things are looking a little more verdant than they do at the moment.” This re-use of rainwater illustrates the importance of minimising the building’s carbon footprint to the design, achieved courtesy of a number of technological tricks, including ground source heating and a computerised internal air circulation system which takes warm air from the top of the house to the basement via a gravel rock store to produce a delayed heat source for evening use. Commenting on the practicalities of such systems Murphy added: “I’ve got some heating issues where I don’t think some of the thermostats are sending their messages to the wireless control system and an air circulation system which, whilst I can’t say it’s not working, is puzzling me.” Squirrelled away within the bowels of the property Murphy proudly, demonstrated his ‘ship’s engine room’, a subterranean concrete cavern housing building services. “Grey water tanks flush the toilets and supply the sprinkler systems. Those big black pipes go 150m into the ground to >

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www.karndean.com twitter.com/KarndeanFloors facebook.com/KarndeanDesignflooring The age of ingenuity and manufacturing has seen a revival in recent years as the renovation of old industrial buildings continues to grow in popularity. From raw structural elements to rustic exposed finishes, the history of a building can be captured by bringing back a design age once thought forgotten. The first in a new chain of ultra-modern coffee shops, Café Create looked to Karndean to complete its on-trend look. Taking Inspiration from the building’s manufacturing past, Ken O’Callaghan, director at Infiniti and Stephen Govan, Ingram Architecture and Design, were searching for a fitting contrast to the exposed ceiling and metal light fixtures. Ken selected Opus Ignea for its authentic rustic timber effect, stating that “the mid wood timber plank was the perfect choice of look and feel for the floor..” “The industrial features of Café Create looked a bit severe on their own, so it was always the vision to team them up with recycled timbers and a

Client: Café Create, Location: Glasgow, Designer: Infiniti, Architect: Ingram Architecture & Design, Product: Opus Ignea WP313

natural palette to create a softer charm; the beauty is in the contrast.” “Karndean has allowed us to have the look and feel of real wood without the cost or maintenance issues, adding the warmth needed to tie the whole project together.” Sarah Dixon, head of marketing at Karndean, commented, “we recognise that creativity is vital. A unique interior design will differentiate you from the ordinary restaurants and coffee shops and print the brand in customers’ minds.” She said: “Texture is vital and so our design processes concentrate on replicating the grains, and knots of real wood and stone, allowing our products to exude character.” Karndean’s Opus range is designed specifically with commercial specifications in mind. Its large format 0.55mm wear layer floor tiles are quick to install and offer a 12 year commercial guarantee.

Photos www.kriskesiak.com

MURPHY HOUSE

Above - Murphy has pushed for genuine kerb appeal Below - Light is an ever present commodity

provides ground source heating.” Off this space sits a utility room, source of a leak which Murphy is currently having fixed and which will provide valuable long-term storage. There’s also a garage which Murphy can’t yet use because the council won’t give him a permit. At the opposite end of the home the roof consists of photovoltaic cells and south-facing glazing, underneath which lie (noisy) mechanised insulated shutters allowing the glass to generate heat during the day when open whilst preventing radiation at night when shut. A smaller shutter sits above the main bedroom but is unfortunately inoperable at present until engineers can fix it, resulting in it being permanently down. “I can’t show you the full glory of the shutter in the bedroom because it needs some work to it, normally a massive amount of light comes in.” With the finishing touches still being applied Murphy’s home can only improve with the passage of time, bedding down into its environment as gracefully as its surroundings have done. It also points the way ahead for utilising left over urban gap sites for new housing, a skill Edinburgh would do well to learn from. Murphy is holding off on hosting a housewarming until his 60th birthday in April, relishing an opportunity to win over neighbours and demonstrate that the most impressive aspect of Murphy’s House is not its architectural vision but that it is still a home for all that.

KIRKCALDY MARK CHALMERS

HUTCHISONS FLOUR MILL, AN UNUSUAL SLICE OF 21ST CENTURY PROCESS ARCHITECTURE, IS A RARE EXAMPLE OF NEW DOCKSIDE INDUSTRIAL CONSTRUCTION AND THE FIRST MILL TO BE BUILT IN SCOTLAND FOR 30 YEARS. MARK CHALMERS POKES AROUND ITS INNARDS TO SEE WHAT MAKES IT TICK.

KIRKCALDY

Pevious page - The mill won’t win any beauty parades but its interiors are spotless

Above - A tangle of pipes and ducts snake their way through

As a building type, granaries lie at the root of Modern architecture. Ever since Reyner Banham published A Concrete Atlantis, his study of North American grain elevators and their influence on the European avant-garde, we’ve acknowledged the architectural qualities of the granary and the flour mill. The grain elevators in Buffalo, New York are the precursors of Modernism, and most mills and silos built through the 20th century were concrete-framed, sometimes unadorned and sometimes clad in brickwork. Best known in Scotland were the Meadowside Granaries, which stood where Glasgow Harbour is now: they consisted of concrete grain bins hidden behind stark planes of brickwork. However, the precursors of those giants lie in the water wheel, the quern stone and small-scale milling businesses which grew up beside many Scottish ports. Hutchison’s was established in 1830 when Robert Hutchison began trading in grain, flax, butter and flour from the harbourside in Kirkcaldy. Over time he became more and more involved in the wheat business, and by 1856 his company owned the land at East Bridge on which today’s flour mill stands. By the middle of the 20th century, “Hutchies” were

flour and provender millers, although the majority of their business was in malting barley for brewers and distillers. They had four maltings in Kirkcaldy: East Holms, West Holms and Ravenscraig all packed together to the north of the East Burn, (known locally as the smelly burn, thanks to the effluents which once poured into it) and the Harbourhead Maltings on the southern side. By the 1980’s the barley-malting side of the firm had declined, and Hutchison’s’ focus shifted towards flour again. The malthouses at Harbourhead were demolished, to reveal the concrete grain silos which fed the East Bridge Flour Mills on the opposite side of the road. The original East Bridge Mills date back around 200 years. Behind a handsome Palladian office block lies a clutter of old buildings – some stone-built, some in common brick, with an old horse gin buried at their heart. They were chopped and changed over the decades as milling technology evolved, and flour haulage developed from sacks moved by horse and cart, to bulk tankers drawn by articulated lorries. Due to the low value but bulky nature of the end product, flour operates in what’s known as a regional market. While the mill doesn’t have to be located close to

URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

Hutchisons is a far a cry from the dark satanic mills of yore

the source of the wheat, it makes sense to be close to its customers – hence a good proportion of the flour milled at Kirkcaldy is used by Scottish bakeries. Our climate is ideal for growing softer, lower-protein “weak” wheat, perfect for baking cakes and biscuits. However, much of the bread we eat is made from North American, Russian or German flour as those countries grow stronger, high-protein wheat. Much of the latter was brought in to Hutchison’s by sea, until Kirkcaldy’s port closed to cargo traffic. A few years ago, when the brick-built flats went up on the northern quayside of the inner harbour, the docks consisted of dead wharfside with some nautical-themed street furniture and the occasional pleasure craft. As with stretches of waterfront in Greenock, Dundee and Leith it seemed that housing was more lucrative than seaborne cargo, but that shift resulted in a hollowed-out town. Kirkcaldy lost its authenticity when commercial shipping ceased – but it was redeemed after Hutchison’s Mill was taken over by Carr’s Milling Industries in 2004. With a significant investment from Carr’s and Forth Ports, the harbour reopened to wheat imports after a break of 20 years, allowing grain to be brought directly into the mill by

sea, whether from the south of England or across the North Sea. The first shipload was landed in August 2011, when a vessel from the German port of Rostock brought in 2000 tonnes of wheat: now grain ships deliver every few days, removing 250,000 lorry miles from Scotland’s roads each year. That was the first step in a strategic plan to re-develop Hutchison’s mill. In 2010, when Carr’s decided to reopen the port, they also constructed new concrete grain silos on the portside, and purchased additional land for future expansion. A couple of years later, Carr’s engaged the Hull architects Gelder & Kitchen to develop a brand new flour mill in Kirkcaldy. The practice has a long heritage of designing mills, and amongst other commissions, they worked for one of Carr’s competitors to build Clarence Mill in their hometown of Hull. It’s rare for a new flour mill to be constructed – Carr’s Hutchison’s Mill in Kirkcaldy is the first in Scotland for 30 years – and in a 21st Century society which underplays industry and often submerges its functions in dumb boxes, Carr’s decision to develop a new mill on a prominent dockside site in Kirkcaldy is unusual and noteworthy. >

KIRKCALDY

Storage silos sit like giant moon rockets

Industry has been pushed from view in many towns: and in Kirkcaldy more than most. While the Plains Tower and Stoves buildings at Forbo-Nairn’s linoleum works are still standing, the town’s other lino works have gone, along with the winding towers of Seafield Colliery to the west and the great sprawl of Frances Colliery to the east. Coal mining and linoleum manufacturing once gave Kirkcaldy its identity; their loss meant more than just men and women looking for new jobs. Against the consensus view of Fife’s industrial decline, the redevelopment of Hutchison’s Mill joins the power station at Tullis Russell’s paper mill in Markinch, and Diageo’s whisky bottling plant at Leven, as large scale pieces of industrial design completed in the last couple of years. What sets these buildings apart from the architecture which magazines typically review is that their design is driven by process. Where reviewers sometimes settle for the correct opinion about a building’s relationship to its setting, or whether it is comme il faut – industrial architecture is informed by the objective needs of machinery. Nothing more, nothing less. In the case of Hutchison’s, close analysis of the process resulted URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

is a bespoke piece of milling hardware which is “reprogrammable”. The mill is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment ranging from optical grain sorters through to the newest roller mills, many of the highly-evolved machines were supplied by Buhler of Switzerland, which were developed in conjunction with Carrs’ own engineers. As Tim Hall, the operations director at Hutchison’s explained, the mill can be switched over to suit many different varieties of wheat which are blended together to produce a range of white and wholemeal flours for bread and biscuit production. As it happens, Carr’s manufactured the world’s first mass-produced biscuit. Construction of the new mill in Kirkcaldy began in July 2012 and the building envelope was completed in July 2013, then several months of commissioning took place before it opened, on time and within budget in September 2013. The milling process begins at wheat intakes on the dockside. I visited Kirkcaldy on a crisp winter’s day, as a material handler drew grabfuls of wheat from the hold of the MV Britannica Hav. A giant hydraulic arm swung around to empty its grab into the intake hopper which feeds the grain silos.

Rooftop gantries provide access to the mill’s remotest nooks and crannies

A new screening house was built immediately behind the silos: there, separators remove stones, twigs and cockle, magnets remove any metal particles, and aspirators blow away the lighter impurities. What remains is 100% wheat. Next are the conditioning bins, a new set of steel silos which hold different varieties of wheat ready to be processed and blended in the mill itself. The new mill sits on the eastern side of the site, and consists of a steel-framed box with Holorib floors and sandwich panel cladding which take the form of tall, slim blocks clad in shades of matt silver. The adjacent silos have corrugated walls which rise through six storeys to peaked tops and walkways at rooftop level. Grain travels through a sequence of mills, sifters and purifiers during its journey from wheat to flour: most of the journey from Level six down to Level one is powered by gravity, hence the verticality of the mill building. Once blended and refined, the wheat is blown up into a final set of silos ready for dispatch. Hutchison’s produce bran, wheatgerm and animal feed from the by-products of milling, so nothing is wasted. Chatting to Carr’s employees, you soon learn that the new mill is better than the old one in several different

respects. As a working environment, it’s quieter, brighter and more pleasant to work in than its predecessors. Older mills become redundant mainly because milling technology has moved on since they were built during the first half of last century – but also because they were noisy, dusty and dangerous places to work. Clarence Mill in Hull and Millennium Mills in London, both of which I photographed after closure, were photogenic – but their interiors were dusty and their machinery was driven by line shafts with whirling belts and thrumming pulleys. By contrast, the most striking thing from my brief glimpse into Hutchison’s was its spotless interior, finished in tones of white and cream and equipped with hundreds of tubes which direct wheat and flour through the mill. You would never be able to guess that complexity from the mill’s external appearance. In the broadest sense, Hutchison’s Mill contributes to Kirkcaldy’s townscape. The mill sits at the foot of Pathhead, the steep hill which leads down from St Clair Street and the north into the town centre. From the head of The Path, the mill’s skyline frames our view out over the Forth, skimming the rooftops where Kirkcaldy’s linoleum industry grew up. The massing of silos, bins, screen house and mill is >

KIRKCALDY

» The mill responds to the ever

changing light on the firth: its silver surfaces are easy to photograph at different times of the day, and almost mercurial at dawn and dusk «

architecturally considered. The elements are articulated as a series of layers which tell the story of how flour is made, and avoid Hutchison’s being simply a large, dumb box. As with Cockenzie Power Station which I wrote about in Urban Realm a couple of years ago, the mill responds to the everchanging light on the firth: its silver surfaces are easy to photograph at different times of day, and almost mercurial at dawn and dusk. By combining process engineering with architecture, Hutchison’s Mill is a good example of inter-disciplinary design, and a positive model for other coastal developments. Kirkcaldy harbour is now a true mixed-use area, with housing, a boatyard and the flour mill in close proximity. The mill is truly sustainable again, because using sea transport to bring in wheat removes hundreds of lorry movements from the roads. In terms of urban regeneration, the scheme retains and reuses existing grain silos, and regenerates a brownfield site which once housed the Harbourhead Maltings – but perhaps the crucial lesson from Kirkcaldy is that making a building like Hutchison’s visible is a way to reconcile what we buy in the supermarket with where it comes from. As a final thought, in this era of food miles and traceability we take a close interest in the provenance of what we eat. The politics of food production preoccupies journalists with questions of where it was grown and who made it. Hutchison’s employs 70 people to make flour in their new mill, and journalism – even the architectural sort – is always, at heart, about people. URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

Kirkcaldy is well placed to plug into shipping routes, removing the need for 250,000 lorry miles per year

BUILDING ll

PLANNING FOR A SOCIALLY MOBILE POPULATION OUR CITIES OF THE FUTURE ARE SET TO PLAY AN INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT ROLE IN SHAPING SOCIETY BUT NOT WITHOUT ATTENDANT RISKS. It has been well documented that by 2050 three planets are needed to sustain the resource requirements from a growing and socially mobile population at current consumption levels. This growth is estimated to drive emissions that are scientifically debated to cause an increase in global temperatures. At current consumption levels temperatures could rise anywhere between two and six degrees by 2050, causing catastrophic extremes in weather conditions. The impact of these weather patterns is that land becomes uninhabitable and ineffective for agricultural needs, therefore displacing populations. Displaced populations are likely to migrate to urban areas where social accessibility, resources and impact from climatic shocks are managed by governments. It is estimated that by 2050 more than 75% of the worlds’ 9 billion population will live in cities. Therefore cities need to consider an appropriate growth strategy as geography and socio-economic context can create challenges and opportunities for sustaining the city into the future. Cities worldwide including Glasgow, London, Berlin, New York, Toronto, Dubai and Barcelona, to name a few, are actively promoting their city’s opportunity within the Future City agenda. BRE Trust ran a research programme from 2012-2015 with over 70 public and private partners delivering over £30 million of research projects an outcome of which has been the identification of thematic areas cities can use to develop their strategy. The following has been adapted from our BRE’s cities briefing paper, the full report can be found by following this link www.bre.co.uk/ futurecities Smart Cities A smart city is where the integrated physical, digital and human systems deliver effective and efficient services. With the rise of connected and smart technology in homes, buildings and infrastructure comes the opportunity to improve quality, reduce costs and environmental impact, and manage resources. Liveable Cities A liveable city is where a high quality of life is available through

the provision of housing, transport, employment and other key services. Sustainable growth takes careful planning and early community engagement to ensure long-term benefits will be achieved for new and existing residents. This requires coordination of multiple stakeholders and there are usually competing demands and cost constraints that must be balanced by city leaders. Healthy Cities A healthy city is where health improvements and equity are prioritised and promoted in all aspects of public policy. Social determinants of health such as food security, safer working environments and neighbourhoods, sanitation and sustainable transportation options can be addressed through good urban governance. The complexity of the impact of urban life on health requires cross-government approaches which involve non health professionals as well as the community in finding and implementing solutions. Resilient Cities A resilient city is where management of services and growth ensures long term sustainability alongside the ability to withstand and adapt to shocks. This means planning for and seeking to prevent long term challenges like climate change and short term unexpected risks like disease outbreaks. This requires city leaders to prepare for both known and unknown risks using systems approaches to complex problems across local, national and international levels of government, business and society. The BRE Trust research has demonstrated there are a number of complex interrelated issues that have to be considered by city leaders to define what opportunities should be maximised and what challenges should be managed and mitigated. BRE under the BRE Trust funded Future Cities thematic programme has developed a range of tools and methodologies to assist the public and private sector to develop cities and meet the needs of a growing and socially mobile population. However the research continues to be a work in progress and BRE welcomes engagement in research from organisations affected by the Future City theme, please contact BRE on Futurecities@bre.co.uk.

Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, East Kilbride, Glasgow, G75 0RZ Tel: 01355 576200 Fax: 01355 576210 Email: eastkilbride@bre.co.uk

DESIGN POP-UP

Milliken and Domus show off their latest products to the important north east market

DES I GNS ON YOU A HAT TRICK OF SUCCESSFUL DESIGN SHOWCASES HAS WHETTED THE APPETITES OF ORGANISERS, ATTENDEES AND EXHIBITORS ALIKE FOR FUTURE EXHIBITIONS. URBAN REALM CAUGHT UP WITH SOME OF THE CONTRIBUTORS WHO HAD A POP AT THE ABERDONIAN MARKET AND LOOKS FORWARD TO A GLASGOW REPRISE.

Aberdeenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s #DesignPopUp, third in a series of temporary product showcases around the country, has brought together a roster of leading suppliers including Allgood, Domus Tiles, MYB Textiles, Shadbolt, Source Developments, Milliken, Mapei and Artemide keen to show off their wares to city architects and designers. Attendees from Covell Matthews, Michael Gilmour Associates, Mackie Ramsay Taylor, Tinto Architecture, Cumming and Co, BMJ Architects, Fitzgerald Associates, Halliday Fraser & Munro, Space Solutions, Dandara, Wood Group and Unispace were amongst those to be enticed through the doors to take stock of the latest design trends, following in the footsteps of their colleagues in Glasgow and Edinburgh who had already attended previous events. On hand were industry representatives keen to demonstrate a wide-range of furniture, textiles and finishes, amongst them Scott Murray of lighting suppliers >

DESIGN POP-UP

Artemide. Asked whether hands-on product showcases were becoming more important in the digital era he told Urban Realm: “Seeing the product in the flesh is invaluable, it gives designers and architects the chance to feel the materials and see the quality of a particular light in all its nuances and complexities. We can connect and get to know the local design industry and create meaningful relationships with the A&D community, which is a vital part of our profession.” Moving onto emerging trends exhibited by the collection Murray added:“At Artemide we are strongly committed to a holistic approach based on the principles of sustainability and energy efficiency, in order to improve our users’ quality of life and their relationship with the environment. “Most importantly we focus on the extreme innovation and quality of our products, made in the European Union and featuring the most technologically advanced LEDs and energy-saving light sources. The most prominent trend in the lighting sector has definitely been the use of LEDs. At the moment architects are especially interested in LED lamps and fittings and what they can offer to their project. LED’s are more energy efficient and require

Artemide staged this illuminating display

minimum maintenance over time, so it’s not surprising that they have generated such a radical impact on the industry overall.” Looking to the future Murray is quietly optimistic about the market going forward following his experience in Aberdeen. He said: “At Artemide we have seen a positive trend in the last few years and we are optimistic about the growth of our market shares. Same situation applies to UK market where we definitely see a growing design culture. We are very pleased that our brand and company values are recognized and requested more and more by both trade and general public.” Joining Artemide on the show floor was another Design Pop-Up regular, Milliken, with their third appearance at the event. Joyce Main, regional sales manager, for the flooring specialists said: ”Milliken showed an extensive selection of their most recent collections at #DesignPopUp in Aberdeen, including, Rogue Knit, Fixation Shapes, Nordic Stories, and Formwork. There was also an intricate installation of Milliken’s latest collection Naturally Drawn made up of the designs ‘Watercolour Lesson’, ‘Hand Sketched’ and ‘Drawing in Ink’, as well as the innovative Hand Sketched Transition design. >

NATURALLY DRAWN “Art takes nature as its model.” Aristotle From nature’s calendar to the artist’s studio, creative minds have joined to create three designs; Watercolour Lesson, Drawing in Ink and Hand Sketched, drawn from nature and reinterpreted through artistic expression. Three designs, each with a story to tell. To see the Naturally Drawn modular carpet collection, call Joyce Main your Regional Sales Manager.

T 07836 580134 www.millikencarpet.com

MIL102-01-Milliken--Urban_Realm-01.indd 1

Naturally Drawn also features 90% recycled content cushion backing

16/03/2015 18:14

DESIGN POP-UP

Visitors get hands on with Milliken

“Hands-on product showcases allow specifiers to see the actual colours and to feel the textures in the carpets that cannot be fully appreciated from a flat screen representation. As designs become more complex and involve multiple tiles the opportunity to view a larger area of the product allows a better understanding of the pattern and how the various designs interact and coordinate with each other. Installed areas of product show how the various products can be used together to create a more sophisticated and exciting look. Events such as the pop up exhibition also provide a great social dimension where architects and designers can meet with their peers in a less formal environment and view the products at their leisure. For Milliken hands-on product showcases give us the opportunity to obtain, at first hand, the specifiers reactions to the products, allowing us to pick up on any perceived issues that could be addressed in future collections.” Picking up on one such emerging trend Main added: “Our Latest collection, Naturally Drawn, addresses the demand for a more organic aesthetic. The patterns are less structured and more free-flowing. They also offer the client an opportunity for interaction and experimentation

by combining the designs and colours in multitudes of different ways. The colour palette takes its cues from nature and combines the expected range of neutrals with a selection of unexpected statement colours.” Above all else the Aberdeen showcase presented an opportunity for national suppliers to demonstrate their products at a local level, something Main was only too happy to engage with: “As time constraints on architects and designers are becoming more intense we hope it is useful to be able to bring our products nearer to them so that they need take less time out of their busy working days to experience new products first-hand. By showing products locally we are able to learn a lot about any regional variations, influences and requirements. It also gives us the opportunity to reinforce to our customers how much we value them.” Also on hand in Aberdeen were MYB Textiles, who were keen to give some innovative new products their first airing in the north east market, as well as other recent additions such as the Galloway Collection of geometric laces and Como Collection using silks and linens. MYB’s business development director Wendy Murray observed: “We are launching a new collection of silks and linens in >

DESIGN POP-UP

Left top & bottom - Crosswater were looking to tap into local contacts Right - Visitors swot up on the latest trends

April of this year, our first collaboration with an Italian mill. These fabrics are quite different from our historical offering whilst maintaining our neutral and pastel colour palette. These were a central feature of the show and are receiving a great reaction. We complemented these fabrics with sheer draperies created using our 100 per cent Trevira CS yarns. These fabrics are inherently flame retardant and so fit perfectly with contract interiors.” Extolling the value of hands-on product showcases Murray added: “Essentially business is about people and I think relationships still form an important part of the buying process and so pop up shows and exhibitions are still key to this process. In saying that, our website contains well written information, good photography and social media advantages and certainly helps kick start the process with international clients. We have noticed a considerable surge in new enquiries and sales since our new website launched in 2012. We do offer samples on our website and as textiles are very tactile, we find a lot of customers contact us for samples first. Because of this I think product showcases, exhibitions and trade fairs will always play an important part, certainly for the textiles industry.

“The luxury and contract interior markets have changed dramatically over the past 10 years and continue to develop quickly. As a mill we are focussed on quality, innovation and product development which has meant we have maintained our strong position over those years. With our Trevira product, although we now have the technological formula, we will continue to adapt and develop this fabric to fulfil the changing needs of the market and ensure we are producing the highest quality solution of its kind. Continual product innovation and development is key but what is equally important is making sure we have the right partners worldwide and that those partners are fully educated on the capabilities of MYB. This will help to push the business forward and we are currently working closely on expanding this network.” With a successful Aberdeen event under their belt organisers Double S Events are set to return to the city where it all began, Glasgow, with a new and improved pop up showcase within the historic Briggait building from 3 to 19 June. The bigger venue and relaxation of a non-competition clause between exhibiting companies will allow firms within the same product category to go head to head >

DESIGN POP-UP

MYB Textiles stress the value of tactile displays

with each other for the first time, promising to add to the show’s popularity. Already this has borne fruit with new exhibitors confirmed for the summer display including Boss Design, Triumph Furniture and Desso, who will participate in a joint space sponsored by HCS Group. One of these new contributors is bathroom design specialists Crosswater who will be dipping their toes into the pop-up arena for the first time with a range of basins, taps and showers not to mention their ‘glitter & sparkle’ basin monobloc range. David Balmer, Crossover’s senior projects consultant for the hospitality sector said: “Our brochures and website, even though extremely informative and visual, can never tell the full story until you have the physical tap in your hand. Hands on is always best - when specifiers choose products they still want samples to make sure of their choice, that it works with other items in the bathroom and of course to confirm the quality. “ Aware of the need to nurture local contacts Balmer added: “When coordinating contract projects we work with a customer in the region of the project who supply the architect/interior designer with the product and arrange fitting. This not only helps out our customer but puts the architect in the safe hands of a well-practised and

experienced industry professional that has knowledge of the local area and is around for after care too. “It seems that when the market is slow and there is a down turn in the economy, people go with safe designs such as more square and angular shapes. However, when there is an upturn in the market such as in many main cities, bolder and rounder shapes become available. With regards to brassware, more colours and finishes are been requested, plus with technology increasingly taking over our lives, our Crosswater Digital Solo packages are most in demand and are one of the simplest operated controls around.” Looking forward Balmer concluded: “With Crosswater driving design, investment in our own magnificent showroom and the experience of our contracts team, I am in no doubt that our growth will continue, and if you see how we have been performing at the start of this year already, it is building and building.” To mix up proceedings further for those attending The Briggait reveal a range of CPD seminars will be offered in tandem with the exhibitions with an evening launch party, private views and workshops. To find out more about Glasgow 2015 please email info@designpopup.com.

CARBUNCLE AWARDS JOHN GLENDAY

P L ANN I NG PA I N URBAN REALM’S DECISION TO PRESENT ABERDEEN WITH A CARBUNCLE AWARD THIS YEAR FOLLOWED A SERIES OF STREET PROTESTS ORGANISED BY CAMPAIGNERS FRUSTRATED WITH A PLANNING SYSTEM WHICH DELIVERS SCHEMES SUCH AS MARISCHAL SQUARE AND GLASGOW’S BUCHANAN GALLERIES EXTENSION. IT SPARKED WIDER DEBATE AS TO HOW FIT FOR PURPOSE THE PROFESSION NOW IS AND CALLS FOR FURTHER REFORM TO GIVE PEOPLE THE VOICE THEY INCREASINGLY DEMAND.

A spate of controversial planning decisions in recent months; from Glasgow’s Buchanan Galleries to Aberdeen’s Marischal Square, has sparked a public debate on whether planning laws are fit for purpose, a recurring refrain throughout this year’s Carbuncle Awards where many participants voiced frustration at perceived exclusion from the planning system and anger at a lack of accountability in the decision making process. This is set against a combustible atmosphere of wider discontent with the political classes, something the planning system finds itself tarred by association despite some small steps toward reform; notably through the digitisation of records and the promotion of pre-application consultations. In practice however these changes are largely box ticking exercises where developers will often turn up to present their ideas and attempt to convince attendees to come round to their way of thinking rather than a two-way process where ideas from the public are brought on board. A case in point is Buchanan Galleries which hasn’t been substantially amended since first emerging in 2007, despite seven intervening years of protest, comment and review. Consultations with a representative holed up in a hotel room on a weekday a bowl of sweets and some printed URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

sheets of paper might embrace the letter if not the spirit of the law but are pre-prepared questionnaire weighted in favour of the ‘right’ choices themselves bringing the system into disrepute? There’s no doubt that the system is weighted in favour of development and an overarching imperative to boost the economy, often irrespective of local opposition, leading to a perception that there is a crisis in the planning process and fuelling calls for further reform to make it fit for purpose. Heightened activism is evident around the country as people become more engaged following years of increasing apathy, driven by high-profile fiascos such as George Square and Union Terrace gardens. This combined with increased opportunity brought about by a resurgence in the construction sector and technological advancements from social media to digitised planning records has democratised access - it wasn’t too many years ago that people had to visit the planning office in person to make a representation, now this can be done with a simple mouse click. Speaking to Urban Realm, Marischal Square protester Fraser Garrow, gave voice to his experience of battling against the system: “It has certainly been quite a steep learning curve, before joining the campaign I effectively had

a blank canvas when it came to planning law/procedure. We now know more but probably nowhere near enough. I understand the need for it to be very technical and detailed but there also should be a degree of accessibility for the lay man - this is currently lacking. “From speaking to people that supported our campaign but not involved with it, a lot were very surprised that decisions that affect so many people can be decided by a single planning committee or council. This is something that has interested me greatly, I’ve researched a little and found some interesting ideas along the lines of public juries.” But have lessons and strategies learned left Garrow better prepared for the next fight? “Yes and no, we are certainly better equipped with the knowledge to be asking the right questions to ensure procedure is being followed. But being the ‘underdog’ we will always have to accept that developers will have much greater resources than ourselves, in terms of money and time, this might be the hardest obstacle to overcome. With this in mind we have now formed a group dedicated to ensuring the beauty of Aberdeen (www.aberdeenbeautiful.com) with particular attention to future development and regeneration.” One of the great positives of campaigning is a

heightened awareness of the benefits of good design, not just a misguided nostalgia for a long-gone past but an appreciation of good modern design. Garrow said: “The fight against Marischal Square has certainly engaged the public in thinking about design. And it is no secret that many residents of Aberdeen look enviously at Dundee right now with the Waterfront project and Kengo Kuma’s V&A building. It is encouraging to sit in the pub or coffee shop and over-hear discussion about architecture/design/space in Aberdeen, keeping this engagement up is the problem. For some time Aberdeen has accepted second rate development in the city, it has now culminated in this and I suspect - and hope - that future development will be scrutinised to a much greater degree.” The issues affecting Aberdeen sparked a wider debate in the mainstream media with former Prospect editor Penny Lewis, now a tutor at Robert Gordon University, informing the BBC’s Scotland 2015 current affairs programme that there is now a ‘crisis in the planning process’. Lewis said: “You’ve got politicians who struggle to define what’s in the public interest and a public who are deeply cynical about the motives of developers and politicians when it comes to the planning process. The way in which the public get involved is

CARBUNCLE AWARDS

usually as a stage army simply to come and protest against development, we’re not really participating in the discussion about how we develop a vision and public good. “Planning has become more procedural, more bureaucratic, more about policy and less about product. One of the problems that we have in Scotland at the moment is that there isn’t really a serious discussion about the quality of urban design and the quality of architecture. We’ve lost our capacity to engage in public discussion about what constitutes beauty and how we make beautiful places and I think a lot of the measures developed in the new planning act have actually made for a more bureaucratic process. Yes the public are involved but how are they involved? They’re often non-governmental bodies that are themselves funded by government or bodies with a relationship with government, so you have a very cosy slightly cliquey consultation process with people who are reliant on government for their funding and the general public are pretty much excluded from that process so when planning approval is given the public’s reaction is one of shock and hostility.” Asked whether he agreed with this crisis diagnosis Euan Leitch, spokesperson for the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, said: “I think crisis is too strong a word, planning is a process, I’ve never practiced planning or studied it but what’s interesting is that it tries to settle very broad differences and tensions between what the public want and how much money you can make out of it, which fundamentally is what the developer sets out to do. “My concern with planning is it’s a discretionary system, so it doesn’t give concrete outcomes so there is risk from a development point of view and the public feel they don’t have any say in it. The pre-application notification system was one of the things which was supposed to engage the public but it requires the developers to say before they submit an application to the public for what they want and the guidelines are very basic. So a public consultation is just that, an event. You can show the public what you want, you can show them your scheme or the outline of your site, so the public may have something to say but often they won’t know if you’ve nothing to show them. “But if you show something then people might be genuinely annoyed because you’ve not consulted them. There’s potentially consultation fatigue and the question of whether it’s genuine. “The government could put more money into planning because there are huge demands placed on planning services to deliver development in the public interest but the only way you can do that is if it’s properly funded. A number of local authorities are currently cutting budgets, there is no way that is going to result in an improved planning service.” Another commentator to disagree with the crisis label was Tom Parnell, convenor of the AHSS Forth & Borders cases panel, who told Urban Realm: “The planning system > URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

Previous page - Marischal Square has endured a rocky passage despite approval

Above - BDPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Buchanan Galleries is out of step with public opinion

CARBUNCLE AWARDS

Above - This beachside pavilion was one restauranteur’s dubious riposte to Aberdeen’s Carbuncle accolade Below - Aberdeen’s new city masterplan calls for the part-pedestrianisation of Union Street to drive footfall

URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

Critics question why Glasgow should accept an introverted mall as opposed to proper streets

in Scotland has a problem. Not Applicants with large pockets can employ skilled a crisis, but a serious problem planning consultants who are able to navigate nonetheless. The anger in and sometimes manipulate - the system. response to recent high profile cases of Marischal Square, Buchanan Galleries and the old Royal High – three specific examples the RTPI Scotland ‘did in Edinburgh being one such example. Planners on both not want to talk about’ on Scotland 2015 – underline the sides of the development process are more often than not issue. The ability of communities and individuals to engage members of the same club – the RTPI, which in a recent with planning is limited, oftentoolate and fraught with letter in The Herald steadfastly refused to acknowledge that bureaucratic barriers. Even if people time it right, so often there was any problem. On Twitter, the Scottish Government their contributions do not count as ‘material’ comments, and RTPI gorge on the hashtags #HappyPlanner and or they get trapped in preapplication consultations that #ProudofPlanning, alienating further. Most individual manipulate them into giving answers they don’t want to planners are outstanding professionals – I work with them on give. Writing as a convenor for a voluntary AHSS cases a regular basis – but I’m sure many would privately share my panel I’ll admit I struggle to navigate the various local concern that planning is not the democratic and open system authorities’ webs of local plans, supplementary guidance and it should be. Yet.” development frameworks. In my day job – as an architectural The emergence of new campaign groups such as historian in an architecture practice, I work extensively Aberdeen Beautiful exemplifies the spirit of renewed vigour on both sides of the border, and heritage management in being directed toward changing the planning system for particular is substantially more robust in England. the better, the first fruits of which may become apparent “My conclusion is that the planning system is still with the consultation into Aberdeen’s future city centre designed by planners, for planners. Applicants with large masterplan. Amidst mounting public cynicism it will be a pockets can employ skilled planning consultants who are test case to see whether planners and the local authority are able to navigate – and sometimes manipulate – the system: genuine in their desire to work with rather than against the the demolition of three listed buildings in St Andrew Square weight of public opinion.

SAUCHIEHALL STREET JOHN GLENDAY

THE RAPIDLY EVOLVING MAKE-UP OF GLASGOW CITY CENTRE IS PROMPTING A REAPPRAISAL OF SOME OF ITS BEST KNOWN AREAS BUT DOES THIS REPRESENT A STEP FORWARD OR BACKWARD? AMIDST THE SPREAD OF POUND SHOPS AND A GIANT EXTENSION OF BUCHANAN GALLERIES SAUCHIEHALL STREET HAS NEVER LOOKED MORE PRECARIOUS. WITH THAT IN MIND URBAN REALM POUNDED THE STREETS WITH THE DESIGN TEAM APPOINTED TO ARREST ITS DECLINE. PHOTOGRAPHY BY WILLIE MILLER.

Sauchiehall Street may be one of Glasgow’s most famous streets but it hasn’t been spared the ravages of a contracting retail base and the questionable policy of concentrating bars and clubs within a small area. With the recent approval of the Buchanan Galleries extension threatening to suck what remains of the streets shopping offer indoors the Council has formed We Are Sauchiehall, a workshop overseen by planner Nick Wright, Ice Cream Architecture and Riccardo Marini, director of Copenghagen based Gehl Architects. Tasked with lifting the down at heel address from the doldrums they will work under the auspices of Glasgow’s Districts Strategy to focus resources leveraged from the £1.1bn City Deal on nine ‘districts’ in order to build on their unique character and specialisms, each will be linked by a series of ‘avenues’ connecting key neighbourhoods and focal points, the first being Sauchiehall Street itself and the wider Sauchiehall/ Garnethill district. Speaking to Urban Realm about these plans councillor Gordon Mathieson said: “When people think of Glasgow they say ’oh Sauchiehall Street’. There is an awful lot of vibrancy about it at the moment and a diverse group of stakeholders but it needs to be regenerated, it’s ripe for development. We want to take the lessons learned from the IFSD and the Merchant City then look holistically across the whole of the city recognising that a city is made up of different neighbourhoods, each with its own character.” > URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

Sauchiehall Street has lost many of its architectural jewels

SAUCHIEHALL STREET

Top - Plans to remove the Buchanan Street steps have irked some Bottom - The wider Garnethill area will be looked at alongside Sauchiehall Street Right - Cultural institutions such as the GSA offer hope for the future

To that end Marini has been appointed to help deliver this vision, he told Urban Realm: “I define myself as a modernist, I trained at the Mackintosh, I love Villa Savoye. I think Corbusier was a fucked up planner but a fantastic designer. I define myself in terms of some of the ideas behind that.” Commenting on the unique cultural legacy of the area Marini added: “Sauchiehall Street has had its ups and downs. It was a fantastic retail area, it’s always had entertainment. Although we have issues with the edges of the Sauchiehall District, a planner has drawn a line on a map, we find Garnethill to be really interesting as a receptor of waves of culture that came into Scotland from Eastern Europe, Italy, the Indian subcontinent and then China. All these waves of immigration have come in, they’ve been assimilated by the city and have left URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

evidence of who they are and were. “Unless you understand the place and the people and you evolve with them you will get it wrong, as you impose. It’s a bit cheesy but we’re really trying to develop mechanisms for fully integrated co-creation, where we go in, as consultants. People want answers and what we’ll say is you’ve got to define the questions before you get answers and to define the question you need to understand what the issues are and therefore you need to talk to people and engage with people. Ultimately, In our experience if you get people involved in making value judgements about their future the decision making process is far better. Instead of giving fish to starving people you are giving them a fishing rod and teach them how to fish, you are then redundant.”

Copenhagen based Gehl use the Danish capital as a laboratory and take clients ranging from Kazakhstan to Bloomberg on walking tours, even getting them onto the saddle to show examples of good practice but Marini rankles when asked if there is a Northern European template which could be brought to bear: “We work across the globe and are very conscious of what we would call cultural imperialism. This is not about producing a northern European example and stamping it all over the world, that’s what created a lot of the problems that we have. People need to make decisions about their own place, not everything is appropriate everywhere.” A common refrain heard by Marini is for Sauchiehall Street to be brought up to spec with the more illustrious Buchanan Street but this idea is dismissed as ‘totally inappropriate’. Marini

explained: “Buchanan Street performs in a particular way, Sauchiehall Street has a different beat, a different energy. It’s developed a night time economy which has its pros and its cons but how do you make it become more of itself? There are some physical things that you can do, there are some logistical and governance things you can do and critically I think a lot of it’s to do with how you respect people who have made a decision to live in the area. “I could sit down and write a list of things that need to be done. Some of those I’m arrogant enough to know would be of relevance to the citizens and the traders and the politicians but I’m not going to do that because I want this to come from the other side, I want participants themselves to have this conversation.” >

SAUCHIEHALL STREET

The city centre core begins to fragment on approach toward Cowcaddens

One area of consternation is that of BDPs giant Buchanan Galleries project, recently rubber stamped by the council despite concerns over aspects of its design - principally the loss of Buchanan Street steps, dead facades and a monolithic car park overlooking George Square. Defending the decision to grant approval Mathieson said: “We need to continue to invest in all the sectors which make up the city centre. Any vibrant city centre is going to be diverse. There is a very clear economic strategy about the range of diverse sectors we’re looking to promote.” For his part Marini said: “I’ve heard that they want to get rid of the steps and at one level I think, yeah, maybe.” Asked whether the Council were a help or a hindrance in the areas regeneration Marini replied; “Put it this way, without them I wouldn’t be talking to you because the team wouldn’t have been taken on to look at this. A local authority is a large bureaucracy that sometimes doesn’t know what one hand is doing in respect of the other and this happens throughout the world, therefore to assume that they are totally coherent I think is assuming that most people you meet are going to be coherent. I can only look at the fact that we have been given a commission and a lot of support to look at this which is difficult for a local authority because there is a degree of risk. “We’re not saying here’s a draft report go away and read it and comment on it. We’re going to co-create a regeneration URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

strategy and we’re involving as many people as we can. I think Councillor Matheson is tuned into the kind of stuff that we’re trying to do. Place does not exist without the right governance. I’ve not come across one responsible authority whether local government or estate that has a proper governance system that allows place to flourish. Then there’s the economic engine and function of a place but it shouldn’t be the driver, it distorts place totally.” Depending on where you are in the world you’ll say I’m from Paisley, or I’m in the west end, or Glasgow, or Scotland. Identity is multifaceted and we do use identity as a currency sometimes. I have an issue with the Sauchiehall District but if someone says I’m from this part of the world and I’m proud of it then that’s a badge of honour, that’s success.” Perusal of a bottom up planning solution holds out the prospect of better engagement with local issues that can be overlooked in a blanket ‘city centre’ model, enhancing specific areas of character and identity - but at the same time they risk a compartmentalisation of uses. With the Broomielaw, an office dormitory that is dead at night offering a stark contrast to the chaotic scenes on Sauchiehall Street on a Friday/Saturday evening there are perhaps grounds to mix things up rather more than a regimented ‘leisure’, ‘business’ and ‘learning’ quarter model allows. Particularly as retail retreats ever further toward the central core.

Above - An abundance of cultural institutions are the areas ace in the sleeve

Below - Under-used and vacant plots are making way for new housing

ROYAL HIGH SCHOOL JOHN GLENDAY

BAT T L E ROYAL

IT HAS STOOD SILENTLY ABOVE EDINBURGH FOR OVER HALF A CENTURY BUT NOW PROPONENTS AND OPPONENTS OF AN AMBITIOUS MAKEOVER OF THE ROYAL HIGH SCHOOL ARE MAKING A GREAT DEAL OF NOISE OVER THIS CRUMBLING LANDMARK. EPITOMISING WIDER FAULTLINES BETWEEN THE CITY’S POWERFUL CONSERVATION LOBBY AND DEVELOPERS ITS FUTURE HANGS IN THE BALANCE LIKE NEVER BEFORE.

Edinburgh may be no stranger to rambunctious planning battles but proposals to transform the much admired Royal High School into a plush hotel has led to a predictable explosion of hyperbole, with hackles understandably raised over a controversial long-term lease arrangement that could see just £10m paid to Edinburgh City Council over 125 years – assuming planning permission should ever be forthcoming. Gareth Hoskins Architects, Urbanist Group and Duddingston House Properties are the team behind plans to breathe new life into the crumbling A-listed landmark which has lain derelict in the heart of Edinburgh for the better part of 50 years – although it has been used on occasion to host parliamentary committee meetings since it was remodelled in the 1970s to accommodate a then anticipated devolved Scottish Parliament. In common with the insensitivities of the era this brutal process saw the Property Services Agency strip out almost all of the exquisite interiors; including floor to ceiling bookcases, fireplaces and furniture which were carted out in skips to be replaced by today’s profusion of pitch pine. Fortunately the design team are in possession of Hamilton’s original drawings, courtesy of RCAHMS which, when read alongside contemporary surveys, will URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

allow the retro-chic interior to be stripped out in favour of something more befitting of the original vision… although a Star Trek style speaker’s chair may survive in some form if consultation opinions hold any sway - some visitors wished to see the captain’s seat sealed within a glass display case following any remodelling work. First appointed to the project five years ago the team have been busy for much of the intervening years attempting to convince funders to back their vision for the Calton Hill landmark and bring it back from the brink. Caught between the planners on one side and nature on the other however they are engaged in a race against time to stem further water damage after thieves broke in under the noses of security guards, walking away with lead sheeting ripped from the front colonnade to sell on the black market and thus allowing moisture to penetrate deep within the structure. With security still a responsibility for Edinburgh City Council, which still owns the building, there is mounting pressure to get a grip on the situation and avert further deterioration. This decline prompted the recent appointment of Andrew Wright as conservation architect to look at the heritage side of the development, a role which will see Thomas Hamilton’s masterpiece restored

The Royal High School saga has generated reams of column inches

ROYAL HIGH SCHOOL

for use as a hotel reception, restaurant, lounges and bar with two principal entrances fronting Calton Hill and Regent Road to facilitate people making the climb up Jacob’s Ladder from the Old Town. This will serve the dual purpose of activating the rear of the school and open up an original Hamilton retaining wall and tower. The driving premise behind Hoskins’ vision is to retain the symmetrical composition of Hamilton’s vision, originally intended to act as a gateway to Calton Hill but which has, ironically, served as a barrier to access. To heap irony upon irony the blanket A-listing for the school grounds incorporates not just the intended main building but also a range of dubious later extensions – none of which contribute positively to the overall setting. The chosen solution therefore is to retain the main block in a manner akin to a curated National Trust house, making it publicly accessible for the first time in its 190 year history whilst shunting the requisite volume of bedroom spaces into twin flanking pavilions. Fortunately three hotel operators are vying for the lucrative license to run the exclusive venue, giving the developers a vital bargaining chip to negotiate down the number of bedrooms whilst maintaining financial viability.

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Speaking to Urban Realm on a tour of the structure David Orr of the Urbanist Group, said: “We’ve got keen ambitions to have a cultural programme, it’s not just a bar and a restaurant. It’s not a gated community, frankly it wouldn’t work if it wasn’t popular and we didn’t allow people in.” This public focus will see Hoskins work to reinstate the original layout of what is a surprisingly small building, exaggerated in scale in a trick of perception by the huge terrace and plateau upon which it sits. Taking full advantage of this form it is proposed to bury a spa and banqueting hall within the bowels of this structure below the main temple. A provocative image depicting part of the front facade removed to accommodate a stairwell through sandstone vaults was mischievously prepared by the architects to stimulate discussion as to how the site might be opened up, potentially with an open step entrance from Regent Road. Whilst little expectation is harboured as to whether this prospect will ever being sanctioned (it might provide replacement stonework for discoloured sections) it does serve to highlight the thinking behind their approach. Less controversially two octagonal rooms within will be refurbished to form a lounge and bar whilst former >

Above - Period rooms will be restored Below - In a fitting circle Hoskinsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; sketch artist is also named Thomas Hamilton - no relation

ROYAL HIGH SCHOOL

Above - This scale model was produced to show context Right - Bids to rejuvenate the school have long been bogged down in red tape

classrooms meanwhile will be given a second lease of life as restaurant, bar and meeting spaces with support services located beneath these areas. Conversations are ongoing with visual arts organisation Collective Gallery to integrate the school fully with various events staged on the hill such as a planned Malcolm Fraser designed contemporary art gallery at the City Observatory. Another hairy fault line with planners stemmed from the desire to create a ‘gateway’ entrance to signal the route up the hill to traffic from Princes Street, improving the current setting of a dual carriageway, crash barriers and bus laybys which will all be swept away to form an arrivals space for visitors stretching from the school gates to Thomas Tait’s St Andrews House. This brings back into use a kink in the road, necessitated originally by a rocky mound known as Millers Crag, only blasted out later to make way for a playground. Repeated criticism was made of the ‘sandstone box’ aesthetic evident in much new Edinburgh architecture but Euan Leitch, spokesperson for the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, dismisses such concerns: “Georgian buildings were sandstone clad boxes, I find that URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

a really interesting criticism. It’s one that you see in online comment sections. The classical architecture is a standard form of building, it’s replicated globally. Was classical architecture a global movement? Yes. As was modernism, the differences are materials were local and there are specific classical designs that are unique to Edinburgh. “Restrictions do lead to good architecture and the great thing about Edinburgh is it’s a landscape city and height is important but I think beneath the height there is scope for real variety. I think it is a difficult line for Edinburgh to travel but there is huge scope for good quality architecture. Look at Leith waterfront where there are no conservation restrictions and yet the architecture that you see there is appalling. So the notion that conservation stifles good development is wrong, we get worse development.” What does concern Leitch however is the apparent lack of design evolution evidenced over the course of the consultation programme, suggestive of the fact that the finished design may have been a done deal. A factor not aided by a weighted response form which allowed the team to claim that 79 per cent of 580 people to attend >

ROYAL HIGH SCHOOL

the first consultation were in favour of the development. Leitch added: “The images which were unveiled at the second consultation I’d seen in January and my impression is that they are the images that the council and Historic Scotland had seen in the middle of last year. The problem is you need 150 -200 bedrooms and you can’t fit them onto the site without having a detrimental impact. The consultation was certainly awareness raising but I don’t think it was a consultation to take on any criticisms of the proposal because they have to get a certain amount out of the site as hoteliers, which I completely understand.” Hoskins takes issue with this stance however, telling Urban Realm in a prepared statement that the second consultation was a direct evolution of the first and followed extensive consultations with heritage bodies. The architect said: “In March, a further two days of consultation attracted a similar number of people who URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

were able to comment on the plans as well as on specifics such as materials, the handling of the restoration and ambitions for improving the wider setting of Regent Road and Calton Hill. On both occasions the majority of responses from those who attended expressed support for restoring the Hamilton building as a hotel. “This input has, and continues to, influence the proposals which will continue to be honed further as they move through the planning process.” As an example of how to run a public consultation the Royal High School developers deserve plaudits for their enthusiastic engagement with the public. Whilst this succeeded in stimulating discussion on the landmarks future it is less certain that it has meaningfully shaped the evolving design – a factor that is likely to remain moot as the scheme laboriously wends its way through the planning system in this most conservative of cities.

Left - A dual carriageway and crash barriers would be swept away under the plans

The developers are at pains to stress that the main building will be publicly accessible

Right - The schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s weather worn coat of arms symbolises its decay

ST ANDREW SQUARE JOHN GLENDAY

Left - Refurbishment of awkward historic buildings is becoming a Chris Stewart hallmark Above - The scheme will arrest a spiral of decline

L ANE

GA I N

A FLURRY OF ACTIVITY AROUND EDINBURGH’S ST ANDREW SQUARE SIGNIFIES RENEWED SPECULATIVE INTEREST IN AN ADDRESS WHICH NOW (FINALLY) BOASTS A DIRECT AIRPORT TRAM LINK, BUT IS THIS CHANGE FOR THE BETTER? WITH THE MOST PROMINENT MOVE THUS FAR BEING DEMOLITION OF SCOTTISH PROVIDENT IT WOULD APPEAR NOT BUT THE CHRIS STEWART GROUP THINK OTHERWISE. IN FACT, THEY ARE BANKING ON IT.

Flushed with the success of their their Advocates Close development, a surprise Doolan winner, the Chris Stewart Group is seeking to weave their magic for a second time with a £60m plan to transform the A-listed art deco banking hall of the former former Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters into a plush eatery with apartments above. It is a restoration project that will see the developer reprise its partnership with conservation specialists Morgan McDonnell Architects, who will work in consultation with conservation specialist Andrew Wright. This will be delivered in tandem with a series of new build elements on Register Lanes led by the increasingly prolific Gareth Hoskins Architects, who will adopt a now familiar palette of stone and glass with setback bronze and glass penthouse floors. On a tour of 42 St Andrew Square before construction gets underway in earnest Chris Stewart told Urban Realm: “There is a lot of vertical volume with big floor to ceiling >

ST ANDREW SQUARE

This handsome facade hides an equally fine interior URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

A number of etched glass motifs of Scottish industry will be brought back to prominence

heights. There are also two huge basements, the lower one was almost completely filled with water because it was below the water table and the whole thing was backing up. “We’re trying to reinstate some of the period features, two columns have been removed and it’s been subdivided. It’s been chopped straight through and lined with asbestos. We won’t be able to put the columns back but this will be a high quality brasserie. On West Register Street we’re going to drop down the cills to create doorways so the main entrance for this unit will be on the side. The idea is to activate the street front which is dead at the moment, the pavements are narrow so we want to put shared surface cobbles down and pedestrianize the route, encouraging cycle traffic to come through.” McDonnell and Hoskins are collaborating on the delivery of this public realm, prioritising street level activation in the form of leisure and restaurants and relocating services and waste management to the basement in a bid to deter antisocial behaviour. Discussing the bank’s piece de la resistance Guy Morgan of Morgan McDonnell Architects said: “If you think of all the

banking halls in Edinburgh they’ve all changed, like the Dome, to leisure use. They’re also all Victorian, this is the only one with that stripped back art deco look, it’s unique in the city. “We’ve begun clearing out already; it was all partitioned off, even the roof lights were filled in. A concrete slab was inserted in the seventies which cuts right through the banking hall. You’ve got clerestory lighting above coming in from both sides with etched glass showing all the industries of Scotland. A concrete frame holds up the floor and they’ve just crashed the blockwork straight through marble pilasters, it wasn’t done with a lot of love. All of this will come out and all the light will feed down to that one space. “You can see this space as becoming a grand European café. It starts to activate that street with what Chris’s guys (Chris Coleman Smith of Gareth Hoskins Architects) are doing on the other side.” Commenting on his involvement in the project Smith said: “We’d like to make the street as pedestrian friendly as possible so we will lift the setts, put in new paving and have it flush with new café, retail and restaurants opening up onto the street with tables and chairs. It’s not an attractive place at >

ST ANDREW SQUARE

the moment, nor is it safe.” The scheme will also open up new pedestrian routes through to the St James Centre and Multrees Walk, enhancing permeability of a section of city that was previously isolated. “Where Multrees Walk has high end retail this will become high end leisure. The Café Royal and the Guildford Arms have been dislocated on a not great street, all of a sudden with a restaurant on that corner, a bar and grand café they’ll become a destination,” Morgan said. Internally the various quirks of the former bank will be retained and enhanced. This includes alternately short and tall floor levels generating an interesting optical effect when peering up a feature stairwell, elongating the apparent height of the foyer as the eye struggles to make sense of what it sees. Elsewhere period secondary glazing, installed to block the noise of Edinburgh’s original tram network, will be retained to perform the same function for today’s line. Morgan observed: “The bank did some serious vandalism but they also looked after a lot of it, such as door knobs and hand rails. It was built during the war, you’d have thought it be all hands to the pumps, but with it being a 1940s building it’s got a lot of venting and services built in so we’re just trying to re-use all that rather than rebuild everything. It’s quite unusual, normally you’re struggling with building control but here it’s all compliant. It’s great not to have to touch or destroy anything. After Advocates Close everything is easy, rebuilding Rome would have been easier! I’m surprised we got out of that with our marbles intact.” Recalling a scene that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Withnail and I outtake Morgan recalled an early site visit which illustrated the stark contrast between some of the banks transient occupants and the wood pannelled splendour of their surrounds: “There were a couple of old boys living here before Chris secured the buildings, it was one of the best sights you will ever see. They were just sitting there positioned on their chairs with the views out the window. They picked the prime room with an empty bottle of Jamieson’s sitting between them.” To the rear secondary spaces have low light and varying ceiling heights, giving scope to carve up the space to achieve the number of required rooms. Morgan said: “This side of the building tends to get split more both height wise and in subdivision to form toilets and kitchens. They’ve got a central corridor with lots of boardrooms and offices on one side and then the bits that feed it on the other side. “The interiors will be contemporary but we’ve always got a nod to the building we’re in. Although they’re serviced apartments they’ll be a very different offer to what we did in Advocates Close because they’re very different buildings, there’s more neoclassical grandeur to this. We’re just trying to keep it restrained and simple. “This will be the Lady Gaga suite” said Morgan as he ushered Urban Realm into the former boardroom of the bank, > URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

The days will soon be numbered for this prominent tartan tat store

ST ANDREW SQUARE

This section of the capital promises to be unrecognisable in a few years time URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

a palatial director’s suite with ancillary access to all its own services. High enough up to get the views. “Even though you could call this the principal floor the plant room is above so the floor here is split and it just crashes up against the window. What we’re doing is pulling the floor back to create double height mezzanine flats to catch the light. It’s nuts that they’ve stuck plant up there with one of the best views in Edinburgh.” These new views expose some tricks of the trade employed by architects past, something Morgan picked up on during a recent visit to Charlotte Square: “I was admiring all the sculpture work that went into the Robert Adam façade to give it an amazing sense of depth but if you open the Velux you can see the back of the sphinx is not carved at all. It’s just chiselled stone!” The scheme amounts to more than one building however and one of the gains it promises, apart from getting rid of a pretty shabby 1970s building, is removal of an elevated link bridge, something which had become a security risk as Morgan revealed: “Greggs got broken into from this building a few months back, they dropped down a service shaft into it… They didn’t nick the pasties they took the money out the till, you’d have to be pretty bloody hungry!” In fact the whole complex is interconnected with 42 St Andrew Square linking directly with a sixties extension, 1860s building on the corner anda retained Venetian façade. Smith added: “It doesn’t include the 1970s block further down but the good news is we’re working on that as well. You’ll lose the Tartan shop and Scot Snax.” Nevertheless there are concerns from some quarters at the direction of travel for St Andrew’s Square with Euan Leitch, spokesperson for the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, telling Urban Realm: “One of the fabulous things about St Andrew’s Square was that it exhibited layers of architecture across three centuries but the demolitions have wiped away the only examples of Italianate merchant buildings and a really superb piece of modernism (The Scottish Provident Building). As a result you get buildings which, whilst not necessarily bad architecture, are homogenising it. We’ve lost variety and interest in favour of large floorplates. “I’m interested in the Chris Stewart Group because they’re a local long-term developer and I think that serves the city better rather than have a pension fund come in looking for the maximum return in as short a space of time as possible. The big question is what is the bank going to do with Dundas House? Their agent had it as a marketable site in the local development consultation so what’s going to happen there?” Register Street’s transformation from grot to glitz is not without casualty then, even if the fundamental ideals behind the work are sound. With the St James Centre powering ahead with plans that leave Buchanan Galleries in the shade the capital has proven it still has a few surprises in store.

DRIVERLESS CARS JOHN GLENDAY

VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE HAVE A HABIT OF NEVER MATERIALISING AS ENVISAGED BUT THAT DOESN’T STOP TECHNOLOGY EVANGELISTS FROM PREACHING ABOUT THE SUN LIT UPLANDS THAT FOREVER LIE JUST AROUND THE CORNER. WITH DRIVERLESS CARS NOW ON THE ROAD TO REALITY HOWEVER THE GOAL OF AUTOMATED STREETS SEEMS CLOSER THAN EVER.

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A world of Amazon delivery drones and personal rollerballs may be within reach

DRIVERLESS CARS

Technoheads have long dreamed of an elusive future full of jet packs and interplanetary travel but today’s relatively mundane world belies some impressive incremental, if not revolutionary, progress. With computers now in control of everything from airliners to missiles it was only a matter of time before some bright spark put them behind the wheel but is this idea likely to take off and would we even want it to? In an effort to address the former question the UK government has fast tracked the introduction of prototype vehicles on Britain’s roads as part of an ongoing trials to ensure the country emerges as a global leader in the field. The unnerving sight of driverless cars is now a regular occurrence on the streets of Greenwich, Milton Keynes, Coventry and Bristol. Is this the beginning of a revolution to transform our towns and cities in ways not seen since the emergence of the first automobiles at the turn of the last century, potentially ushering in a new relationship between people, vehicles and buildings. Not everyone is convinced that such a techno-utopia will be benign with John Lord, founder of Yellowbook, pointing to the naive sense of optimism which led to the construction of motorways and bypasses throughout the 20th century which destroyed so many urban environments. He said: “Nicholas Carr’s The Glass Cage1 raises important questions about

automation and its tendency to degrade human skills. Carr’s warning that ‘[t]he trouble with automation is that it often gives us what we don’t need at the cost of what we do’ is an essential antidote to the utopian babbling of the technologists and their attendant groupies. The contemporary “cult of optimism2” has made it almost impossible to look beyond the potential benefits of driverless vehicles to the moral ambiguities and complex choices that the new technologies will present.” To this Lord notes that, at best, much of the technology remains nascent: “There’s always a driver in attendance to supervise the vehicle, and the cars can only go to places that have been mapped with fanatical precision. The cars can be immobilised by snow or leaves, they are still getting to grips with hand signals and they struggle to distinguish between, say, a rock in the road and a crumpled-up newspaper. Given time, the routine stuff can probably be dealt with. The challenge is how to equip a totally driverless car with the ability to deal with unexpected and unpredictable events. For that, the on-board computer will need ‘generalised intelligence’ and ‘situational awareness’, according to Lee Gomes2. Indeed, Gary Marcus goes even further: in an emergency, a driverless vehicle may need to decide whether to run down a child or a dog. It will need to make ethical decisions3.” A system embodying such principles is precisely where

Left - Greater pedestrian ownership of our city streets is promised Right - Audi has been a driving force behind driverless cars with its urban future awards

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industry proponents contend they are headed, arguing that computerised transit is about far more than negating human error and inefficiencies. In the words of Klaus Verweyen, Audi’s head of pre-development of automated driving functions, it’s about nothing less than creating a ‘learning system’ that can ‘react intelligently to its environment’. If such an artificial intelligence is deliverable in the short to medium term it would deliver an almost inconceivable panoply of ramifications, foreseeable and otherwise. In simple terms Verweyen sees our built environments reaping the benefits: “Space for parking, for example, could shrink or be shifted to less attractive locations thanks to self-parking cars,” Lord observes, adding: “The improved traffic flow due to intelligent cars also reduces the space requirement of the road network. The space that is freed up benefits people, and the quality of urban life improves. “I believe that in future existing means of transportation will be further differentiated. Between cars, motorbikes, bicycles, public transit or the decision to travel on foot, there is space for new forms of getting around. In future these diverse forms of mobility will share the traffic space of the city. Borders can become blurred or even disappear completely, provided that traffic safety is ensured.” What isn’t in doubt is that the remaining technical, legal and cultural barriers which remain to be overcome are far more

formidable than those thus far encountered in achieving the relatively simple task of running basic models under controlled conditions on pre-set routes. Nevertheless most analysts, including The Boston Consulting Group in their report, Back to the Future: The Road to Autonomous Driving4, believe that partially autonomous vehicles could be available in the very near future with fully autonomous successors appearing around 2025. This leads Lord to conclude that traditional vehicles will be sharing road space with souped up alternatives for decades. Lord said: “Before very long there will be a class of partial-autonomous vehicles on the road in which computers will drive more miles and carry out more routine manoeuvres than humans. But for the foreseeable future people will need to be in attendance, intervening in emergencies and assuming control when the signals received by the car are too confusing and contradictory for it to cope. Road travel will be safer and the death toll will reduce but, on the rare occasions when we are called into action, inattention, a reluctance to countermand the computer and ring-rustiness will lead to some messy mistakes and a festival of litigation. “But let’s indulge ourselves for a moment, because the possibilities (and they are no more than that) are sensational. No one seriously suggests that the wealthy and powerful are going to give up private transport, but many of us are likely to find the >

DRIVERLESS CARS

Left - The UK is an enthusiastic flag waver for the new tech Right - A cleaner, safer and more efficient transport system is the goal of planners

prospect of cars on demand very attractive. Fleets of driverless taxis could take millions of cars off the road and improve the utilisation of the total vehicle stock dramatically. Who wouldn’t like the idea of a car that takes you to your destination and then takes itself off to serve the next customer or park itself? Most of the time cars just sit there – in the garage, the station car park, in the multi-storey and by the road side. In a driverless world there will still be peak hours and downtime – and the associated storage issues – but we can use the vehicles we have much more efficiently. Any number of questions arise: about demand, pricing, geographical coverage, disabled access and the impact on mass transit and commercial traffic, as well as practical issues like cleaning and maintenance, but the prize is huge: nothing less than the opportunity to reclaim our city streets. “It won’t be that easy, of course. We like owning things, and nobody wants to get into a robotic taxi full of crisp packets and smelling of socks. But for now let’s assume that in the future there will be many fewer cars on the road. It may be a safer bet that these vehicles – the driverless ones at least – will behave better. They will observe speed limits, obey signals (which might become redundant over time) and not drive under the influence of drink or drugs; they won’t fall asleep at the wheel, get bored or turn round to shout at the kids. An interesting question is URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

what proportion of vehicles would need to be fully or partially autonomous for this good behaviour to set the standard for all drivers, including humans? Either way, once the tipping point is reached and decorous manners prevail, the opportunities for sharing road space with vehicles will multiply. Today, shared surfaces are a faith-based policy: before too long, if you walk in front of a car, you can be pretty certain it will stop, and having that confidence would change everything. “I suppose that’s it, really. For a century or more our towns and cities have been designed around the requirements of road vehicles, often with calamitous results. For at least 30 years a lot of people have been worrying about the consequences of what we’ve done and planners and policy-makers have tried their best to roll-back the tide, tearing down urban motorways, pedestrianizing city streets and experimenting with shared surfaces. This civilising mission has had some notable successes and, indeed, car ownership and mileage seem to have peaked in Britain, at least for the time being. But cars – and all the other road vehicles – have won the war and, without exception, all our great cities bear the scars. The techno-triumphalists, with their under-developed understanding of history and human behaviour, think all this can be spirited away in a few years. It can’t, because we’re locked into the old infrastructure and the old ways of doing things, and because the technology isn’t here

yet. Indeed, it may be decades away – and, as always, we need to question the motives and aspirations of the people who own and stand to profit from it. And what about us? Do we want driverless vehicles? Will we all want to own one – in which case you can forget about many of the potential benefits above? Or will we enthusiastically adopt the rental model?” Whether owning or renting Geoff Whitten, director of urban design at Turley, stresses that the true distinction lies between so-called smart motorways and smart cities, pointing out that vehicles will evolve greater diversity to suit niche functions. At its most basic this would see long-distance carriers grow to feature more capacious designs for passengers to while away time as they shuttle up and down the motorway network whilst for shorter distances smaller ‘pods’ may become ubiquitous in urban environments where capacity is key. Whitten noted: “City dwellers will benefit from less congestion and visual clutter in the form of railings and signage whilst suburbs will also be enhanced as a place to live. The daily commute could be much more enjoyable using a controlled autonomous vehicle as journeys will be more consistent and safe.” Lord concludes: “Some powerful forces are lining up to create the driverless future, and to profit from it: technology companies, auto-makers and others. As Mui and Carroll say, “trillions are up for grabs”. Predicting the future is a mug’s game,

but the real challenge is political. How can a country in which the idea of the public realm has been systematically demeaned ensure that, to paraphrase Carr, we get the technology (and the societal change) that we need, and not necessarily what we want? Driverless vehicles have the potential to offer enormous benefits, albeit in a relatively distant future, but only if we return to the social-democratic principle that that the common good should prevail over individual desires5. Otherwise we will be at the tender mercies of global corporations and charismatic libertarian entrepreneurs.” Whether autonomous vehicles prove less elusive than jet packs and interplanetary travel and are let loose into the wild years or decades hence the direction of travel is clear, driverless vehicles are coming whether our cities are ready or not.

1. Nicholas Carr, The Glass Cage: Where Automation is Taking Us, The Bodley Head, London, 2015 2. See, for example, Brian Appleyard, “The Happiness Conspiracy”, New Statesman, 19 February, 2015 3. See Lee Gomes, “Driving in Circles”, www.slate.com 21 October 2014, and the same author’s “Hidden Obstacles for Google’s SelfDriving Cars”, MIT Technology Review 28 August 2014 3. Gary Marcus, “Moral Machines”, New Yorker, 24 November 2014 4. For a summary see www.slideshare.net/ TheBostonConsultingGroup/the-road-to-autonomous-driving 5. See David Marquand, Mammon’s Kingdom: An Essay on Britain, Now, Allen Lane, London, 2014

THE SHIELDS CENTRE JOHN GLENDAY

NATIONWIDE CONSOLIDATION OF GP SURGERIES INTO NEIGHBOURHOOD HEALTH CENTRES IS PROVIDING A BOUNTIFUL SUPPLY OF WORK FOR ARCHITECTS, BUT IS THEIR IMPACT EQUALLY AS HEALTHY FOR PATIENTS? URBAN REALM CHECKED INTO ANDERSON BELL + CHRISTIE’S SHIELDS CENTRE TO SEE IF IT IS JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED. PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEITH HUNTER

URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

The new health centre has already become a pillar of the community

Continued reorganization of health services has brought with it a bonanza for architects as GPs migrate from single offices to bigger and better equipped one-stop-shop health centres. The latest of these to complete is the Shields Centre in East Polloksields, Glasgow, a ÂŁ2.7m community services building incorporating two GP surgeries, social work services and healthcare facilities delivered by Hub West Scotland and the NHS. Opened in January it offers health and social care services fit for the 21st century, reclaiming a former gap site in the

process and promising to deliver tangential benefits through innovative collaboration with nearby allotment users and integration with an on-site community centre, whilst also tying-in with a new Gaelic school, currently being delivered by Glasgow City Council on land next door. Designed by Anderson Bell + Christie and delivered by contractor CBC the scheme includes a walled garden and allotment space together with fin details created by artist Alex Hamilton the result is a robust brick and glass box lent rhythm by a rigid sequence of columns that harmonises with the blonde >

THE SHIELDS CENTRE

Patient Waiting Area

Reception

Practice Managers Office

GP Consulting Room / Treatment Room

Group Room

Flexible Office Space

Kitchen

2 4

sandstone of surrounding tenements whilst being of its time. Guiding Urban Realm on a tour of the centre Jonathan McQuillan, associate at Anderson Bell + Christie emphasised the agglomeration potential of the growing cluster of public buildings. He said: “We hope it’ll be a community hub with the school, community centre and our building together. There will be elements of common language with the school, they’ll be using the pillar motif in their building as well. We’re on the boundary of a conservation area so we wanted to respond to that with something quite formal.” Pointing to a drab brick block adjacent to the health centre McQuillan added: “The community centre has a hall space with a door out the back that links through to our garden so this becomes a linked facility. This land was previously part of the community centre but we convinced the NHS it was worth extending the site boundary to include this.” URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

To claim ownership of this space the architects have extended the facade out from the body of the build, drawing its footprint to the school and avoid it appearing to be set too far back. McQuillan explained: “You couldn’t immediately appreciate it so we’ve extended the front of the building out so you get a bit of linkage.” One dark spot remains in the delivery of this vision however with the presence of an abandoned bowling green opposite dragging the area down. Its owners are seeking permission to turn it into a surface car park, something locals are understandably keen to avert. McQuillan observed: “That building is a real shame for the community because it does them a great disservice. It just needs somebody sensible to make a proposal for it.” As well as acting as a visual cue the colonnade demarks a ‘buffer space’ between the main road and glazed consulting

Left - GP’s may share most facilities but are keen to retain their own reception desks Above - Integrated artworks screens adorn the facade

rooms behind. Currently barren it will eventually play host to climbing vines, trained to work their way up a line of corten steel panels, crafted by artist Alex Hamilton, for additional privacy. ‘If all else fails they’ve got blinds’, McQuillan wryly observed. This extends the botanical theme present throughout the build, an idea hatched by Hamilton during a series of workshops held with residents back when the project was first announced. Here Hamilton quizzed participants as to what plants were special to them, arranging selected plants on photosensitive paper before putting a sheet of glass over it and taking an x-ray blueprint. In this fashion a library of images were created which were then stenciled onto glazing to metaphorically bring the gardens into the building and afford additional privacy. To the rear of the property sits unremarkable car parking, although most visitors seem to prefer parking out front for convenience sake. Behind an unfortunate security fence however stands something far more benevolent, a community garden and orchard operated by Urban Roots, a community gardening initiative who will assume responsibility for maintenance of landscaping and allotments on site - whilst also offering local employment opportunities and training.

Ordinarily this is a service which would be handled in-house by the NHS’s own ground staff but in this instance they have agreed to contract the work out. “Another initiative is Health Shop who previously had a base on Shields Road, they’re going to move into this and their remit is to teach people about healthy living and lifestyle choices so they’re going to run classes here, collaborating with nearby allotments,” said McQuillan. “This plot of land could have been left over but we’ve done our best to try and bring it into use.” Commenting on the community focus of the build Victoria McAlpine of NHS GGC’s health improvement team told Urban Realm: “The community garden is a very small space at the shields centre, but has been in the plans for the development since the start, and I think now all ‘health’ builds have an arts and environment group and strategy of some kind. “Urban Roots gave a very detailed work plan of what they would like to achieve and do within the space and with the surrounding community, including weekly gardening sessions, grow your own food courses, quarterly events, cooking courses, outdoor learning with local schools and nurseries and sessions for staff based within the centre. They also highlighted the links to be made with other groups and green space within the local >

THE SHIELDS CENTRE

area but what stood out within Urban roots application was the social prescribing element of making links with the services within the health centre to get referrals to the garden, with support being offered by a trained horticultural therapist. “The contract has now officially started with initial engagement starting to take place at the moment with both the services within the centre and the local community,and the first gardening session hopefully taking place mid April.” Internally the facilities are arranged around a central reception space but, keen to preserve their independence, GP’s insisted on having three separate reception desks that can be closed off individually. These face a wooden staircase cantilevered out from the wall with connection sockets thoughtfully built in to allow the underside to double as usable floor space. Upstairs can be found shared facilities including generic consulting rooms for various clinics, sub dividable group rooms for classes such as baby yoga and a series of treatment rooms – not to mention office space and a staff kitchen. Gesturing to the window of one of these treatment spaces McQuillan said: “The rooms to the front have curtain walling along the full wall with full height louvers built into the curtain walling system so it looks like one seamless plane. This provides proper levels of insulation and adjustable ventilation. Because of the nature of these rooms you need to keep a low floor to ceiling height for acoustics, so what we’ve done is create a down stand at the edge of the room so you actually get the benefit of the full height window.” GP rooms also have double height curtain walling with a dead panel below to give a bit of privacy below desks. “We’re conscious that it’s quite a muted palette that we’re using so it’s good to see so much oak used. “We originally specced these as frameless glass corridors but through the value engineering process they became oak – which I actually prefer. They still let tons of light through but add warmth to the corridor.” Whilst the new occupants are over the moon at their new accommodation, some having moved from converted tenement flats with barred windows, the new space isn’t without its teething troubles, mostly brought about by ludicrous public sector health and safety rules. This see’s toasters banned from the kitchen, a sore point amongst staff craving convenient comfort food on their breaks. Kettles too fall foul of the strict rules with staff having to rely on a built in hot water tap, which is lukewarm at best... ‘Put in a little milk and you have to pop it in the microwave’, one staffer complained. Whilst these minor issues will undoubtedly be ironed out in short order the scheme does demonstrate the growing consensus that a healthy population is best nurtured from the bottom up, targeting bad habits and lifestyle choices before they become more serious conditions. Standing as the physical embodiment of that policy the Shields Centre proves that a grassroots approach is the best medicine. URBAN REALM SPRING 2015 URBANREALM.COM

Left - Patient progress has been made

Top - Alex Hamiltonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s floral motif Above - Treatment areas are screened from the road by custom artworks

DIRECTORY LISTING 3D VISUALISATION RM Visuals Tel: 7507801821 Email: Info@rmvisuals.co.uk Web: www.rmvisuals.co.uk 3/2 76 Mansion House Gardens Glasgow G413DP Contact: Ross Marshall ACOUSTIC CONSULTANTS RMP - acoustic consultants Contact: Richard MacKenzie Tel: 0845 062 0000 Email: rmp@napier.ac.uk Website: www.rmp.biz ARCHITECTS

Austin-Smith:Lord LLP Tel: 0141 223 8500 Email: graham.ross@austinsmithlord.com iain.wylie@austinsmithlord.com glasgow@austinsmithlord.com Web: www.austinsmithlord.com BMJ Architects Contact: Stewart Drummond Tel: 0141 271 3200 Email: glasgow@bmjarchitects.co.uk Web: www.bmjarchitects.co.uk Jamstudio Tel: 01467 641670 Email: info@jamstudio.uk.com Web: www.jamstudio.uk.com JM Architects Tel: 0141 333 3920 Email: gla@jmarchitects.net Web: www.jmarchitects.net John Renshaw Architects Tel: 0131 555 2245 Fax: 0131 555 5526 Email: jr.architects@btconnect.com HLM Architects Tel: 0141 226 8320 Contact: Lorraine Robertson Email: lorraine.robertson@ hlmarchitects.com Web: www.hlmarchitects.com McLean Architects Tel: 0141 353 2040 Email: arch@mcleanarchitects.co.uk Web: www.mcleanarchitects.co.uk Michael Laird Architects Tel: 01312266991 Fax: 1312262771 Email: marketing@michaellaird.co.uk Website: www.michaellaird.co.uk 5 Forres Street Edinburgh EH3 6DE

ARCHITECTURE & MASTER PLANNING Hypostyle Architects Tel: 0141 204 4441 Contact: Gerry Henaughen Email: glasgow@hypostyle.co.uk Web: www.hypostyle.co.uk BUILDING CONTRACTORS Muir Tel: 01383 416191 Web: www.muir-group.co.uk BUILDING PRODUCTS SUPPLIER Marmox Tel: 01634 835290 Fax: 01634 835299 Web: www.marmox.co.uk Caxton House, 101-103 Hopewell Drive Kent ME5 7NP Principal Contact: Grant Terry BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT SERVICES Drew Elliot Associates Tel: 07769 670 080 Email: drew@drewelliot.co.uk Web: www.drewelliot.co.uk 44 Broomieknowe Park, Bonnyrigg, Midlothian EH19 2JB CONSULTING STRUCTURAL & CIVIL ENGINEERS David Narro Associates Tel: 0131 229 5553 and 0141 552 6080 Contact: Amanda Douglas (Practice Manager) Email: mail@davidnarro.co.uk Web: davidnarro.co.uk Hulley & Kirkwood Tel: 0141 332 5466 Fax: 0870 928 1028 Email: hk.glasgow@hulley.co.uk Web: www.hulley.co.uk/ Watermark Business Park 305 Govan Road, Glasgow G51 2SE Principal Contact: Jim Costello Scott Bennett Associates Tel: 1383627537 Contact: Robert Storey Email: rstorey@sbag2.com Web: www.sbascotland.com 19 South Castle Drive Carnegie Campus KY11 8PD

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