Urban Realm VOL10 ISSUE44 WINTER 2020

VOL10 ISSUE44 WINTER 2020

H O M E WORKI NG:

WHERE NEXT FOR THE OFFICE? UR100 REFUGEE CRISIS PETER WOMERSLEY

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I F TO AN ES

2020 may be a year to forget, but through the disruption, much has taken place to inspire confidence that we can build back better when the dust settles.

We see that in our New Year honours list (pg 13) which groups together the best practices. It is proof that great design can not only survive but thrive in times of adversity and a testament to the resilience of architects and architecture.

from long-term issues and we keep our eyes to the horizon by investigating the implications posed by climate change as well as Covid on the development of building typologies (pg 52).

Looking further afield, we also take a look at the worsening refugee crisis in Beirut (pg 72). Symptomatic of a failure to address brewing problems the plight of many in the Middle East highlights the human cost of inaction and should serve as a wake-up call to us all.

Nowhere is that more clear than the commercial sector, which has borne the brunt of an abrupt shift to home working. As we usher in the New Year, we also How is the industry responding to these look to decades past with a report on the challenges? We reveal all (pg 38). lasting legacy of Peter Womersley (pg 78) and an investigation of how Nairn (pg The home has also been long overdue 32) has fared in the decade since being transformational change and recent nominated for a Carbuncle Award. events may finally provide the impetus to act, as we discover with a look at how 2020 was defined by crisis, 2021 will be residential design is evolving (pg 47). the year of solutions.

None of this should serve as a distraction

John Glenday, editor

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CONT ENTS QUARTERLY DIGEST 13 UR100 32 CARBUNCLES 38 POSTPANDEMIC OFFICES 47 POST-PANDEMIC HOMES 52 BUILDING TYPOLOGIES 60 HAMILTON MAUSOLEUM 66 QUARRY STUDIO 72 REFUGEE CRISIS 78 PETER WOMERSLEY 88 HOKO DESIGN 94 NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS 96 DIRECTORY 97 PRODUCTS 04

Cover image: Timothy Soar

OUR EDITORIAL PANEL INCLUDES:

John Glenday

Mark Chalmers, architecture writer and photographer

Leslie Howson, director Urban Design

Thea McMillan, director, Chambers McMillan

Jonathan Reeve, architect, Voigt Partnership

Gioia Sawaya, Architect

Alistair Scott, director, Smith Scott Mullan

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

DISCOVERY POINT Dundee Heritage Trust and Aim Design are to extend the Discovery Point attraction while preserving the existing stone and zinc fabric of the 1992 landmark.

A new central corridor will open up

through views from the entrance to a zincclad extension offering 180-degree views of the River Tay. A conference and events space as well as food retail space is also planned.

GROUNDBREAKING DEVELOPMENT

NEW TOWN MEWS

Sanctuary Group has begun the first phase of a residential-led redevelopment of Glasgow’s former Victoria Infirmary, which will deliver 135 Collective Architecture designed affordable homes and 11 shops by summer 2022.

The £29.3m project includes a mix of mid-market, social rent and shared equity properties and will ultimately constitute 413 new homes.

DSArchitecture have completed a pair of semi-detached mews properties at 23 Dublin Street Lane South in Edinburgh, replacing a collection of unlisted outbuildings on a tight urban site.

Grounded in traditional materials of rubble stone walling and roughcast render additional use of zinc, Accoya timber cladding and angled windows provide a more contemporary finish to the rear.

DAVIDSTON SQUARE The first neighbourhood of a planned 7,000 home community at Grandhome near Aberdeen has been anchored with the unveiling of a multi-purpose outdoor space designed by Reiach & Hall.

Davidston Square serves as the heart of the estate, dominated by a geometric pavilion, which references both northern and classical Greek Architecture as well as a symbolic cairn and oak tree.

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BRIEFS Hoskins Architects have won a design competition to transform a former outpost of the Neuengamme concentration camp in Wolfsburg, Germany, into a memorial.

Working in partnership with landscape architects guba+sgard and exhibition designers Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the practice will develop the remnants of a former prison barracks as a place for remembrance and contemplation.

Haus Collective and Westpoint Homes have conceived plans for 55 dual aspect apartments at a former council depot off Greenholme Street in Cathcart, Glasgow.

The ‘tucked away’ plot will house three separate buildings on a 0.55 ha site, each grouped around a central courtyard to provide a controllable outdoor space for both access and relaxation, with further pocket spaces provided to the north and south. Landscaping will be kept car-free by pushing the majority of 55 parking spaces to the eastern edge.

Scottish Canals and Sustrans have dusted off an electronic footbridge and pedestrian link connecting communities on both sides of the Forth & Clyde Canal at Woodside.

The automated Garscube Bridge and Panmure Gate Link has been designed to be fully retractable, enabling continued navigation of the canal by boat while opening up access to the Claypits nature reserve, which opens next spring.

Cruden Homes has launched a Knockroon-inspired development of 450 homes at Longniddry, East Lothian, developed by Socially Conscious Capital and Taylor Architecture & Urbanism.

Adhering to principles set out by the Prince’s Foundation are a mix of coach houses, bungalows and villas with garages and parking spaces positioned out of sight along rear access lanes. The first homes will complete by spring 2021.

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Q U A R T E R L Y O C T D I G E S T WISHAW RENEWAL

WINTER WARMER

BRIEFS

The Link Group with the JR Group have delivered 30 homes at the former Wishaw Market on East Academy Street.

The brownfield social housing includes a mix of flats and terraced houses in three separate blocks designed by Mast Architects, employing a mix of facing brick, zinc cladding and smooth render.

The Springburn Winter Gardens Trust and Collective Architecture have revealed detailed plans for the restoration of an A-listed glasshouse at the heart of Springburn Park at a capital cost of £8.1m.

Derelict since 1983 the plans call for the main hall as a performance and events space as well as a new cafe/bar and outdoor courtyard. An exhibition space would also be fashioned to house artefacts from the former Springburn Museum.

NHS Grampian, Aberdeen City Council and the University of Aberdeen are to rationalise mortuary services in the city with a new integrated facility designed

by Keppie.

Designed to provide dignity for the deceased, additional capacity to support civil contingencies and support forensic science the approach will conceal postmortem facilities behind single storey bereavement services unit, all accessible from a single linear route.

ESKBANK EXTENSION A traditional Victorian villa in Eskbank, Midlothian, has been given a striking makeover at the hands of Capital A Architecture.

Retaining the original external walls the facades have been given a rendered skin with feature window seats inserted into the deep-set masonry walls. Interior walls were stripped out anD floor levels dropped to rationalise the floorplan.

VILLA THRILLER Block 9 Architects with developer North have undertaken the conversion and intensification of a B-listed villa at Bruntsfield Terrace, Edinburgh, to form three apartments within the main home as well as further two new-build mews properties and three townhouses.

Palm Capital have come forward with plans to develop surplus land around Edinburgh’s Orchard Brae House to provide 62 apartments and townhouses.

7N Architects will reconfigure the grounds of the 1970s office building, establishing a new active frontage to Orchard Brae in the process.

towers, each standing perpendicular to the River Kelvin, the complex will be linked at ground level by a connecting collonade incorporating a gym, co-working space, lounge and landscaped promenade.

Northcare and Unum Partnership have come forward with proposals to erect a 71-bed care home at Lower Bridge Street, Stirling, jettisoning a larger masterplan in the process.

Now the applicant will focus solely on progressing the care home element, a cranked T-plan design that maximises utility of the triangular junction.

BTR BONANZA KR Developments and Holmes Miller are bringing forward a £90m build-to-rent development of 424 apartments at Beith Street, Partick, by 2023.

Arranged across four rectangular

LeeBoyd Architects are to improve accessibility at St Mark’s Church on Portobello High Street.

The practice will upgrade the B-listed Neo-Classical design to create a flexible community resource, retaining a distinctive semi-circular Doric arched porch.

A dated dwelling in Blackford, Edinburgh, is to give way to a modern Passivhaus Plus home - an energy-efficient design that meets all net energy needs through on-site production.

Driven by Grigor Mitchell Architect the proposals call for the current dwelling to be demolished opening up the corner plot a new timber frame home.

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

MOTION SENSITIVE

TGP Landscape Architects have revealed designs for an active travel route at Castlebay, Barra, to improve connectivity on the island.

Herring Walk will establish a safe

pedestrian and cycle route between a proposed community campus and the islands ferry terminal by upgrading an existing path and heritage trail centred on a new footbridge.

SPA RESORT

ANNEXE AXED

Detailed plans to transform the A-listed Crichton Hall in Dumfries and Galloway into a 5-star hotel have been filed by Edit Architecture.

The former psychiatric hospital was sold by the NHS to Jed and Joanne Clark, owners of Fonab Castle Hotel in Pitlochry, last year paving the way for creation of a spa resort to compete with the likes of Gleneagles.

George Buchanan Architects have won consent for 36 apartments for social rent, replacing a disused annexe of Bellahouston Academy, Cessnock, to be delivered by AS Homes on behalf of Home Group.

Minor design revisions were carried out to the plans as first conceived to win over planners, including the addition of windows to kitchen/living areas on the west gable and removal of inset balconies to south facing living areas on North Gower Street.

CUSTOM BUILD City of Edinburgh planners have granted consent to a development of 10 customisable homes in the new town of Shawfair.

Custom Build Homes (CBH) are seeking to break the monopoly of larger new build housing providers by designing a variety of energy-efficient detached homes, each of which can be configured in 27 different ways.

HAWICK WORKSPACE A former department store in Hawick is to make way for office accommodation at the hands of Aitken Turnbull and Scottish Borders Council.

The Almstrongs site will deliver collaborative workspaces around a small square with facades employing a textured concrete panel system.

INVERURIE CAMPUS Aberdeenshire Council has taken delivery of the £55m Inverurie Community Campus following handover by Hub North Scotland and Robertson Construction.

Accommodating up to 1,600 primary and secondary pupils the campus has been designed by Halliday Fraser Munro.

URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

BRIEFS The M8 motorway through Glasgow could be pared back after councillors adopted goals to ‘untangle the spaghetti’ of junctions.

Part of a radical rethink of transport priorities the plans seek to reduce excessive car infrastructure by re-routing external journeys and HGV’s away from the city centre, repositioning the M80/M77 interchange as a City Gate through smart signage.

An obsolete laundry and water tower that once belonged to Portobello Swimming Baths has inspired a vertical seaside residence which takes its cue from the pattern of sand grains on a nearby beach.

While the current water tower is to be demolished it will not be forgotten, serving as inspiration for a Haar designed textured concrete studio space and garage, shouldering a single residence on the upper floors.

Trail Architects are bringing forward plans for 21 mixed tenure homes on the Sleat Peninsula close to the village of Kilbeg on the Isle of Skye.

The Clan Donald Lands Trust will develop both the Upper Ostaig and Lower Ostaig sites near Sabhal Mor Ostaig College and largely screened from the A851 by mature trees. A palette of white render, Siberian larch and slate tiles have been chosen for the build.

LDN Architects have come forward with revised proposals for a former tram depot at Shrubhill, Edinburgh, on behalf of Places for People.

The Engine Yard is already under construction and occupies a B-listed factory complex bounded by Dryden Street and Spey Terrace, abandoned since the late 1990s. In all 43 apartments will be formed within two surviving B-listed tram sheds with a further 343 new build properties.

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Q U A R T E R L Y N O V D I G E S T FABRIC FIRST

SAFE LANDING

BRIEFS

A disused garage on Spey Street Lane, Edinburgh, is to play host to a bespoke low carbon home under plans by 7N Architects are realised.

A high performance insulated timber structure is planned with a double-height living space and mezzanine to the rear with bedrooms split over two levels behind the lane frontage.

DO-Architecture has unveiled 49 apartments for mid-market rent in Govanhill for Lowther Homes.

Comprising a deck-access pavilion and smaller flanking block, the ÂŁ6.5m build re-establishes the street edge and frames parkland, with a generous open deck providing access to five homes on each landing.

A B-listed office block in Glasgow city centre, which has remained vacant for a quarter of a century, is to be put back to use as serviced apartments for shortterm rental.

55 West Regent Street has lost much of its internal fabric over the years and will be extensively remodelled by Wellwood Leslie including the addition of a three-storey extension to the rear on West Regent Lane to accommodate a mix of 96 onebedroom and studio apartments.

New City Vision is pursuing a different approach to Govan Graving Docks after previous plans were blocked for failing to preserve the architecture and history of the A-listed industrial site. O’DonnellBrown will assist ZM Architecture on the new approach, which will reduce the total number of homes from 750 to 310. An emphasis on heritage and culture will see one dry dock reinstated as a working berth with operational dock facilities and ship repair infrastructure. A skills training hub and an elevated pier designed for occupation by local businesses will also be prioritised.

YORKHILL QUAY Peel L&P has unveiled towering proposals to regenerate Yorkhill Quay at Stobcross Road, Glasgow.

In all 1,100 homes, a 200-bed hotel and 2,500sq/m of leisure space is planned for 4.64 hectares of land located between the Riverside Museum and Scottish Event Campus, transforming the riverbank into a green corridor.

An application for planning in principle is expected early in 2021.

Susan Stephen Architects has rebranded as 56three Architects in reference to the longitude and latitude of their Edinburgh office, following a decision by Stephen to retire last year.

Led by equity director Gordon Beaton and senior architect, Richard Howl the practice employs 22 architects and other staff.

Elderpark Housing Association has gone back to the future for their new headquarters, a fully restored Victorian school in Govan.

The former Hills Trust Primary School has been transformed at the hands of Mast Architects, who have sympathetically restored the 150-year old B-listed structure together with CCG.

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

PAISLEY HOMES O’DonnellBrown Architects are leading efforts to build 49 new build homes on a site off Neilston Road, Paisley, on behalf of Ediston Homes, Developed in collaboration with RankinFraser and Quattro Consult the

housing will reactivate an area of vacant brownfield land to provide a mix of twobed flats, three-bed homes and four-bed townhouses. A start on site could be made next summer.

BRIEFS A pioneering self-build pilot project is taking shape at Maryhill Locks after Glasgow City Council facilitated the release of six plots for development.

First to emerge is plot 4 by Grigor Mitchell Architect, which delivers a highly individual house design that is both sustainable and affordable.

West Dunbartonshire Council has unveiled proposals for a series of public realm improvements between Dumbarton Central station and the town centre overseen by landscape architect Matt Benians and New Practice.

Designed to improve connectivity, the environment and the townscape the first phase of works will introduce a dedicated pedestrian and cycle route along College Street to the Artizan Shopping Centre.

GRASSROOTS ACTION

ELEVATED DESIGN

Tayport Community Trust has taken possession of a brand new community centre overlooking the Tay Estuary following delivery by Collective Architecture, Hadden Group, RYBKA, Armour Construction Consultants and David Narro Associates.

The Larick Centre sits on a three-acre site bounded by no less than three Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

Reusing the mass concrete slab of a former factory as a raft, the community-run centre overtly references its industrial past while enhancing the biodiversity of its surroundings through indigenous planting. Fully grant-funded the hub cost £2.3m to build with the project team including RYBKA, Armour Construction Consultants, Hadden Group and David Narro Associates.

A long-abandoned Flax Mill near Loch Tummel, Perthshire, has served as the genesis for a dramatic £220k cantilevered home in balance with nature.

Governed by a desire to retain as much of the 1m thick dry stone walls as possible the design solution adopted by Taylor Architecture Practice sees only the unstable walls to the south and west removed, retaining a minimal footprint for new build, constrained further by a river embankment.

These limits guided the development of a cantilevered upper floor which maximises the available floorspace by oversailing the fall in level, delivering a gravity-defying living space in the process.

See cover image by David Barbour.

URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

A new Edinburgh-based architectural practice with a focus on the residential market has been launched to deliver a new generation of social housing.

Led by former architecture director Stuart Bishop, SB Architects will prioritise the social housing sector, building on experience with projects such as Pennywell in Edinburgh and Muirton Park in Perth.

Novel proposals to decarbonise electricity production with the UK’s first ‘holistic’ low carbon energy facility have secured £800m of investment from North China Power Engineering.

Located close to Peterhead Power Station, Aberdeenshire, the 40-hectare energy park is led

by Holistic Energy with Wood Group, XL Group, Will Rudd Davidson and Bell Ingram Design. It is expected to break ground in 2023 to produce electricity from 2026.

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Q U A R T E R L Y D E C D I G E S T TALL ORDER

STATION ALPHABET

Watkin Jones Group and Hawkins/Brown have invited the public to have their say on the delivery of a towering build to rent development in Glasgow city centre comprising 825 apartments.

Replacing the current Portcullis House at Charing Cross the 30-storey build will include street front retail, a cafe and co-working space. A start on site could be made next year for completion by 2024.

3DReid Architects have entered a Network Rail design competition designed to pave the way for a new generation of community-oriented British railway stations.

Station Alphabet is a modular timber design with sufficient flexibility for local variations and centred on repeatable 3m modules which can be left open or infilled with bracing elements following the same overarching geometry

ARCHED ARCADE Fund manager Legal & General has published plans to develop a former department store at 109-112 Princes Street, Edinburgh, as a 210-bed hotel.

A design team led by ICA have been commissioned to oversee the £50m redevelopment which will retain the listed facade and a permeable ground floor frontage while redeveloping the interior of the site through to Rose Street. Chosen materials include glass-reinforced concrete, panelled render and zinc with glazed brick.

RUTHERGLEN LINKS Clark Contracts and Keppie Design have completed a pair of speculative office pavilions at Rutherglen Links Business Park.

Two and Three Rutherglen Links is a

speculative £4m development offering a combined 15,000sq/ft of BREEAM excellent rated accommodation for approximately 120 employees. Both buildings are rated BREEAM excellent.

BRIEFS Mansion Kingdom Homes have launched a collection of sandstone townhouses at Glebe Wynd, Bothwell, designed by IIxII Architects.

12 terraced properties will each include integral projecting garages with balconies above and terraced gardens and balconies. Offering 4,000sq/ ft of accommodation over four floors the development includes high-end features such as a home cinema and gym.

A brownfield site in Dundee city centre could accommodate 361 student beds, above the retained facade of a former mill.

63 Brown Street, located within the Blackness Conservation Area, adjoins the A-listed Tay Works complex and will form the basis of an upper level extension by CAG Architects.

South Lanarkshire Council has commenced delivery of a health and care hub alongside 45 homes on the former site of St Joseph’s Primary, Blantyre.

Conceived as a means to enable people to return to their own home instead of entering institutional care the hub will provide the council with alternative options for short-term care. The £16m town centre housing and care hub is being delivered by Cruden, who will be on-site for 18 months.

The first large-scale water source heat pump of its kind in Scotland has been completed in Clydebank as the hub of a new centralised heating system.

The District Heating Network is centred on an ADF and Cooper Cromar designed energy centre at Queens Quay where water is extracted directly from the River Clyde before being heated and distributes to homes and businesses through 5km of insulated pipework.

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UR100

© JIM STEPHENSON

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Leeds Playhouse sees Page\Park bring some much needed colour to a drab 2020

CHANCE EVENTS MAY HAVE CONSPIRED AGAINST 2020 RUNNING AT FULL THROTTLE BUT THAT IS NOT TO SAY THE YEAR HAS BEEN SLOW, FAR FROM IT. OVER THE PAST 12 MONTHS WE HAVE WITNESSED A STEADY BEAT OF DAZZLING DESIGNS THAT BRING FRESH HOPE TO A DORMANT THEATRELAND, CHAMPION DIGNITY IN CARE AND REVITALISED ONE OF OUR MOST PROMINENT GAP SITES. URBAN REALM RESTORES ORDER TO A TURBULENT YEAR WITH A LOOK AT THE HUNDRED MOST TENACIOUS PRACTICES AND THE PROJECTS WHICH WILL DEFINE 2020 LONG AFTER COVID PASSES INTO HISTORY.

SUCCESS STOR I ES 1

Page\Park No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 26 Staff Total (Scotland): 36

>

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Keppie Design Ltd No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 37 Staff Total (Scotland): 94 Peter Moran Managing Director

How is architecture responding to a post virus world?

The psychological impact of 2020 is likely to be long-lasting. An environment in which those things we previously took for granted can return as before is a universally shared ambition, even if currently difficult to imagine. As a profession we evaluate problems in the wide context where we find them and explore solutions that overcome not only those known problems, but anticipated ones that may emerge out of new phenomena. Architects are currently doing what they do best; analysing and evaluating in order to put forward new, creative ideas that positively respond to a different set of contextual and social circumstances.

Above - Stobhill Mental Health Estate provides a balanced care environment Below - Day spaces are grouped adjacent to external green space

In what ways is your practice evolving?

When the entire profession entered lockdown in late March, we were perhaps in a better position than most to adapt to a different way of working. To benefit our international work, we had already invested in software platforms that made remote working easier. Although the pandemic catalysed it, we were already moving towards a much more flexible working environment for our team.

Like everyone else in the profession, we definitely miss the collegiate atmosphere of a working studio but our evolution (if that’s the correct term) into a practice that’s agile enough to work anywhere without compromise to quality is one which we are successfully navigating.

What is your greatest achievement of 2020?

There are several things that we take pride in from what has been a very challenging year for the profession.

Maintaining our consistent quality in design and delivery for the diverse range and geographical spread of our current workload has been a huge success for the practice. But in terms of individual projects, the creation of the NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital in only 23 days is a significant achievement we share with all who participated in it. The real achievement of the project – and perhaps the legacy that it will leave – was one of unquestioning industry-wide, multi-disciplinary collaboration and commitment.

Above - Keppie have championed a people focussed approach at Stobhill Below - Welcoming and non-clinical spaces enhance the dignity of occupants

ALL IMAGES © PAUL ZANRE PHOTOGRAPHY

URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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jmarchitects No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 32 Staff Total (Scotland): 45 Henry McKeown Design Director What needs to change to enhance our built environment?

A holistic recognition for all involved in our industry, including our planning colleagues, the government and funding bodies, that to create a high quality built environment we need to find the correct balance between the design of truly sustainable buildings and having the correct budget to do so. When project budgets match the aspiration for design solutions that will deliver on a zero carbon world in the near future that would be a great enhancement for society. Good design does not cost more than poor design.

Above - Market Street Hotel is bedded into the urban edge of the Old Town Below - A bespoke design references its Scottish Baronial context

Where do you see the profession heading over the next decade?

As a teacher and practitioner, I see the evolution of the profession from two distinct vantage points.

The way we teach and the agendas we push in architectural education are geared toward a more intelligent way to build sustainable architecture/no longer green wash, but hard-nosed facts and construction techniques that will make our building designs more responsible in the face of the climate crisis.

As a practitioner I think architects can be at the mercy of the market which (rightly or wrongly) can determine if the required detailed and appropriate building specifications that would result in a truly sustainable building are affordable. Funding models need to adapt and focus on long-term savings rather than upfront costs to reflect the reality of zero-carbon building design.

Is now a good time to be an architect?

Is there ever a good time to be an architect? I think the answer has to be split. At one level I think it is a privilege to be an architect, no matter what time we are in; we make buildings, and we leave a trace in the world in a small way and sometimes in a spectacular way and somewhere in between.

A well-known colleague of ours (an architect) has written a book “Urbanisms Working with Doubt”, a humble but very honest text that explains the kind of answer this question demands. Well worth a read, and a reminder of our fragility. >

ALL IMAGES © DAVID CADZOW

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Cooper Cromar

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 36 Staff Total (Scotland): 56 Graham Forsyth Director How is architecture responding to a post virus world?

We are already seeing how Architecture is responding and it is fascinating to see a blurring of lines between different typologies.

The workplace will become even more flexible than before, the home has become the workplace and health and wellness is foremost.

The most enduring message though is that whilst technology has been pivotal in steering us through the Pandemic, people are desperate to let our cities burst back into life, socialise and allow a new urbanism to emerge. For problem solvers and creative thinkers these challenges will bring out our very best work and lead to interesting times ahead.

What is your greatest achievement of 2020?

In March 2020, like everyone else in the Profession, we overnight found ourselves in a virtual mode of working.

It has been hugely satisfying and positive that we were able to switch to home working and continue to deliver projects efficiently and with continuing excellence for our Clients – a real tribute to the commitment, dedication, and flexibility of our Team during these unchartered times.

It was also very rewarding in Autumn, after significant input from all staff, to launch our new brand and website which sets out our ethos, approach and vision in the continued pursuit of excellence.

Is now a good time to be an architect?

It’s always a good time to be an architect! …. even in these unprecedented times of global adversity where we’re living in an ever-changing world with new and very real challenges, we need to recognise that as a profession we have a fantastic and privileged opportunity to respond, re-evaluate, contribute to, and help shape the way we’ll all live and work in the future.

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CDA

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 34 Staff Total (Scotland): 49

URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

Cooper Cromar are to transform the frontage of a city block at 311-345 Argyle Street, Glasgow, delivering a 272,000sq/ft European hub for an American financial institution

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3DReid

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 24 Staff Total (Scotland): 48 Jen Samuel Associate Director How is architecture responding to a post virus world?

As a practice, we pride ourselves in our collaborative design approach, ensuring all aspects of a project are considered from the outset. Such aspects have now been expanded or altered, with consideration given to the potential ‘new normal’ where social distancing is commonplace, cross contamination is a primary concern, and technology takes the place of travel.

We have had the opportunity to examine and consider these aspects across the broad range of sectors in which we are involved, from the density of residential accommodation or the day to day operations of a hotel, to the access requirements and space planning of large scale commercial developments.

We have sought to assist our clients where possible with the publication of documents demonstrating ways in which existing assets can either be reconfigured to meet current guidance, or fully repurposed should sectors struggle to recover long term.

Although we hope the latter won’t become commonplace, we

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Top - The Craigmillar intergenerational residential and care development by 3DReid addresses the challenges of an ageing society Bottom right Student halls rub shoulders with assisted living homes and dementia care Bottom left - External courtyards tie spaces together. 3D Visuals: © 3DReid

will always aim to support clients who may be facing uncertainty during challenging times, pandemic or otherwise.

In what ways is your practice evolving?

We began 2020 developing our ‘social manifesto’, looking at ways in which we could benefit and improve the practice’s prime asset: our people.Becoming a much more people-focussed practice has been a long term desire, and we have seen it realised in earnest over the past 12 months.

A flexible working policy was introduced, and subsequently enhanced as the need for remote working became apparent.

Mental Health First Aid training was also undertaken, and a much more open dialogue around mental health began in the studios. This dialogue has continued despite our social interactions now being limited, ensuring our team know they are fully supported both personally and professionally, hopefully allowing a degree of comfort in an otherwise worrisome time. Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy was also formalised,with the aim of addressing existing barriers and inequalities, hopefully allowing us to move the practice forward in a much more progressive manner.

environment, however the spaces in between, the open spaces, the leftovers spaces – these are the areas which have been at the forefront this year. The social, environmental and economic benefits of open space has long been known, however given the recent limitations on meeting indoors, our reliance on them has become more evident than ever. They have become the primary places in which we interact with others, where we can feel like a community, and where we feel a brief respite from the strange world surrounding us.

The role of open space within the urban fabric seems more significant than ever at present, with well-designed and cared for spaces becoming a much valued resource to people in every walk of life. Given the extent of derelict and underused land in our towns and cities however, it is clear that providing funding and support to the many grassroots movements which promote the transformation of such spaces should be greatly encouraged. Such initiatives not only create much loved spaces, but build closer communities and partnerships, and if this year has taught us anything, it is that community spirit should very much be celebrated.

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What needs to change to enhance our built environment?

The buildings we create are often the focus of the built

Collective Architecture

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 25 Staff Total (Scotland): 46

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Stallan-Brand have extended their decade long involvement in the regeneration of Laurieston with proposals for a new build residential development of 349 homes, including a mixed use ground floor along the site’s primary edge and the final section of a civic park.

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Michael Laird Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 29 Staff Total (Scotland): 65 09

Holmes Miller Limited

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 32 Staff Total (Scotland): 49 10

MAST Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 30 Staff Total (Scotland): 60 11

Stallan-Brand

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 23 Staff Total (Scotland): 32 Paul Stallan Design Director Is now a good time to be an architect?

I used to think that I could not go on and life was nothing but an awful song, but now I know the meaning of true love, I’m leaning on the everlasting arms. If I can see it, then I can do it if I just believe it, there’s nothing to it. If I can see it, then I can be it if I just believe it. There’s nothing to it I believe I can fly I believe I can touch the sky I think about it every night and day. Spread my wings and fly away. I believe I can soar I see me running through that open door. I believe I can fly, I believe I can fly, I believe I can fly. See I was on the verge of breakin’ down, sometimes silence URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

can seem so loud. There are miracles in life I must achieve. But first I know it starts inside of me. Cause I believe in me, if I just spread my wings I can fly. I can fly, I can fly. If I just spread my wings I can fly, woo.

In what ways is your practice evolving?

The ten commandments for practice evolution; 1. Don’t let anyone know how much money you have. It’ll make people jealous and want to steal it from you.

2. Don’t let anyone know what you’re doing next. People will use this knowledge to rob you and hurt you.

3. Don’t trust anyone. Even your mother would betray you for the money that’ll be in it.

4. Don’t take anyone’s advice.

5. Don’t sell advice around the area you live in.

6. Don’t give credit, people don’t pay you back.

7. Keep your family and business completely separate.

8. Don’t accept cash. You will almost definitely get robbed.

9. Stay away from project management consultants at all times.

They won’t listen to your excuses and it will destroy your business and people will probably try to kill you.

10. If you don’t have people to sell your advice to, still don’t give it away for free. Your suppliers won’t care whether you sell it or not, they’ll take their money anyway.

Do you have any passions/bugbears you’d like to get off your chest?

Raindrops are falling on my head, and just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed, nothing seems to fit. Those raindrops

are falling on my head, they keep falling, so I just did me some talking to the sun, and I said I didn’t like the way he got things done sleeping on the job. Those raindrops are falling on my head, they keep falling but there’s one thing I know the blues they send to meet me won’t defeat me. It won’t be long till happiness steps up to greet me, raindrops keep falling on my head, but that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turning red crying’s not for me, ‘cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complaining, because I’m free nothing’s worrying me. It won’t be long till happiness steps up to greet me. Raindrops keep falling on my head, but that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turning red. Crying’s not for me ‘cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complaining. Because I’m free nothing’s worrying me.

NORR Consultants Ltd

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 21 Staff Total (Scotland): 43 13

Anderson Bell Christie

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 28 Staff Total (Scotland): 38 14

Reiach and Hall Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 19 Staff Total (Scotland): 25 15

Hypostyle Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 22 Staff Total (Scotland): 37 Ryan Young Associate How is Architecture responding to a post virus world?

Our homes have become our new working environments Work/life balance has never been more important and the Architects vision of the home is rapidly changing to incorporate this duality. Outdoor Space to breakaway from your home office desk is now high on the priority list. Acoustics within the home are more important than ever to create subdivision of family members and from adjacent neighbours.

Zoom meetings have changed the landscape of how we communicate more effectively and sustainably.

We are re-inhabiting our towns, and our cities will hopefully reduce car dominance and return to more pedestrian/cycle friendly places.

Healthy buildings have never been more important.

Is now a good time to be an Architect?

The newly qualified architect needs to adapt the most. With potential loss of 1-to-1 mentoring in an office environment they need to become well connected with colleagues using all

© MAX MAXWELL ARCHITECTURAL VISUALISATION

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© MAX MAXWELL ARCHITECTURAL VISUALISATION

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Top - Hypostyle are developing the 22-acre former Dalmarnock power Station site on behalf of Link Group and Laurel Homes Bottom - 556 homes for private sale and mid-market rent will be offered

available technologies.

Increased freedoms on where you can work - away from the 9-5 fixed desk office environment will ultimately lead to more healthy, happy and creative architects.

However, Collaboration with our fellow colleagues and the wider design team is key for the success of every project and architects needs to stay connected.

Where do you see the profession heading over the next decade?

We must become fully versed Net Zero-Carbon, BIM designers that are the major decision maker in the design and procurement of buildings. The architect/clerk of work relationship needs to evolve to create even better collaborations – improving quality.

We will further harness the power of digital technology and modern methods of construction.

As time moves on we will become working tourists.

The virtual office will become the future and we will work collaboratively in real time with colleagues within a cloud based environment where architectural, m&e and structural designs are better integrated.

Architects fees must increase to reflect the huge responsibility and liability they are expected to take in commissioning, construction and life of a building. >

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ICA

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 19 Staff Total (Scotland): 50 17

LDN Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 29 Staff Total (Scotland): 39 18

Hoskins Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 20 Staff Total (Scotland): 32 19

Oliver Chapman Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 4 Staff Total (Scotland): 4 20

Threesixty Architecture

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 18 Staff Total (Scotland): 32 21

Moxon Architects Ltd

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 6 Staff Total (Scotland): 8 Ben Addy Managing Director

Left - Moxon have settled on a former quarry within the Cairngorms National Park for their new practice HQ Right - An avoidance of compartmentalisation arises from a desire to establish a flat hierarchy. Images © Timothy Soar

progress that continues to be made in power generation and that is slowly becoming mainstream in construction is in no way matched by the continued appalling performance of our transport networks. Architects have a role in addressing this.

Is now a good time to be an architect?

In many ways it’s always a good time to be an architect – it is in the nature of the subject that it is wide ranging and stimulating.

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Mosaic Architecture & Design

What is your greatest achievement of 2020?

I’d hesitate to put it in those terms but completing our new studio and café up on Deeside has already proven transformative to the practice – it is a publicly accessible site so we are more visible as a practice and this has led to positive engagement beyond our normal client base. It’s an unusual and enjoyable privilege to see people exploring the building and looking down on us from our roof terrace while we are working…

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 13 Staff Total (Scotland): 20

What needs to change to enhance our built environment?

Embodied energy and energy in use are fundamental priorities and rightly so - however we need to be mindful that the pursuit of higher standards in these areas must not come at the cost of a lesser consideration of (for example) landscape or the urban environment. Interestingly we are seeing (and are fortunate to be contributing to) the most significant efforts in achieving higher material efficiencies on the very largest projects we are involved with. There is undoubtedly greater responsibility the larger the project however the importance attached to this imperative is a source of encouragement. I think it would also help the discussion amongst architects and hence ultimately improve the quality of our environment if there was a wider appreciation of the impacts we have as a civilisation beyond our immediate professional concerns – for example the

What is your greatest achievement of 2020?

Our greatest achievement over the past year is probably the one that hardly anyone knows about yet. We’ve been working on Scotland’s exhibition for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia. Our response to theme “How Will We Live Together?” considered the civic role of architecture by bringing together architects/ designers with citizens in communities around Scotland to explore ideas which respond to their hopes, dreams and ambitions for the future of the places in which they live. The event was postponed this summer and we’re hopeful that it will go ahead in some form in 2021.

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7N Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 16 Staff Total (Scotland): 21 Ewan Anderson Managing Partner

How is architecture responding to a post virus world?

After a year of isolation and disconnection, with too much of it spent in the ethereal world of Zoom, there has never

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Left - 7N Architects have created Edinburgh’s first new whisky distillery in a century with the Holyrood Distillery, transforming a B-listed railway building © ZAC AND ZAC in the process Right - Hillside House by 56Three matches the University of Sheffield Arts Tower for verticality with 250 bed spaces over 16 storeys

been a more important time to re-think how to make our cities, spaces and buildings better places for the people who live and work in them. I don’t subscribe to the “death of the office” view of the post-Covid future. Human beings are social creatures. People need to be with other people.

Architects should welcome being asked to design healthier and safer places that bring people together.

Where do you see the profession heading over the next decade?

It could be another tough decade for architects, but I’m hopeful that the profession can respond to the challenge of the post Covid landscape by finding positive ways to redefine its relevance. The theme of re-discovering the civic role of architecture, which we explored in our Biennale exhibition, is an important dimension of this. Architects need to find better ways of using their skills and talents to be more demonstrably useful to society, to make a better case for the value they bring to any project, rather than hoping that traditional definitions of the role will be enough.

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HLM Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 9 Staff Total (Scotland): 21 25

Austin-Smith:Lord Ltd

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 10 Staff Total (Scotland): 15

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Bracewell Stirling Consulting

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 6 Staff Total (Scotland): 22 27

Nicoll Russell Studios

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 11 Staff Total (Scotland): 11 28

Atkins

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 14 Staff Total (Scotland): 25 29

56three Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 15 Staff Total (Scotland): 21 Gordon Beaton Director What is your greatest achievement of 2020?

Despite the obvious challenges of 2020 we are proud of our rebrand which has taken place in this unforgettable year following a restructuring of the ownership and management of the practice at the beginning of 2019. We launched 56three Architects in March with a new vision and look for the practice.

Our launch was low key but our exciting news has spread organically and the feedback has been terrific. Following a year of growth we are adopting new ways of working, implementing procedures to not only manage our ‘25 offices’ as a result of the pandemic but embracing this opportunity. >

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In what ways is your practice evolving?

Our national reach and remote working has allowed us to recruit a new colleague based in Leeds. As we welcome everyone back to a creative office environment we will remain flexible to nourish the wellbeing & work-life balance of our team.

Our evolution over the past two years has seen a marked progression in scale and number of projects justifying what we see to be sustainable growth. As part of this change we pleased to announce our diversification now offering Principle Designer and Project Management services. We have also seen our ability to offer architectural services beyond the UK and farther afield within neighbouring European countries.

Is now a good time to be an architect?

This is a transformational time for architecture with many political, social and environmental challenges to be confronted in the coming years, presenting us with an important opportunity to reimagine how we work, design, practice and engage.

Progress is impossible without change and architects are perfectly suited to embrace the challenge.

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Ryder Architecture

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 8 Staff Total (Scotland): 15 31

EMA Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 7 Staff Total (Scotland): 16 32

Smith Scott Mullan Associates

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 4 Staff Total (Scotland): 10

AHR Architects Ltd

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 6 Staff Total (Scotland): 10 35

Jon Frullani Architect Ltd

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 14 36

Carson & Partners

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 8 Staff Total (Scotland): 10 37

Helen Lucas Architects Ltd

LBA

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 15 Staff Total (Scotland): 23 34

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No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 13 Staff Total (Scotland): 15

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 10 Staff Total (Scotland): 15 33

Top - The Midsteeple Quarter has seen locals take control of neglected buildings to repopulate Dumfries Bottom - ARPL have been tasked with delivering space for living, working, socialising, learning and enterprise

Fletcher Joseph Associates

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 8 Staff Total (Scotland): 18

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ARPL Architects

Gordon Fleming Director What is your greatest achievement of 2020?

Managing to work through the lockdown keep our clients projects moving, keeping our staff employed and moving into 2021 with a very busy workload.

Do you have any passions/bugbears you’d like to get off your chest?

A bugbear. The current procurement processes being applied in the country are I believe bringing about a degradation of the construction industry including our part in it. The wrong qualities are being rewarded and delivering a high quality project is no longer the key to future work while conversely a poor project is no longer a hindrance in the selection process.

This applies to contractors as well as consultants. Many medium sized builders have gone out of business to be replaced by a

splintered system of contractors and sub contractors. We are all seeing the consequences of this dilution of skills and responsibilities.

The difference between Builders and Contractors is notable.

The emphasis within the tendering process quality assessments, on a large body of past work ensures there is no route for new companies to develop. How often do you see a new practice - one formed in the last 20 years delivering a major building?

If we are not careful we will end up with a stagnating, low quality industry.

Is now a good time to be an architect?

For me it is always a good time to be an architect. Working with local communities delivering worthwhile buildings while doing a job I enjoy is always good. Drawing is a wonderful thing to do for a living.

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© MICHAEL CHADBAND

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Elder and Cannon

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 7 Staff Total (Scotland): 13

Aitken Turnbull Architects

Alasdair Rankin Managing Director How is Architecture responding to a post virus world?

I don’t think we can claim to be post virus yet, and it is likely that we will have to co-exist with it for some time to come.

Architecture has had to respond as both business and craft. As businesses we have faced many of the same challenges as other businesses; how do we interact and collaborate; how do we support staff and clients; how do we find new clients? The Craft of Architecture has, I hope returned to its more humane roots, valuing people and communities and providing spaces and places for them to inhabit, live, work and enjoy.

In what ways is your practice evolving?

2020 has been a big year for Aitken Turnbull, we’ve completed our restructuring, formalising our Studio structure and strengthening our local leadership teams. We’ve recruited to key roles and created new ones to better meet the needs of our clients. We’ve continued to expand into new sectors and improve our offering to existing clients. All of this was planned before we knew what challenges 2020 would bring and our ability to continue to move forward and complete these important changes is testament to the commitment and support of our amazing staff and clients.

Is now a good time to be an Architect?

The only time you can be an Architect is the time you’re in. The experience is different for each of us but the key is to make the most of the opportunities that present themselves, and if no

© MICHAEL CHADBAND

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No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 5 Staff Total (Scotland): 26

Top - Aitken Turnbull led delivery of Queen Elizabeth House, a flagship UK government hub in Edinburgh designed to consolidate government departments Bottom - Home to the Secretary of State for Scotland the 18,000sq/m office also houses 3,000 HMRC staff

opportunities present, then to find ways of creating them. If we believe that Architecture can influence the times and societies we are living in, then we have the privilege of directly influencing those times.

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LMA Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 5 Staff Total (Scotland): 15 43

Rural Design

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 7 Staff Total (Scotland): 11 44

McGinlay Bell

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 4 Staff Total (Scotland): 6 45

Bergmark Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 1 46

Denizen Works Ltd.

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 1

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George Buchanan Architects Ltd

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 4 Staff Total (Scotland): 5 Ciara McInnes, Project Architect

In what ways is your practice evolving?

This year has been a real catalyst for change here at George Buchanan Architects. In the New Year we had made the decision to enhance in our digital capabilities, investing in visualisation software and training and even purchasing a 3D printer. The arrival of Covid really accelerated this process as these new digital services were able to assist in providing high levels of visual communication when in person presentations were not possible. We have recently introduced a new Home Visualisation service which allows clients to provide safe and socially distanced virtual property viewings.

What needs to change to enhance our built environment?

We need to see more focus on sustainability across all aspects of the built environment. A move towards a fabric first approach to design should be promoted, with greater recognition of the embodied energy of construction materials.

Do you have any passions/bugbears you’d like to get off your chest?

I have always been fascinated by biomimetic design, taking design principles from nature and reverse engineering them to solve human problems. In terms of architecture, the best known example would probably be the Eden Project. There is some exciting work being carried out to develop more sustainable, natural building materials, including the use of mycelium (mushrooms) to make building blocks that are stronger than concrete.

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No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 9 Staff Total (Scotland): 19 53

Dualchas Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 8 Staff Total (Scotland): 11 54

Axis Mason

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 9 55

Fraser/Livingstone Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 4 Staff Total (Scotland): 7 56

Assist Design Ltd

Stewart Associates

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 4 Staff Total (Scotland): 7

AC Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 4 Staff Total (Scotland): 10 51

Camerons Strachan Yuill Architects (Camerons Ltd)

ECD Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 5 50

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No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 6 Staff Total (Scotland): 12

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 6 Staff Total (Scotland): 10 49

George Buchanan Architects chose a strong gable form for this affordable housing development at Clifford Street, Glasgow, on behalf of AS Homes and the Home Group

Konishi Gaffney

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 5

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Roxburgh McEwan Architects

Liz Roxburgh Director In what ways is your practice evolving?

Working from home; continuing to learn and improve.

What needs to change to enhance our built environment?

It’s easy to imagine COVID-19 as manifestation of a disregard for our Planet’s resources. Collective will towards environmental sustainability needs to become a primary agenda for us all

Š KEITH HUNTER

Š KEITH HUNTER

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Left - Roxburgh McEwan blended traditional stone and modern zinc for this unique coastal home Right - Large areas of glazing to the south and west exploit views of mature woodland and a sea loch

fuelled by Government incentives. A respect for the integrity of place and natural environment should be foremost when designing new additions to any landscape.

Is now a good time to be an architect?

The environment is challenging but if you have grit then the process is as stimulating as ever. As a Practice we are working on a variety of imaginative briefs and embarking on recent commissions. The construction industry seems buoyant despite recent events.

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Denholm Partnership LLp

lippe architects and planners

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 3

Capital A Architecture

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 9

WT Architecture

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 6 Staff Total (Scotland): 11

John Kinsley Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 6

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 7 Staff Total (Scotland): 9 63

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 6

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 2 Staff Total (Scotland): 5

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 1 62

Fearn Macpherson Chartered Architects

:thatstudio chartered architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 2 Staff Total (Scotland): 10 61

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No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 4 Staff Total (Scotland): 12

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 2 60

Bell Ingram Design

Somner Macdonald Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 4 Staff Total (Scotland): 6 59

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No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 7

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 1

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Voigt Architects Ltd

Sonia Browse Architects LLP HRI|Munro Architecture Lee Boyd

Organic Architects

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© ALEXANDER FRASER PHOTOGRAPHY

© ALEXANDER FRASER PHOTOGRAPHY

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Left - Ingram Architecture & Design specified a timber finish and white painted brick walls for the interior fit out for Plug and Play Right - Commissioned by Hermes and Resonance Capital the work delivers open plan work stations complemented by staff break-out spaces.

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Ingram Architecture & Design Limited

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 6 Stephen Govan Director

In what ways is your practice evolving?

The last 9 months have been an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and assess how we move forward. We had previously invested in technology to maximise our output and allow us to work remotely with minimum difficulty. As a result, we were able to move quickly to an entirely remote-working model. However, what became apparent was that there were many areas of technology we were not utilising fully, for example virtual reality and 3D presentation tools. Despite the challenging environment, we are embracing the change to turn difficult circumstances into opportunities.

What needs to change to enhance our built environment?

The changes forced upon us as a society has made everyone re-evaluate their lives personally and collectively with the result that the working environment has to become more fluid to accommodate a diverse choice of lifestyles. Practically, the choice to work flexibly at home will be hard for some companies to give up and the traditional office will have change forced upon it to survive. Our cities have to develop a framework to support this and develop new uses for existing buildings to avoid a continuation of car-driven retail centres clustered around empty, historic town centres. A path between large scale corporate and small-scale independent has to be found.

Do you have any passions/bugbears you’d like to get off your chest?

Architects need to embrace change and place themselves at the centre of the construction industry by demonstrating that we are

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best placed to be there. The difference between a good building and a bad building is often the client’s inability to understand what benefit the architect will bring once the initial drawings are complete. We need to accept that we are a service industry and provide the service each separate client needs while maintaining our professional responsibility to provide as good a design as possible. We need to remind the construction industry by example that we are at the heart of the building process.

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Hyve Architects Ltd

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 5 74

David Blaikie Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 5 75

block 9 Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 5 Staff Total (Scotland): 8 76

CD Architects Ltd

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 6 77

Fiddes Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 2 Staff Total (Scotland): 3 78

DTA Chartered Architects Ltd

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 10 79

stuart davidson architecture

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 4

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ann nisbet studio

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 4 81

JAMstudio Ltd

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 3 82

DO-Architecture

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 4 Staff Total (Scotland): 6 83

Trail Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 8 84

Craig Amy Architect

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 1 85

DS Architecture

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 1 86

Alan Dunlop Architect

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 1 87

Kerry Smith Architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 7 88

Hoko Design

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 11 90

Andrew Black Design

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 7 91

O’Donnell Brown

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 6 92

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Fergus Purdie Architects - FPA

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 2 Staff Total (Scotland): 4

Thorne Wyness Architects

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No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 2 Staff Total (Scotland): 2 96

Rachael Walker Architects Ltd

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 2 Staff Total (Scotland): 2

Fife Architects

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No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 3 98

BARD

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 3 99

Sfumatura Architecture

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 2 100

Davide Rizzo Architecture

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 1 Staff Total (Scotland): 1

cameronwebster architects

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 4 Staff Total (Scotland): 5 89

Loader Monteith Architects

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No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 3 Staff Total (Scotland): 5

Kearney Donald Partnership

No. of qualified architects (in Scotland): 2 Staff Total (Scotland): 7

Methodology 1. Efficiency points weight: 40k -50k GBP/head 50k-60k GBP/head 60k-70k GBP/head 70k-80k GBP/head Over 80k GBP/head

10 20 30 40 50

2. Staff points: x1 3. Qualified architects points x2 4 Awards points including the following schemes: 30 Points for Doolan, SDA Grand Prix & Chairman 20 Points for Award 10 Points for Special Mention, Commendation 10 points for RIAS awards shortlist

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YOU’VE READ ALL ABOUT WHAT 2020 MEANT FOR OUR TOP RATED PRACTICES AND BEEN INSPIRED

BY THE LIMITLESS POTENTIAL OF A VIRGIN NEW DECADE. GET IN TOUCH WITH OUR FEATURED PRACTICES TO SPARK A ONE-TO-ONE CONVERSATION ON HOW TO GET YOUR NEXT PROJECT OFF THE GROUND AND PLAY A ROLE IN THE CREATION OF A NEW GENERATION OF SPACES AND PLACES.

3DReid 45 West Nile Street, Glasgow G1 2PT Tel: 0345 271 6350 Email: glasgow@3DReid.com 36 North Castle Street, Edinburgh EH2 3BN Tel: 0345 271 6300 Email: edinburgh@3DReid.com Web: www.3DReid.com Twitter: @3_D_Reid Year of Incorporation: 2005 Number of staff (in Scotland): 44 3DReid is a creative architecture and interior design studio specialising in the design and delivery of complex new build and refurbishment projects. Our cross sector experience includes Airports, Culture & Community, Education, Hospitality, Industrial, Leisure, Residential, Retail, Workplace and Urban Regeneration.

Our team of over 100 people is located across five UK studios, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and London. By sharing our knowledge across disciplines we provide a robust and versatile service bringing national and international expertise on a local scale, enabling us to deliver innovative design solutions in any sector we work in.

We are great collaborators, internally within our studios and externally with clients, consultants, contractors and developers. We enjoy working with ambitious partners and engaging with stakeholders and the wider community.

Recent project awards: BD Architect of the Year Awards 2020 • Refurbishment Architect of the Year Finalist 2020 Constructing Excellence West Midlands 2020 • Primark Birmingham, Conservation & Regeneration Winner Conde Nast Traveller’s Awards 2020 • Gleneagles, Perthshire – Best UK Hotel Winner Revo Gold Awards 2019 • Primark Birmingham, Re:turn Winner • Primark Birmingham, Re:purpose Winner • intu Lakeside The Quay, Re:lax Winner Scottish Design Awards 2020 • Canongate, Edinburgh, Future Project Winner • Craigmillar Care and Residential, Future Project Finalist • Malmaison, Edinburgh, Commercial/Hotel Finalist World Retail Awards 2020 • Primark Birmingham, 2020’s Outstanding Store Design >1200sqm. Finalist List of services: Architectural Design, Interior Design, Masterplanning and Urban Regeneration

56three Architects Ltd 14 Alva Street, Edinburgh, EH2 4QG Tel: 0131 220 3003 Email: gordon.beaton@56three.com Web: www.56three.com Twitter: 56three_tweet Year of Incorporation: 2003 Rebranded: 2020 No of Staff: 25no 56three is an award winning practice based in Edinburgh and operating throughout the UK. Working predominantly in commercial, leisure and high density residential sectors our current workload includes Co-Living, PRS, PBSA, Assisted Living, Affordable and Mainstream Housing as well as mixed use developments, distilleries and office buildings.

Our multi-disciplinary team delivers architecture, interior design, masterplanning, conservation, principal designer and brand monitoring.

We work in a collaborative way with relevant stakeholders to embed sustainable solutions providing optimum land and building values, and to deliver the potential for long-lasting and enjoyable places in which to live, work and play.

Recent Projects and Awards: Forthside Quay Stirling, Muirfield Golf Clubhouse, Manchester Victoria Point, St Mary’s Apartments Bristol, The Emporium Birmingham, Francis Gardner Apartments West Hampstead, Hillside House Apartments Sheffield, The Franciscan Canterbury.

7N Architects 7 Randolph Place Edinburgh EH3 7TE Tel: 0131 220 5541 Email: info@7narchitects.com Web: www.7narchitects.com Twitter: @7NArchitects Year of Incorporation: 2009 Total number of staff: 21 7N Architects are a design studio where architecture, masterplanning, urbanism and civic entrepreneurship are woven together in a dynamic approach to environmental regeneration and transformational change. The practice’s strength lies in a holistic approach to making better places through ideas led strategies that are embedded in their physical, social and economic contexts. An approach that always seeks to unlock the full potential of a project opportunity and deliver civic value and wellbeing in the widest sense.

Recent projects include Fountainbridge and Western Harbour in Edinburgh, the University of Glasgow masterplan, Glasgow City Centre Strategy and the Knab masterplan in Lerwick.

Recent Projects & Awards Holyrood Distillery, Edinburgh

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Edinburgh Architectural Association Awards – Commendation – Regeneration Award November 2020 Fraser Avenue, Inverkeithing Scottish Homes Award – Large Affordable Housing Development of the Year October 2020 The Knab, Shetland Scottish Design Awards – Masterplanning Award August 2019 Western Harbour, Edinburgh Scottish Design Awards – Highly Commended – Future Project August 2019 University of Glasgow Masterplan World Architecture Festival Awards – Shortlisted Education Future Project July 2017 Fraser Avenue, Inverkeithing Saltire Society Housing Design Awards -Commendation – Innovation in Housing June 2017 Fountainbridge, Edinburgh Scottish Property Awards – Best Achievement in Masterplanning March 2015

ARPL started as a practice in 1971 in London growing out of the housing association movement. Our work has continued to involve a focus on social housing, community and public buildings, with an emphasis on sustainability, re-use and craft.

We have a team of ten staff based in Ayr but carrying out work across the South West of Scotland, Glasgow, the Islands and Dublin. Our philosophy is to work closely with each client to produce buildings which are sympathetic to both the immediate and broader environment. We are committed to helping communities in Scotland grow and enhance a sustainable future.

Recent projects and Awards • Kingswood Secondary School, Dublin • Stranraer MIllenium community centre • Johnstone school social enterprise centre, Kirkcudbright • Midsteeple Masterplan, Dumfries • Music Centre, Creetown • Community centre, Whithorn • Carrick Street apartment building, Ayr • Boat house, Glasgow Green • GIA Commendation, Kingswood school Dublin

AR MIPIM Future Project Awards • Kirkstall Forge – Highly Commended, Future Projects, Regeneration and Masterplanning 2019 (FCBS collaboration) Leeds Architecture Awards • Number One Kirkstall Forge – Winner, New Building 2019 British Council For Offices (BCO) National Awards • Number One Kirkstall Forge – Winner, Best Commercial Workplace in the UK 2018 British Council For Offices (BCO) Regional Awards • The Silver Fin Building – Winner, Best Commercial Workplace in Scotland 2018 Scottish Home Awards • Harvesters Way, Wester Hailes – Winner, Affordable Housing Development of the Year (Private Sale) 2018

George Buchanan Architects Maryhill Burgh Halls 10-24 Gairbraid Avenue Glasgow G20 8YE Aitken Turnbull Architects 5 Castle Terrace, Edinburgh 9 Bridge Place, Galashiels 32 George Street, Dumfries Tel: 0131 297 2350 Email: admin@aitken-turnbull.co.uk Web: www.aitken-turnbull.co.uk Twitter: @AitkenTurnbull Year of incorporation: 1887 / 1961 Number of staff: 25 Aitken Turnbull is an award-winning multi-sector practice. We successfully deliver projects in health, commercial, leisure, education, residential and civic, across the UK. Our focus is on creating buildings and environments which enhance lives and communities and our success comes from truly understanding our clients, their projects and sharing their priorities.

Recent Projects: • Wordsworth Hotel, Grasmere • Sergeants Park, Newton St Boswells • Queen Elizabeth House, Edinburgh

ARPL Architects 11 Wellington Square, Ayr KA7 1EN Tel: 01292 289777 Fax: 01292 288896 Web: www.arpl.co.uk Email: gfleming@arpl.co.uk Year of incorporation: 1971 Number of Architects: 5 Number of Staff: 10

Cooper Cromar ONYX, 215 Bothwell Street, Glasgow, G2 7EZ Tel: 0141 332 2570 Email: info@coopercromar.com Web: www.coopercromar.com Twitter: @CooperCromarLtd Year of Incorporation: 1984 Number of staff: 46 Cooper Cromar is an award-winning UK architectural practice with a proven track record of delivering significant and successful projects throughout all sectors of the property industry. Headquartered in Glasgow we consult throughout the UK. We are a close-knit architectural practice that thrives on delivering elegant and well-considered projects.

We are renowned for the efficiency of our process, and our ability to consistently find the perfect balance between the commercial realities and creative opportunities present in any given brief. This consistency of process has taken us from strength to strength, and proven multi-award winning.

Recent Projects and Awards: British Council For Offices (BCO) Regional Awards • The Earl Grey Building – Winner, Best Commercial Workplace in Scotland 2020 Scottish Property Awards • 311-345 Argyle Street – Winner, Deal of the Year 2020 Chartered Institute of Housing in Scotland (CIH) Excellence Awards • Roman Fields, Twechar – Winner, Excellence in Development for Affordable Housing Award 2019 Hotel Awards Scotland • Aloft Hotel, Aberdeen – Winner, Best New Hotel 2019

Tel: 0141 946 2433 Email: studio@georgebuchananarchitects.com Web: www.georgebuchananarchitects.com Twitter: @GBArchitectsLtd Year of Incorporation: 2014 Number of Architects: 4 Number of total staff: 5 George Buchanan Architects is a dynamic, design-driven architectural practice, based in Glasgow. We have extensive experience in various sectors, including Residential, Affordable Housing, Commercial, Education and Domestic. Passionate about design, we love producing practical solutions, exceeding expectations Recent Projects: • Westbourne Gardens, Glasgow – Extension to A-Listed Property • Hamilton Drive, Glasgow – Extension to C-Listed Property • Kelvindale, Glasgow – Residential Development • Ruchill Hospital, Glasgow – Residential Development • Crookston, Glasgow Extension to B-Listed Property • Glenacre Street, Castlemilk Affordable Residential Development • Allison Street, Govanhill Affordable Residential Development • Orr Street, Calton Affordable Residential Development • Clifford Street, Ibrox Affordable Residential Development

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jmarchitects Head Office, 64 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 4NA Hypostyle Architects 49 St Vincent Crescent, Glasgow Tel: 0141 204 4441 Email: glasgow@hypostyle.co.uk Web: www.hypostyle.co.uk Instagram: www.instagram.com/ hypostylearchitects/ Year of Incorporation: 1985 Number of total staff: 37 The right design in the right context. That’s what we’re about at Hypostyle. No set style. No forced ideology.

No preconceived ideas. Just solutions to client needs.

Multi-disciplinary, contemporary and progressive, we can call on more than 30 years of experience across many different sectors.

Recent Projects & Awards: Greenview School, Buckley Street • Scottish Home Awards Sustainable Housing Regeneration project of the Year 2020 Lord Provost Henry E Rae Community Centre • ASA (Aberdeen Society of Architects) Design Awards 2018 • Commendation in the Public Realm & Landscaping category Toryglen Phase 1 GHA • Herald Property Awards Affordable Housing Development of the Year 2016 St Julie’s Croftfoot, Glasgow Housing Association • Scottish Home Awards Sustainable Development of the Year 2015 • Herald Property Awards Affordable Housing Development 2015

Ingram Architecture & Design 227 Ingram Street, Glasgow G1 1DA Tel: 0141 221 5191 Email: getus@ingramarchitecture.co.uk Web: www.ingramarchitecture.co.uk Twitter: IngramArch Year of Incorporation: 2012 Ingram Architecture & Design is a commercial architectural practice based in Glasgow, operating throughout the UK. We work on a diverse range of interesting projects and have a wealth of experience across a variety of sectors including Office, Retail, Leisure, Residential, Hotel, Industrial and Mixed Use. Design and Delivery are core to our beliefs. We are committed to creating the highest standard of design whilst ensuring projects achieve the very best possible commercial solution. We are passionate about what we do and provide a service that is efficient and creative, within an atmosphere of honesty, integrity, knowledge and professionalism.

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Tel: 0131 464 6100 Email: Edinburgh@jmarchitects.net Web: www.jmarchitects.net Twitter: @_jmarchitects Instagram: @jmarchitects Year of Incorporation: 1962 No of Total Staff: 81 jmarchitects is an award winning design practice, portraying a broad range of expertise in a variety of sectors with a network of studios in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and London. We champion design excellence and innovation, always striving to deliver creative, functional, sustainable and considered design solutions which satisfy, delight and inspire.

Our talented staff are our strength, collaborating and evolving design approaches that respect the context and create economic and social value for our clients and the wider community.

Recent Awards: GIA Awards • Market Street Hotel – Leisure/ Arts Category – Commendation Ahead Awards • Market Street Hotel – Shortlisted • Stock Exchange Hotel – Shortlisted Scottish Design Awards • Market Street Hotel – ARCHITECTURE: Commercial/Office/Hotel Building or Project – Winner • Maryhill Locks – ARCHITECTURE: Residential Commended Scottish Property Awards 2020 • Market Street Hotel – Architectural Excellence (Commercial Use) – Finalist • Market Street Hotel – Development of the Year (Commercial Buildings) – Finalist • Alyth Primary School – Architectural Excellence (Public Use) – Highly Commended • Alyth Primary School – Development of the Year (Public Buildings) – Finalist • New Gorbals Health and Care Centre – Healthcare Development of the Year – Finalist • Wallyford Primary School – Development of the Year (Public Buildings) – Won BD Architect of the Year Awards • Market Street Hotel – Retail and Leisure Architect of the Year – Shortlisted RIAS Awards 2021 • Maryhill Locks – Shortlisted Scottish Hotel Awards • Brand Hotel of the Year – Hotel Indigo, Dundee • City Hotel of the Year – Hotel Indigo, Dundee • GOLD LAUREL – New Hotel of the Year - Market Street Hotel

Keppie 160 West Regent Street, Glasgow, G2 4RL Tel: 0141 204 0066 Email: glasgow@keppiedesign.co.uk Web: www.keppiedesign.co.uk Twitter: @Keppie_Design Year of Incorporation: 1995, established in 1854 Total Number of Staff: 91 We’re fuelled by the excitement and curiosity of a recent start up yet were founded in 1854. It’s this combination of energy and experience to which we owe our success and resilience as architects. Our autonomy gives us the freedom to constantly adapt, break new ground and embrace transformational projects. Our global agility allows us to lead and collaborate on a fantastically diverse and inspiring portfolio near and far. We pride ourselves on being refreshingly easy people to work with. We’re in this together to design, plan and deliver remarkable, lifechanging buildings.

Recent Projects & Awards The Event Complex Aberdeen • Commercial Development of the Year, Scottish Property Awards 2020 • Sustainability Award, Aberdeen Society of Architecture Awards 2020 • Commercial Award, Aberdeen Society of Architecture Awards 2020 • Landscape / Urban Realm Award – Highly Commended, Aberdeen Society of Architecture Awards 2020 16 Church Street, Dumbarton • Regeneration Project of the Year, RICS Awards 2019 • Historic Scotland Award for Conservation and Climate Change – Commendation, Civic Trust Awards 2019 • Regeneration Project of the Year, Scottish Property Awards 2019 • Corporate Workplace Award.

BCO Regional Awards 2019 • Innovation Award, BCO Regional Awards 2019 • Commendation – Office / Commercial / Industrial / Retail Category, GIA Awards 2018 – • Place Award, Scottish Awards for Quality in Planning 2019 Kampung Admiralty, Singapore • CTBUH Best Tall Building Award 2019 – Mixed-use Building • CTBUH Urban Habitat Awards 2019 – Single-site Scale • BCA BIM Awards 2017 – Gold Certificate • BCA Green Mark Platinum Award 2017 • Universal Design Mark GoldPLUS (Design) Award 2017 Mansionhouse Road, Glasgow • Private Development of the Year (Large +100 Units) – Commendation, Homes for Scotland Awards 2019 The Capitol, Aberdeen • Best Commercial Workplace, Scottish Region, BCO Awards 2017 • Commercial Development of the Year, RICS Awards 2017

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Ballymena Health & Care Centre • Civic Trust Awards 2017 – Commendation • RSUA 2018 Awards – Winner East Lothian Community Hospital • Best Healthcare Building Project (Silver), Partnership Awards 2017 Assisi Hospice, Singapore • BCA Green Mark Platinum Award 2017

Roxburgh McEwan Architects 42 Forbes Road, Edinburgh, EH10 4ED Tel: 0131 229 3766 Email: info@roxburghmcewan.co.uk Web: www.roxburghmcewan.co.uk Year of Incorporation: 2002 Number of total staff: 7

Moxon Architects Ltd Quarry Studios, Crathie, Ballater, Aberdeenshire, AB35 5UL Tel: 01339 742047 Email: e.freeman@moxonarchitects.com Web: www.moxonarchitects.com Twitter: @moxonarchitects Year of Incorporation: 2004 Total number of staff: 16 Our work combines design excellence, technical talent and a commitment to faultless delivery.

Founded in 2004, Moxon has since attracted major clients in a variety of sectors, from national rail providers to leading cultural institutions. Among them: Transport Scotland, Hauser & Wirth and the City of Westminster.

The common threads are bold vision and versatility. We approach each project with fresh eyes, first understanding the needs and ambitions our client, and then striving to elevate them. The result is distinctly individual work, clear in its purpose and appropriate to its context.

We pride ourselves on a diverse team that allows us to provide multi-disciplinary solutions for clients in any category – commercial, residential, product design, or public sector. Throughout, we stay committed to sustainability and beauty.

Today, the practice is split across its two offices in West London and Highland Aberdeenshire.

Recent Awards: • Scottish Design Awards – Winner 2020 • AIA Awards – Highly Commended 2020 • Scottish Design Awards - Architectural Practice of the Year 2019 • BD Infrastructure Architect of the Year – Winner 2019 • AJ Awards - Winner Best Workplace 10,000m² over 2019 • Aberdeen Society of Architects Design Award 2018, 2019, 2020 • RIAS Awards – Scottish Forestry/ Wood for Good Timber Award 2017, 2019 • Aberdeenshire AALD Award Highly Commended 2018 • Scottish Design Awards - Chairman’s Award 2017 • Saltire Housing Design Awards 2017 • AJ Small Projects Awards 2017, 2019 • The Ian Shepherd Award 2016 • Aberdeenshire Design Awards (Distinction) 2016 • Cairngorms Design Awards 2016 • WAN Future Projects Awards 2016 Recent Projects: • Ballingen Bridge • Quarry Studios • High Speed 2 • Kings Cross Bridge 2 • Faithlie Centre • Cairngorms National Park HQ

Roxburgh McEwan Architects are dedicated to producing innovative, elegant buildings, tailored to both our Clients needs and the surrounding environment. A successful building is one that enhances everyday life for the people who live or work in and around it. We often use a restricted palette of natural materials and we like to embrace technology whilst keeping both our buildings and the process straightforward and efficient.

Recent Projects & Awards: 2018 Westside Farmhouse Saltire Awards Commendation

Stallan-Brand Architecture + Ltd 80 Nicholson Street, Glasgow, G5 9ER Tel: +44 (0)141 258 5015 Email: info@stallanbrand.com Web: www.stallanbrand.com Twitter: @StallanBrand Year of Incorporation: 2012 Number of total staff: 32 Stallan-Brand Architecture + Design is an architectural practice based in Glasgow and owned

by Paul Stallan and Alistair Brand, architects who have worked together for over 20 years. Since our inception in 2012, our studio has rapidly developed, delivering a diverse range of architectural and design projects. We champion transformational design; an architectural approach that embraces dialogue and creative exchange. We have a strong belief in the need for flexible and innovative design, supportive of ever changing social and urban needs.

Recent Projects & Awards: • RIAS 2019 Broomlands Primary School, Best Education Building • Scottish Design Awards 2018 Broomlands Primary School, Best Education Building • Borders Design Awards 2018 Broomlands Primary School • Glasgow Institute of Architects 2018 Broomlands Primary School, Education Building Broomlands Primary School, Supreme Award • Scottish Design Awards 2017 Laurieston Living, Affordable Housing • Glasgow Institute of Architects 2017 Halfmerke Primary School, Education Building

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CARBUNCLES NAIRNBAIRN

Nairn Courthouse is a rare bright spot, having undergone a full refurbshment at the hands of LDN URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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IN THE NEAR DECADE SINCE NAIRN WAS NOMINATED FOR A CARBUNCLE AWARD THE TOWN CONTINUES TO OFFER MORE THAN ITS FAIR SHARE OF CONTENTIOUS PLANNING DECISIONS AND ILL-JUDGED SCHEMES. HERE A LOCAL CAMPAIGNER SHARES WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING ON THE GROUND OVER INTERVENING YEARS.

Some years have passed since Nairn’s surprise listing in the Urban Realm “Carbuncle Awards” for Scotland’s most dismal town. We’dlike to report that this delightful tourist town on the sunny Moray Firth had smartened up its act and was enjoying a revival.

Sadly, that is not the case. It’s true that one consequence of the Covid pandemic has been a boom in ‘staycations’.

Motorhomes head north up the still-to-be dualled A9, and swerve past wandering sheep on narrow Highland single-track roads. Self-catering cottages and caravan-parks have been heavily booked. Golfers are still able to make their sociallydistanced way around the local golf courses. And day trippers from Inverness and elsewhere still throng Nairn’s beaches on the last sunny weekends of summer.

But looking around the town, the picture is less encouraging. Dozens more High Street shops are vacant and shuttered. Even the charity shops are closing. Tattoo parlours, betting shops and nail bars were never going to be major tourist attractions, and even they are struggling under Covid restrictions.

The business community clutches at whatever straws it can. In a brave attempt to relaunch the town as a destination, the Business Improvement District commissioned a branding initiative labelling Nairn as “Scotland’s Highland Playground”.

Great concept, but hardly a product relaunch. No-one noticed.

Down at the beach, a long fund-raising campaign by a local family has borne fruit. Devastated by the loss of their young boy and his mother to cancer, “Team Hamish” raised many thousands of pounds to create a lasting legacy in the form of improved childrens’ leisure facilities. A new splashpad, in rainbow colours, has just been completed on the Links, replacing an ageing and neglected Council-run paddling pool.

Highland Council managed the project, but the cost was borne >

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almost entirely by the local community, and the maintenance, too, will also fall to the local Common Good Fund. Sadly, however, the new attraction remains fenced off, another victim of the lockdown rules.

But the real scandal lies in the heart of the town. A widelysupported and well-attended planning ‘charrette’ five years ago prepared an imaginative town centre action plan. The aim was to breathe life into the central area between the A96 main road, which runs through the town, and the Victorian High Street. Mostly used as car-parking for the adjacent Co-op and for other workers and shoppers, this area is bounded by some remarkable buildings which speak of Nairn’s Victorian heritage and help to define the character of the town.

The Category B listed Courthouse, which is occupied by a handful of Council officials, has just undergone an £800,000 programme of works, to rescue and repair the structurally unsound steeple and clock tower. Nearby is the Category B listed Italianate former school building, dating from 1847 [see image here]; it is not accessible to the public as it is occupied by the Council finance office. And right beside the A96, the old police station, a fine stone building built by Reid in 1869, with metre-thick walls and its original gaol cells. Used since the 1960s as a tourist information office (until Council support for the local tourism officer was cut) and then to accommodate the Council’s local social work office (until that was ‘centralised’ to Inverness) it has for many years been shamefully abandoned and neglected.

The vision of the 2015 charrette plan was to transform this central area into a vibrant, diverse public space, giving easier access to High Street shops, offering better views of the historic feature buildings, and offering a reconfigured ‘town square’ with multi-purpose space for events, market stalls, and other activities. Other elements included a cafe/information ‘hub’ in the resurrected old police station building , and the reconfiguring or repurposing of the other listed buildings for public access and use as library and exhibition space as well as for council services.

But somehow, these creative ideas did not gain traction.

Efforts by the local development trust (NICE) to revive the old police station building failed to attract the active endorsement of the Council. A combination of official inertia, lack of civic leadership, and the inevitable challenges of sourcing funding and investment resulted in …. er ….. nothing happening.

Until recently that is. In keeping with their usual practice of offering designated pots of grant-funding, often at short notice, for specifically-defined purposes, in early 2019 the Scottish Government allocated £2.9 million to Highland Council from a £50m Town Centre Regeneration Fund, for the “transformational re-purposing of town centre buildings”.

Tailor-made, one would have thought, for reviving Nairn’s moribund centre, especially as there was an agreed set of proposals already adopted.

Ah, but things are rarely that logical or straightforward.

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Yes, Highland Council was notified of the Fund. But the Council didn’t exactly broadcast the fact. Without much – or indeed any – public debate, they decided how to divvy it up among various Highland towns. They set up a committee, which decided that Nairn should be allocated £198,967 (or 7% of the Highland total). And they tasked local Councillors to consider how to make use of the money.

Did the local Councillors look at the existing plan? No. Did they consult community councils, the Nairn Connects Business Improvement District (BID) organisation, or Nairn Improvement Community Enterprise (NICE), the local development trust?

Er, no. The four Councillors met in a series of ‘ward business meetings’, behind closed doors over a period of several months.

Unbeknown to anyone except those involved, they agreed with the local Citizens’ Advice Bureau (CAB) (one of whose directors just happened to be a local Councillor, and another a former local Council official) and with the Council’s Housing Development manager, on what Blackadder would have called a ‘cunning plan’. They would use the money earmarked for regeneration to build instead a brand new block of 12 socialhousing flats, with ground-level office space for the CAB – and to put this new 3-storey block plumb in the middle of the town centre!

For more than six months, no-one even knew of the plan except those who devised it, and the architect and agent who – commissioned by the Council and paid by drawing down

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Left - In common with all urban centres Nairn High Street faces an uncertain future Right - £800k has been spent safeguarding the B-listed courthouse

on the TCF allocation – had already produced full designs and specifications. Then in November 2019, the proposal was unveiled. Not in a planning application but in a front page article in the local paper, complete with 3D artists’ impressions and laudatory quotes commenting on what a splendid service the CAB provided to those in the community in need of help, advice and support and how desperately they deserved to move into large new offices from their current premises on the High Street.

The impact could reasonably be compared to constructing a large council-housing block in, say, the middle of George Square in Glasgow… or installing a massive apartment building between the famous lions in London’s Trafalgar Square to block off the view of the National Gallery.

When asked in public meetings why there had been no consultation about the proposal, Councillors were somewhat evasive, pointing out that as the project was – or would be – the subject of a planning application, they could not comment. And then, in early January, some assiduous detective work revealed that – again without notification or discussion, and ahead of the formal planning application – the Council had already tabled a proposal, and given itself permission by way of a warrant, to demolish the historic and empty old police station in order to provide dedicated parking spaces for the proposed new building. And it emerged that part of the site demarcated for the new housing block was actually on Common Good land.

A flurry of public comment and objection sent the architects back to the drawing board, not once but several times – to relocate the proposed new block slightly, and reorient it, such that demolition of the old police station was no longer required. Instead, the existing spaces around the site – currently providing parking for some 90 cars – would be “re-marked” to create more spaces.

By now the local community had grasped what was going on. Many realised, with consternation, that erecting a massive new housing block right in the middle of the town centre would wreck any prospect of creating the kind of attractive, multifunctional and leisure space where residents might gather, which might attract passing tourists to pause, and which might offer a focal point for shoppers, and options for market-stalls and entertainment. Not only would the new structure obscure, overshadow and be totally out of keeping with the adjacent historic and architecturally- significant surrounding buildings, but the combination of clients seeking advice from the CAB and residents of social housing flats seemed unlikely to generate a vibrant urban experience or stimulate footfall into the retailers of the High Street. As one observer put it, “Visitors won’t come to Nairn to pose for selfies in front of a block of social housing!”.

Community Councils, NICE the development trust, and a range of local residents raised objections. Arrayed on the other side, however, were not only the local Councillors, claiming that >

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A decision to build this town centre apartment scheme has raised local hackles

this was the only feasible way to secure a share of the Town Centre Fund money, but also local residents whose sympathy and admiration for the work of the CAB appeared to override any contemplation of the impact of the new building on its immediate environment or the implications for the rest of the area. When the planning application did appear online, it was noticeable that of the 25 comments expressing support, no less than 18 were from CAB staff, employees, directors or others associated with the organisation.

With Covid having delayed and restricted the normal processes of planning scrutiny and debate, the planning committee has not yet considered the application. A technical problem with the online software has led to a deferral of the committee meeting from 22 September to 9 October. But already the local Councillor who chairs the Area Committee has argued against a site visit on the grounds that this would risk delaying a decision. (editors note: Highland Council awarded planning consent on 16 October and work will begin early in the New Year.)

None of this has inhibited the Council from presenting the project as a done deal. On 27 August an officially-inspired and illustrated article appeared in the Press & Journal describing the project in terms which presumed its delivery, with further endorsements from other Councillors and a welcome from the CAB manager. And it emerged that – ahead of the local authority’s decision on the planning application, the Council

had already published specifications and tender invitations for the construction contracts. Nothing unusual, claimed officials – which may be true. But as an attempt to load the dice and influence the planning committee, the ploy was both cynical and transparent.

The nomination for the Carbuncle Award back in 2011 said presciently and accurately that “...poor planning, developer greed and bad design have turned Nairn from an attractive seaside resort with interesting architecture and great facilities into a depressing transit route for visitors with a town centre that is dying.”

Almost a decade later, and with Covid wreaking havoc in the local tourist-dependent economy, that town centre is not just dying – it needs life support. Evidence of missed opportunities and planning disasters is on show all around the town, from the dismal high-density housing blocks around the harbour to the sprawling suburbs of Lochloy. The heart of the town was – and might just still be – an opportunity to spark revival and regeneration.

Unfortunately, once again, a combination of secretive, short-sighted and unimaginative planning risks delivering the wrong building in the wrong place, preventing any coherent plan to revive the town centre, and condemning Nairn to further, perhaps terminal, decline. Dr Grigor, who did so much to develop and promote the town of Nairn as a desirable destination, will be spinning in his grave.

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POST-PANDEMIC OFFICES JOHN GLENDAY

The stars have aligned for a new generation of office space where flexibility is key, as here at McLellan Works URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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DESK EVO L UT I ON AMID HYPERBOLIC CLAIMS THAT THE END OF THE OFFICE COULD BE NIGH WE ASK THREE COMMERCIAL DEVELOPERS HOW THE WORKPLACE MUST EVOLVE TO HOLD ONTO ITS CROWN AS THE DEFAULT ENVIRONMENT FOR PRODUCTIVITY. WHAT FORM WILL THE FUTURE OFFICE TAKE AND WHAT IS NEEDED TO GET US THERE?

As working from home becomes more entrenched several schemes are seeking to reimagine the office with a new approach that emphasises active travel, community and flexibility. We look at three projects across the Central Belt which point the way ahead.

A new breed of office environment geared toward entrepreneurial businesses is springing up in the UK. Among these is McLellan Works which has just been completed by Bywater Properties. Principal Theo Michell, gave Urban Realm a tour of the Stallan Brand designed creative workspace on Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street, saying: “Everybody is beginning to pivot towards brick walls and exposed services. We try to be fun and creative because if people are interested in what they see it gets talked about.”

Bywater develops then lets out properties before selling them on rather than becoming long-term landlords Split into two wings the accommodation features exposed beams and crisp white walls the space making the most of heritage features, even if the impressive dome has been capped off. Michell explained: “We had a long debate about whether to have the structure of the dome exposed. It looks amazing but the reality is it’s very difficult to insert a mezzanine in that space and heat it. We took a pragmatic decision to seal it off.”

While the Glasgow School of Art remains an open wound McLellan Works does benefit from Glasgow City Council’s Avenues programme as well as connectivity with Glasgow School of Art premises in the McLellan Galleries, something which is now being embraced rather than shunned. Michell added: “The previous owners had closed that route with a fire escape between the GSA and Sauchiehall Street, which seemed like a wasted opportunity. We’re still talking to the GSA about how we can work together on some form of through interaction.

The flow of students would have a positive impact on the lobby spaces.”

Part of this openness extends to a managed mix of retail and a generous lobby area and passage to the GSA, complete with balconies to observe the toing and froing below.

At the other end of the scale, HFD Property Group ais also busy, asked how he sees offices evolving in the near term managing director Stephen Lewis told Urban Realm: “Covid-19 has super-accelerated many of the trends that were gathering speed before the pandemic, as well as adding a few of its own.”

This includes prioritising the health and wellbeing of staff as well as flexible collaboration with a heavy emphasis >

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on touch-free technologies thrown into the mix. Lewis continues: “Intelligent building systems and the application of concepts such as the Internet of Things (IoT) were already being widely discussed and that will only become more commonplace, with a greater need for automation in building management driving efficiency.

“We expect collaborative space to become even more important – occupiers will likely need even more space for meetings and areas where people can work together.

Research has also suggested that organisations are likely to need as much, or more, space to safely accommodate their staff and visitors – even if it’s not as many as before on a day-to-day basis.

“There are also strong indications that flexibility will be key. While fewer people may need to be accommodated at any one time, there will need to be better provision for workers to come and go, and all the health and safety procedures that will be associated with allowing that – such as temperature checking, at least in the initial postpandemic period.”

Dismissing hopes of a rapid return to normal even with a vaccine breakthrough Lewis predicts a phased relaxation of restrictions: “ In many cases the experience of 2020 has made businesses realise the importance that their offices play as a place for their people to meet, collaborate, exchange ideas, and feel part of something bigger. There have been several studies suggesting workers feel the same way too and want to combine working from home with time in the office, rather than choosing one or the other.”

It is a philosophy which is very much in evidence at the latest venture of property investment development and asset management company Ediston, delivered with Orion Capital Managers and 10 Design. As chairman Andy McKinlay explains: “We are busy ‘future-proofing’ our office developments. At New Town Quarter, for example, we are introducing innovations in sustainability, handsfree technology and air quality, with an eye on introducing natural ventilation. Plus easy access to outdoor space and a full-office footprint roof garden.

“People remain at the heart of our office buildings.

Occupiers give offices life, definition and personality.

New Town Quarter is a very special mixed-use location - whether you are living, working or visiting - which combines the vibrancy of the city centre with high-quality green and public spaces. This is the future of our city centres – a location which isn’t just for 9-5 working, but a vibrant community around a mix of uses, reflecting our post-Covid lust for life.”

At Ediston the expectation is that pent-up demand will prompt an immediate boomerang back to the office to meet a need for the positive social aspects of face-toface collaboration such as teamwork, creativity and fitness URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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Bywater Properties have gone the extra mile to court creatives with office space that speaks for itself

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POST-PANDEMIC OFFICES

Left - Ediston are combining retail, homes and offices with new public realm at The New Town Quarter Right - HFD Group are introducing touch-free technology to reassure occupiers, part of a focus on employee wellbeing

through provision of wellbeing activities such as yoga.

Following a similar tack, HFD are adapting their approach to meet shifting occupier requirements by specifying circulation routes and sanitising facilities to mitigate against future outbreaks. The gold standard here is 177 Bothwell Street, designed by Sheppard Robson Architects, which has been significantly remodelled to ensure anyone arriving at the front door will be able to reach their floor without having to touch any surfaces.

Explaining how hands-free navigation will work in practice Lewis says: “Visitors’ mobile devices will also be pre-accredited, allowing them to operate security gates and lifts with an app, while touchless, app-activated lighting and heating will remove the need to physically operate switches. Water, soap, hand-drying facilities, and toilet flushing will be fitted with sensor technology to remove the need for touch and they will automatically inform the facilities management team when supplies are running low. A dedicated loading bay and delivery lockers URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

will mean that mail and packages can be delivered directly between supplier and customer.”

Ventilation will be a key area of consideration with underfloor heating replacing air-based systems and new filtering systems which will improve not only employee wellbeing but also sustainability. Outlining HFD’s definition of a sustainable office Lewis says: “The building needs to be accessible, giving staff the option for active and eco-friendly travel to the building by walking, running, or cycling; not just by car or public transport. They also want useful amenities nearby – a post office, bank or specific retailers as well as food options, in case staff need to run errands during the working week.”

This approach extends to the structure itself, employing recyclable material where possible and embracing energy efficiency to the point that 177 Bothwell Street will be powered by 100% renewable energy, possibly attaining the top EPC rating among city centre offices in Glasgow.

Staff wellbeing meanwhile is met through sourcing >

© MCATEER PHOTOGRAPH

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POST-PANDEMIC OFFICES

A ‘hub and spoke’ model could see corporate tenants combine city centre accommodation with suburban operations

products free from volatile organic compounds and installing circadian lighting which can adjust blue light levels according to the time of day.

Looking at the market more broadly does Lewis foresee a divergence in demand between out-of-town and city centre locations? “For the last three decades or so, there has undoubtedly been an ebb and flow between city centres and business parks with favour shifting from one to the other. In recent years, city centre offices have been the preference for some occupiers, leading to greater urbanisation. However, through the experience of the past eight months, there appears to be an opportunity for out of town areas too.

“We are nowhere near the so-called ‘death of the office’, but organisations will nevertheless adapt their property use to our new set of circumstances. A ‘hub and spoke’ model has been discussed as one option for larger businesses –

having a smaller city centre headquarters and combining that with premises in suburban areas or business parks.”

Addressing the disruption of recent months how it has informed their priorities McKinlay said: “We have seen requirements for space reduce, focusing on short-term flexibility - but also moves to occupy existing or new space at lower densities, quite rightly reflecting the need for social distancing in the workplace. But the real change will come with a vaccine. When news of a potential vaccine was announced, Zoom shares plunged. The office is alive and kicking!”

When all is in flux around us the instinctive reaction is to hold onto known quantities and as a staple part of the circadian rhythm of life for most the humble office isn’t going anywhere. Instead, it will evolve as it always has to meet the needs and wants of a population celebrating a new found sense of freedom.

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POST-PANDEMIC HOUSING

Jordanhill Park brings new meaning to the term green living

DOME S T I C SC I ENCE AS CIRCUMSTANCES FORCE US ALL TO REAPPRAISE THE IMPORTANCE OF HOME URBAN REALM EXPLORES HOW CHANGED REALITIES ARE IMPACTINGWHAT WE REQUIRE OF OUR PERSONAL SPACE.WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR US ALL TO LIVE HEALTHIER, HAPPIER AND MORE HARMONIOUS LIVES? Office space may be temporarily out of favour but our homes are very much in vogue as the pervasive backdrop to our locked down lives. Ever heavier demands on accommodation have already spurred an intensification of use from the appearance of makeshift work desks to contrived Zoom bookcases but what are the long-term implications? How will accommodation evolve to suit our needs? With active travel and outdoor space at a premium, how will reduced mobility translate into how we live our lives and will that induce domestic bliss or cabin fever?

We put these questions to 7N Architects principal Ewan Anderson who is in the throes of delivering a major residential masterplan at Jordanhill Park in the west end of Glasgow on behalf of CALA Homes. Until recently home to the University of Strathclyde this elevated setting provides an insight into future thinking that preserves the best of the old while producing a blank canvas for the delivery of a more collegiate form of living.

Anderson said: “It’s an extraordinary site. It was originally an estate and stable with a mansion and sits in an elevated setting >

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amid a mature landscape with views all around. You can see the Campsies and over the Clyde to the south, that’s the reason the college went there in the first place. It’s a fantastic parkland setting. We were keen to keep that feeling of living in the park because that’s what makes it special.”

Fit-out work has already begun on the B-listed David Stow Building ahead of a launch next spring, with 7N Architects maximising the volume of spaces through the removal of suspended ceilings and unsympathetic later additions - right down to restoring the original colour palette of the windows.

Anderson told Urban Realm: “We had a lengthy debate about the grey windows but we uncovered an early design that showed they were grey in the first place. It wasn’t until the latter part of the 20th century that they were painted white.

“Stow is interesting because it’s 100 years old in parts but of early 20th-century construction in others, which helped because there are large spans of steelwork in there. It’s been great to play with big volumes because we had the space to make sure the layouts are sensitively integrated with the facades. There are no split windows. It all works. It’s a relatively relaxed conversion as we’ve been able to work with the existing fabric and structure. The stairwells are fantastic and the windows are huge.”

Clearance of surplus college buildings has permitted high density to be kept high while retaining as much open space and mature woodland as possible, providing a readymade landscape setting with fortuitous timing for the changed priorities of the current pandemic. > URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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Above - Access to green and open space has become paramount among househunters during lockdown

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POST-PANDEMIC HOUSING

Maintaining an open aspect to the front of the Stow Building has given room to breathe in the picturesque tradition with new apartment buildings, referred to as large villas, inserted within this landscape in a manner not unlike the original mansion setting, with brownfield areas given over to a more urban expression of townhouses.

All roads are shared surfaces with structured planting focussed on a linear park which runs right through the site and connects to the central green space. Anderson explains: “If you want to walk your dog or kids want to go out and play they can navigate down the shared streets straight to the park. The terraces are oriented at 90 degrees to freestanding houses to the north so you get views out. It’s a perforated edge to the site because we were keen to avoid the closed-cell more typical of housebuilder environments.

Maintaining the expansive environment of its elevated plateau setting CALA and 7N were keen to avoid creating a gated community, ensuring people have access across the full periphery.

We’ve all felt the mental health ramifications of being cooped up at home, but how will this impact efforts to build neighbourhoods where people interact together. Might we return to a simpler way of living following principles such as the Parisian 15 minute city where people rely on local shops and amenities? “It will inform planning policy going forward.”

Anderson predicts: “It’s interesting to look at Jordanhill Park in the context of the pandemic. The landscape setting is important to all our projects and it’s something we’re seeing residential developers become much more aware of, it’s now easier to argue for shared green space, larger balconies and walking routes.

“There are vertical layers of planting between each house so when you’re walking you get a layered feeling of green space as you approach the linear park. Tragically, it’s taken something like this for people to think more about wellbeing but it’s an opportunity which should be grasped.”

By engaging directly with a major housebuilder 7N ensures that architect-designed homes can be enjoyed by a much broader demographic upping the standard of accommodation on offer. Anderson says: “Architects should get involved in as many areas as possible. If you’re trying to improve the environment you have to work in fields where you can make the most difference. If you can make the mainstream 25% better you will achieve a lot more than a one-off house and do it 100% better. All of the homes in Jordanhill Park are bespoke, they’re not standard products and the masterplan is quite different from what they’d normally do.

“Standard housebuilder house types are quite rigid, this was trying to make them more flexible. If you’re in the city you need to apply a certain level of density to keep the parkland. A suburban carpet approach with individual houses would lose a lot of the open space. This is about creating a more urban environment of shared spaces. It’s a more communal way of URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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Left - A predicted flight to the suburbs has not dented Ediston’s faith in Edinburgh’s New Town Above - Shrinking travel patterns will only serve to enhance the desireability of having essential amenities within walking distance

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BUILDING TYPOLOGIES LESLIE HOWSON

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AHEAD OF THE DELAYED COP26 CLIMATE CONFERENCE THIS NOVEMBER LESLIE HOWSON INVESTIGATES HOW ARCHITECTS AND STUDENTS MUST RETHINK ESTABLISHED BUILDING TYPOLOGIES FOR A WORLD WHICH WILL NO LONGER REVOLVE AROUND OIL AND GLOBAL NETWORKS BUT SUSTAINABILITY AND LOCAL RESOURCES. HOW CAN THE CONSTRUCTION SECTOR LEARN FROM A TUMULTUOUS YEAR TO PUT INTO PRACTICE THE REFORMS NEEDED TO MEET THESE CHALLENGES?

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BUILDING TYPOLOGIES

The climate crisis has brought into question not only how we build, in terms of materials and methods, but also what we build and the immediacy of the Covid-19 crisis has only accelerated that process.

Irrespective of when the Covid-19 crisis ends (hopefully with a vaccine and soon), the climate crisis will remain and unless drastic measures are implemented quickly and take effect within the next ten years, our lives and our planet will remain in a dangerous situation which requires more than a vaccine.

Most building types are found wanting under the pressure of the Covid-19 virus. Hospitals, care homes, offices, factories, universities, private gyms and schools have all had to remain closed, only recently reopening thanks to inventiveness in making them Covid-19 safe.

Whilst such measures may be effective in the short term, many existing buildings will have to be adapted for long term use and the design of many new building typologies are now in question too.

Ensuring buildings are virus-proof is essential to public health. However, this future-proofing is also an opportunity to review the design validity of some of our

key building typologies from a longer-term health and well-being perspective. Pre Covid-19, sustainability issues were the focus of the architectural profession, notably the challenges of climate change and attempting to achieve zero carbon by 2050 by using sustainably sourced material, improving insulation, achieving zero waste and retrofitting existing buildings. Covid-19 has changed all that, or at least changed the emphasis, for not only must climate crisis issues remain in focus but so too must the current virus crisis.

Concentrating on embedding sustainability in architectural education and day to day practice will not be enough to reduce the impact of climate change nor cope with the effects of the current and possibly not the last worldwide virus pandemic.

The common factor in both crises is the need to consider not only how we build sustainably but also what we build. This is the time for an urgent rethink about new buildings, not simply focusing on the construction aspects but questioning their very conception, purpose and relevance to the needs of today.

In particular, architects must rethink some of these

Previous page & Left - Guallart Architects of Barcelona have developed plans for a self-sufficient city in Xiong’an, China Right - All building typologies from hospitals to homes will require to be rethought to address changed priorities

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typologies from the concept stage.

Every building type raises specific issues relative to either Covid-19 or Climate Change but several key aspects have emerged in response to the former that allows buildings to be safely reoccupied. The focus is on hygiene and the provision of extra hand washing facilities and social distancing and circulation most notably in schools, offices, hospitals, care homes and the hospitality industry.

Many of these measures will affect the imminent and future design of our buildings.

Combine these changes with measures to combat climate change and we have in effect a new generation of building designs which will require innovation and thinking beyond the conventional.

Operational as well as physical design aspects are now being addressed in new care homes which include smaller households, rooms with en suite facilities, less emphasis on large internal shared space, no more open-plan layouts, separate access for family visitors, higher staff to resident ratios and convenient access to sheltered outside space and gardens.

School buildings have also come under scrutiny with

operational as well as physical design aspects now being addressed in several ways including more generous circulation areas, outside teaching space, larger floor areas, flexible spaces, doors that minimise touching, children staying put while teachers move about and multiple entrances and ventilation systems.

In hospitals design aspects now being addressed include segregated admission areas and clean zones (the public should not be able to walk off the street to a patients bed), virtual outpatient areas, better purposing of space and rethinking intensive care. Covid19 has thrown into question the type of office that is needed and the amount of office space required for a population which has had a taste of reduced commuting life by working from home.

Design and operational aspects now being considered include greater flexibility, rethinking vertical circulation with less crowded lifts, fewer desk spaces, less staff in the office at one time, splitting time between home working and office-based working and the possibility of more local business centres to reduce commuting.

We also need to rethink the very concept and form of >

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new housing, with better provision for working from home which will probably remain a feature of working life, at least for some of the population for some of the time. The need for easily accessible open space is essential for all households, especially those without private gardens. The possibilities of homes as workplaces cannot be ignored. A home should be a permanent living place, offering safety, security, stability, rest and comfort. The predominant and supposedly most sought after house type is still the neo-traditional `product` which households adapt as best they can to suit their varied family needs, interests and schedules. Houses must be fit for purpose, not just sustainably built but enabling self-contained and thus more climate-conscious living.

One key issue common to almost all building types is the matter of indoor air quality. Before 2020, the emphasis had been on airtight construction to achieve carbon zero buildings but now due to Covid-19, the focus is on health and well being and allowing occupants access to fresh air is now seen as essential in countering the virus.

As modern buildings have become more efficient, they have also become more airtight, increasing the potential for poor indoor air quality.

Fighting Covid-19 has meant stopping transmission of a deadly enemy by social distancing and reducing transmission by touch. The after-effects of Covid-19 will be with us for some time both in terms of immediate risk and the long term effects on many and not just the old and vulnerable.

Lockdown has been eased sporadically and with mixed effect. The virus is still in control of our lives, however, whilst we cannot see the virus, it hates most, fresh unpolluted air, which we need and which our planet’s environment needs. Survival of our planet, of us as humans and all flora and fauna depends on a balanced ecosystem.

The virus on cruise liners spread through the air supply system ironically aided by the quarantine process itself with passengers breathing shared recirculated air at night. Residents in many care homes became vulnerable through poor air quality as much as any other single factor. In hospitals, doctors and nurses fought to save patients by connecting them to respirators to ventilate their airways with purified air.

Yet the air in the hospital environment remained less pure. Congested working and accommodation conditions would have been helped by better ventilation with a cleaner and purified air supply.

As well as reducing zero carbon to counteract the heating up of the planet and efforts to offset the effects of climate change such as flood remediation, we have learnt from the Covid-19 situation that ventilation and air quality will > URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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Howson has partnered with Heriot Watt, home of Team ESTEEM, to design a self-sufficient solar powered home. Team ESTEEM have reached the finals of the Solar Decathlon Middle East 2020 competition to design, build and operate this solar-powered home

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BUILDING TYPOLOGIES

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The twin challenges of climate and covid will come to a head in 2021, impacting everything from education to energy

be major considerations in the design of our buildings in the future.

Sealing up buildings and their occupants and an obsession with airtightness may prove to be misguided, as the increase of asthma cases including amongst the very young is partly due to the energy proofing of homes.

Airtight environments without a regular supply of fresh air is unnatural and counter to good health. So whilst we need to find ways to ventilate the building envelope to control moisture content, we also need to control air quality including moisture levels for the occupants. The fallout and lessons learned from Covid-19 share common factors with climate change issues and remediation measures. So this is a `double wake up call` providing both opportunities and challenges.

These are unprecedented and extremely challenging times requiring innovative thinking about how we should be live and what kind of built environment best deals with climate change issues while protecting society against sudden threats from Covid type viruses.

Architects should be at the forefront in such an

innovative period and worldwide, architects and urban designers are already designing with viruses and climate change in mind.

Guallart Architects in Barcelona are designing selfsufficient settlements in China which will run on renewable technology and can also be locked down in the event of another Covid like or climate-related crisis.

They will contain mixed development blocks containing shops, homes and offices. All homes will have immediate access to outside landscaped space and community-run food production.

Perhaps now what is required in Scotland, is a `think tank` approach with eager but unemployed young architects at the heart of a process of reviewing current building typologies together with specialist architects, to produce innovative design alternatives. With COP26 only a year away why not host a series of international video conferences in Scotland, to be attended by architects in each field to discuss the re-envisioning of some of these key building types in light of the lessons learned from both Covid-19 and climate change.

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HAMILTON MAUSOLEUM

DEAD

POOL

THE GLASGOW INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS SET HAMILTON MAUSOLEUM IN THEIR SIGHTS FOR THEIR LATEST DESIGN COMPETITION, A CALL TO ARMS FOR DESIGN IDEAS TO BREATHE NEW LIFE INTO A DYING LANDMARK. WE PRESENT THE WINNING ENTRIES AND LOOK AT WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO BRING THE SOLE SURVIVOR OF THE LAVISH HAMILTON PALACE BACK INTO THE PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS AS A DESTINATION IN ITS OWN RIGHT.

A trio of very different landscape-led proposals have won out in a Glasgow Institute of Architects (GIA) design competition to bring Hamilton Mausoleum back from the dead. We take a look in detail at each of the chosen approaches to see how the resting place of the Dukes of Hamilton can rise anew.

Designed by Edinburgh architect David Bryce the golden sandstone monument has suffered from neglect in recent years with its relationship to the keeper’s cottage having been severed through a lack of woodland management. The cottage itself is now a roofless shell having suffered from vandalism.

Mindful of the deteriorating situation the GIA took the initiative to instigate a design competition for architects and landscape architects to bring forward ideas for how the mausoleum could be repurposed for future generations to enjoy, ensuring that it does not suffer the same fate as Hamilton Palace, whose tragic demolition in the 1920s still echoes to this day.

Explaining the genesis of the competition the GIA wrote:”The loss of Hamilton Palace and the destruction of the designed landscape was a cultural disaster, and it would be unthinkable to also lose the mausoleum given its architectural, historical, social and cultural importance.”

Among those to answer the call were John Kennedy, who took first place for ‘The Invisible Landscape’, a bid to reestablish the grounds around the monument in a formalised URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

manner. Specific interventions include repurposing the Keeper’s Lodge and forming new connections with the Low Parks masterplan - a South Lanarkshire Council initiative to connect wetland, parks and open ground to the north and east of the town as one continuous landscape to encourage wildlife, biodiversity and recreation.

Praising the chosen approach Ross Lambie of the Hamilton Mausoleum Trust said: “The winning proposal by John Kennedy set out a robust and adaptable masterplan for the wider site, breaking the hinterland up into defined zones, each taking advantage of an existing underutilised attribute.”

Judi Keith-Brown, competition judge and president of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, added: “John Kennedy’s scheme taught me a lot about the history of the site, especially around the great north avenue. The reinstatement of this, combining the manmade with the bio-diversity of the site including the wetlands makes for a very beautiful and achievable scheme.”

Second-place award was handed to Graeme Nicholls Architects with Ryan Wilson for ‘Form Follows Fiction’; a storytelling centre, archive and writers retreat with Ciaran Magee earning the third spot.

An honourable mention was given to Harriet Ridout for ‘Living Waters’.

Here we explore the diverging responses in detail. >

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Harriet Ridout earned an honourable mention for this aquatic flight of fancy

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A landscape-led approach earned top honours with unmanaged woodland trimmed back to restore planned vistas

Invisible Landscape, John Kennedy By renovating the unkempt woodland encroaching upon the Mausoleum and the Keeper’s Cottage, a revitalised and open landscape setting enables better appreciation of both buildings.

The existing woodland - much of which is unplanned is pruned to create vistas and avenues, thereby enhancing URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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the presence of the much older ornamental trees which were part of the Mausoleum’s original setting.

A new ‘grand avenue’ lined with birch trees is proposed, extending northwards from the Mausoleum and linking with the Keeper’s Cottage. This recalls the grandeur of the original tree-lined ‘Great North Avenue’ which was once centred on axis with Hamilton Palace.

To the north of the Mausoleum it is proposed that the

flood-prone Mausoleum Fields area is cultivated as a water meadow.

The Mausoleum no longer contains the remains of previous Dukes, but the crypt should be left empty in deference to its funerary character. However, the great domed chapel of the Mausoleum above could be repurposed as a small museum presenting the history of the Hamilton Estate. >

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An arched companion-piece serving as a storytelling centre secured second spot

Form Follows Fiction, Graeme Nicholls Architects with Ryan Wilson Our proposal to save the Hamilton Mausoleum and Keeper’s Lodge would see the buildings reused as a new Storytelling Centre and Writers Retreat while a new Gatehouse building would provide visitor and staff facilities.

We feel that this new activity would complement the programme of Low Parks Museum. Our projects are artsled and are characterised by our interest in proportion, innovative use of materials, and a rich layering of cultural references to create a unique ‘narrative’ for each design.

We believe that this approach is an excellent fit for the Mausoleum project, and we are excited to have the opportunity to present our ideas for how the buildings could

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be brought back into use.

The upper level of the Mausoleum will be used for oral storytelling. The circular plan of the main room is ideally suited for the gathering of storytellers and listeners. The storytelling performance in this location could take many forms from prose to poetry, song, rap, theatrical performance and so on.

We propose that the Lodge house is given a new purpose as a creative space hosting a programme of residencies for writers as well as creating an income stream for the Museum.

This building would allow writers to escape their daily life’s distractions during a stay in which they can create work inspired by and related to the setting.

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Ciaran Macgee This proposal aims to tackle the exclusive boundary condition, the inaccessibility of the three levels, and the inflexible internal acoustics. Before this, however, the first step is to intervene to prevent water ingress and to restore the facade. The proposed intervention envisions the Hamilton Mausoleum as a key public space for the towns of Hamilton and Motherwell, offering space for events, performances, and community gatherings.

The proposal seeks to open the mausoleum up to the park, while maintaining an element of security, by way of a ha-ha wall. Such a design would offer broad views of the park from the mausoleum’s level, giving the illusion of an uninterrupted landscape, while restricting access to the key pathways from Mausoleum Drive and the Keeper’s Lodge. The wall would be of rubble stone construction, creating a gradient of fidelity ranging from the raw stone ha-ha to the rusticated stone construction of the lower concourse walls, and the finer sandstone of the mausoleum pavilion.

This circular stone construction evokes ancient burial mounds, such as the nearby Huly Hill Cairn. It is also proposed that small shrines or ‘aediculae’ are embedded in the wall, which would become memorials where people could have

the name of deceased loved ones engraved in the warmly pigmented precast GGBS concrete. Each aedicule would speak to the classical language of the mausoleum, offering a small plinth to sit on and reflect or to leave flowers.

The proposed scheme would see the structure, which had previously transformed from mausoleum to cenotaph to derelict folly, transform again into a civic landmark.

Top - Stone circles draw inspiration from ancient burial mounds Bottom - The names of loved ones can be inscribed in the walls

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QUARRY STUDIOS JOHN GLENDAY

CONCRE T E P L ANS MOXON ARCHITECTS HAVE TURNED HOME WORKING ON ITS HEAD BY INTRODUCING ELEMENTS OF THE HOME TO THEIR NEW PRACTICE HQ. SNUGLY SLOTTED INTO A FORMER QUARRY IN A CAIRNGORMS BEAUTY SPOT IT EXEMPLIFIES QUALITIES OF SPACE, COMMUNALITY AND SETTING THAT A HOME OFFICE COULD NEVER ACHIEVE. PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIMOTHY SOAR.

As more and more people migrate towards homeworking in one of the largest workplace revolutions on record Moxon Architects are boldly heading in the opposite direction with a purpose-built headquarters for 25 staff within a former quarry in the Cairngorms National Park.

Enveloped by protected woodland Quarry Studios is a calm refuge from the chaos of the outside world, providing staff with a point of contact with clients, the general public and nature in ways which cannot be accomplished from the bedroom, or even Moxon’s previously inaccessible base.

Appraising Urban Realm of the Moxon managing director Ben Addy said: “The decision was made several years ago but we’re very confident that offices have a future.”

Behind any great building is a great site and Addy jumped at the chance when a suitable parcel of land appeared on the market with planning in place for a one-off house. Addy recalled: “It was very close to where we were working anyway and we thought it would be an amazing studio site because we were outgrowing where we were.

“It was a quarry, latterly used as a tip by Aberdeenshire Council’s roads department, so the whole site was filled.

The real advantage was level access once you removed all the rubbish. It’s a perfectly level platform and a real > URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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If you go down to the woods today you’re sure of a big surprise, a studio in disguise

www.porcelainplus.co.uk kirk@porcelainplus.co.uk Many thanks to all our clients for sticking with us through a turbulent year. All the very best for 2021 and Porcelain Plus is open and ready to work with you on your projects going forward in our 20th Year in Business. We have the largest choice of Porcelain Pavers and Porcelain Tiles all available for viewing in our studio or for sampling direct to you.

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The former quarry has been transformed from a place of extraction to one of insertion

contrast to where we were before which was halfway up a hill along a dodgy track.”

Having cleared the site Moxon was presented with a blank and secluded canvas upon which to realise its designs for an equal parts public and private home. The building would be anchored by opposing ‘vertical concrete chimneys’ connected by a massive timber wall slicing through the low-profile main body. Employing a hybrid steel and timber frame, sheet metal roof and black timber walls the roof is set in parallel with the excavated quarry lip, falling in step with the quarry sides and ending at a covered collonade which runs toward the heart of the site.

This arrangement allows pairing interior spaces with appropriate outdoor areas so that offices open onto a courtyard and clerestory glazing connects the studio with a roof terrace.

Remediation of spoil and regrading the land has facilitated native planting Interlocking timber walls are formed from Douglas Fir, sourced and worked locally. Green credentials are further burnished by directing rainwater to a newly formed bog with natural ventilation and a 250m borehole tapping thermal energy from the granite bedrock.

Generously spaced working areas marry well with

current social distancing rules and a public cafe will operate from the site for six days per week.

Maximising the freedom and flexibility that comes rom serving as client, contractor and architect Moxon seized their chance to experiment with new techniques.

“As we were the client and contractor the subcontractors knew where they stood and there was a nice line of communication,” notes Addy. “Ordinarily, we’d have gone to a specialist concrete contractor but speaking to people we decided to do it in-house which was risky because none of us had ever poured concrete before. The hydrostatic pressure of concrete elevated 8m in the air is huge so the formwork needs to be strong. We took risks but that saved half the cost on those elements and meant we were absolutely in control. The pressure was more about getting it right rather than getting it finished.”

Pressures were eased no end by a painless passage through planning with Cairngorms National Park opting not to call the application in, permitting Moxon to work directly with Aberdeenshire Council. Addy stated: “It was constructive. We had already decided to push the bulk of the building into the quarry bowl and we were going to use the landform of the quarry to directly inform the building. >

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Left - An open plan encourages investigation and discovery by visitors Right - Clerestory windows emphasise high-level light

Although it’s a quarry and full of rubbish it is a special site.

Everything around it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, it’s a precious piece of landscape in the Lochnagaar scenic area.

“It was always a tricky site for a house because it is quite overshadowed, it’s very introverted but for a studio it’s perfect. We see it as a studio in the woods so we’ve replanted the site with birch, hazel and rowan and juniper.

It’s densely planted like the woodland around it and the studio itself is looking out into that. It’s an outward-facing building on an inward-looking site. It’s very conducive to concentration in the office, you feel like you are in your little world. We consciously tipped up the roof at the back to reveal a large clerestory window to bring even light into the plan. You don’t get glare and it’s great for drawing.”

Working from home may be the mantra of the moment but at Quarry Studios Moxon have hit upon an alternative path, one that encourages living at work. In doing so the practice is taking the first steps towards a health and wellbeing revolution.

Start on site: December 2018 Completion date: September 2020 Gross (Internal & External) Floor Area: 401 (+ 65 roof terrace) Form of contract or procurement route: Moxon Architects was the client, designer and builder contractually a closed loop - and as a consequence the commercial aspects were under its exclusive control Construction cost: £1million Construction cost per m2: £2,500/sqm Client: Moxon Architects Architect: Moxon Architects Executive architect: Moxon Architects Main Contractor: Tor Contracting / Moxon Architects Structural engineer: Graeme Craig Consulting Engineer QS / Cost Consultant: Moxon Architects Other consultants: George Watt + Stewart Architects (CDM Coordinators)

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REFUGEE CRISIS GIOIA SAWAYA

A FAMED SUSHI RESTAURANT IN BEIRUT, NOW A MAKESHIFT HOME FOR SYRIAN REFUGEES, IS VISITED BY LEBANESE ARCHITECT GIOIA SAWAYA WHO REPORTS HOW ITS UINTENDED INHABITANTS ARE ADAPTING AN ARCHITECTURAL ICON OF LUXURY FOR MORE BASIC NEEDS. THROUGH OFTEN JARRING BEFORE AND AFTER IMAGERY WE EXPLORE THE FRAGILITY OF THE MODERN WORLD.

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DIGITALISATION & SUSTAINABILITY NorDan has always been at the cutting edge, and with ecoDigital ReadyTM we are seeking to establish a new standard for window and door manufacturing and the construction industry as a whole, holding ourselves accountable for what we can do as a global company.

We have both the responsibility and desire to preserve the world for future generations whilst fully embracing the digital era and the changing landscape of the construction industry.

As an organisation, we are constantly asking ourselves how processes can be more eco-friendly or made more accessible, allowing a continual improvement of our policies and approach over time.

nordan.co.uk

REFUGEE CRISIS

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Previous page - The polar disparity of old and new shocks in its extremes Above - Designed by Lebanese architect Bernard Khoury ‘Yabani’ graced the covers of architectural magazines in its heyday

Located in the heart of Beirut and designed by renowned Lebanese architect Bernard Khoury, “Yabani” once occupied the front cover of local and international architecture magazines.

Consisting of a modern underground space that was once frequented by the rich in search of fine Japanese dining, “Yabani” has become a home for refugees and is now occupied by three Syrian families who have made it their make-shift home.

As I entered the premises to document the underground space, I saw a striking and unexpected sight: broken chairs, torn curtains, a rusty bathtub, a leaking roof, and laundry everywhere. I wondered: What is it like to live in an architectural masterpiece? I began to imagine a silent dialogue between architect Khoury and the people who inhabit his creation as if they were struggling to understand each other across gulfs of time, space, and perspective.

Time is one factor by which architects study architecture. Yet, too often, architects forget to check back on their buildings to see how they are succeeding or failing. What the architect may refer to as “post-occupancy adjustments”, the inhabitants may describe as a reality check. In this sense, time does not relate only to the

degradation of material elements. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari described this notion of time as “stratigraphic”, where the “before” and “after” indicate only an order of superimpositions. “Stratigraphic time is a grandiose time of coexistence that does not exclude the “before” and the “after”, but superimposes them in a stratigraphic order.”

This piece is a photographic investigation that reverses traditional “before and after” imagery while recording the transformation of use with a critical, almost journalistic approach. It portrays a reality, that is composed of stories and fragments of the refugees’ daily lives and intimacies underground. “Yabani” has transgressed. From a prestigious Sushi restaurant to a make-shift home, we architects, have to learn from this drastic transformation that the space has undergone.

Hence, when thinking of recording the transformation of use of a building, “Yabani” is but an experiment that invites us to develop a new way of looking at architecture while turning away from the current trend of idealization.

Fragilities are often masked by preconceived ideas of perfection and vulnerabilities are often disguised by predetermined ideas of infallibility. This gap between idealism and the day-to-day reality intersects with a world >

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Top - Refugees live in rudimentary conditions in a building not designed for habitation Bottom - A ‘before’ view by Joseph Chartouni dating from 2003 shows the restaurant in happier times

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unprepared to cope with the unusual demands of an architectural masterpiece.

As a conclusion, it could be argued that similar to the film “Cocorico Monsieur Poulet” by Jean Rouch, “Yabani” extends beyond the initial commitment of architecture to the pragmatics of space required for such a change. The protagonist car in the film, liberated from its original condition, becomes here a shelter, a boat, and more than anything, a kind of shell through a constant pragmatic rethinking of its possibilities. Similarly, “Yabani” is to be looked upon as an agent of a constant ad-hoc transformation where certain elements of the space transgressed over time beyond the point of familiarity, and will perhaps keep on transgressing.

Yabani illustrates the need to consider the afterlife of buildings which no longer serve their original purpose in a world where events can swiftly overtake even the best laid plans.

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PETER WOMERSLEY MARK CHALMERS

Scottish Borders Council Offices, Newtown St Boswells URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

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BORDE R L ANDS A LIFE SPENT PUSHING BOUNDARIES IS THE SUBJECT OF AN INVESTIGATION BY MARK CHALMERS WHO EXPLORES THE LEGACY BEQUEATHED BY PETER WOMERSLEY IN THE CONTEXT OF BRITISH ARCHITECTURE OF THE 60’S AND 70’S. HOW HAVE WOMERSLEY’S MASTERWORKS FARED OVER THE INTERVENING DECADES AND WHAT MEASURES ARE BEING TAKEN TO PRESERVE THE BERNAT KLEIN STUDIO, HIGH SUTHERLAND AND OTHERS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS? HERE IS THE STORY OF HOW A RENEGADE YORKSHIREMAN CAME TO CONQUER THE BORDERS AND WHY THE PASSAGE OF TIME HAS ONLY BURNISHED HIS REPUTATION AS A MODERNISM MASTER.

Twenty years ago, Peter Womersley’s architecture was a cult amongst the initiated. Since then, interest has grown exponentially and as a result, this is both the easiest and most difficult article I’ve written for Urban Realm. There’s endless goodwill towards Womersley’s work; yet there’s so much to relate about his life and career that he deserves a book to himself. This article is a snapshot of his legacy and how his best-known buildings are faring.

Womersley was a Yorkshireman who trained at the Architectural Association in London, then settled in the Borders during the late 1950’s. His career took off almost immediately, and it flew. His talent was quickly recognised thanks to a sequence of houses around Melrose, including The Rig, The Orchard and High Sunderland. In 1960, Basil Spence was asked to name the best modern house in Britain: he replied, “Anything designed by Peter Womersley”.

He became rich and famous – or as successful and well-known as an architect could in the Borders during the Sixties. His golden E-Type Jaguar appeared to prove it. Yet twenty years later, he departed Scotland for a new life in Hong Kong.

Womersley’s early work is pure Modernism. It’s

about the analysis and resolution of form, driven by the articulation of the programme and the problems and opportunities of the site. If this sounds a bit daunting, it isn’t. His architecture is calm and beautifully-resolved.

What sets it apart is the level of rigour and sophistication in its planning and detailing.

His later work adopted what Stirling and Gowan called a multi-aesthetic or the Style for the Job, which solved the demands of the brief whilst attempting to “make it new” wherever he could. The result is a series of striking buildings, each different but united by a sense of exploration and often pushing concrete technology to its limits.

The recent upsurge of interest raises a question: why isn’t Womersley’s work better appreciated? Several of his buildings are listed, his work was widely published at the time it was built, yet there are no monographs about him.

Perhaps that’s a comment on the poverty of the British architectural scene, or the lack of a publishing house in Scotland with an architecture list, but it seems an oversight.

There are a few possible explanations. Womersley worked in a hinterland, remote from Edinburgh and Glasgow where the architectural action supposedly >

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High Sutherland has undergone a full refurbishment by Loader Monteith. Photograph by Jim Grimley

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happens. The Borders is one of many areas which go missing in architectural history. He kept his practice small, so that he could spend time designing rather than administrating – yet his oeuvre is too diverse to be pigeonholed. He built in city streets and interiors and in the countryside – but that could also be seen as a strength. So the question remains in the air.

Womersley’s first commission was Farnley Hey, a one-off house in Yorkshire for his brother. His second was High Sunderland, a house for the emigré textile designer Bernat Klein. The story of how Klein and Womersley met and became close friends is told beautifully in Shelley Klein’s recently-published book, “The See-Through House”, and the importance of that relationship is axiomatic. The Yorkshireman influenced by Californian design worked with the Serbian textile designer to create two of the best postWar buildings in Scotland.

High Sunderland is a single-storey, glazed box set on a wooded hillside above the Ettrick Water. Its sophisticated free plan with inter-penetrating courtyard and car port was inspired by the Case Study Houses in post-war America, yet perhaps with Klein’s influence, an exercise in the eight foot grid was softened by panels of colour and exotic URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

hardwoods such as obeche and idigbo.

Even this early in his career, Womersley pushed things as far as he could, and occasionally beyond. Bernat Klein reportedly said, “Flat roofs always have problems in a rainy climate. Today I would opt for a sloped roof, albeit as a disguised one. And I would still go for underfloor heating but not a system as expensive as the one we have.”

Womersley was born at the wrong time. Fifty years on, with triple glazing and single-ply roofing, he could have achieved the same building without ruinous energy bills.

Meanwhile, Loader Monteith Architects is currently finishing off conservation work on behalf of High Sunderland’s new owners. Speaking to Matt Loader, the project began as a restoration after a fire in the main space, but has also entailed working out how to insulate, install heat pumps and generally improve the environmental performance of the house.

Womersley regularly joined the Klein family for Sunday lunch at High Sunderland, and fifteen years later, Bernat Klein commissioned a new studio from him. It’s best appreciated from the cover of Peter Willis’s book, “New Architecture in Scotland”. It was new, then, sitting bright in the winter sunshine with Klein’s paintings and polychrome

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Left - Ambition sometimes came at the cost of practicality, as at the Bernat Klein Studio, Selkirk Right - The workspace illustrates the perils of placing all your faith in a flat roof in a damp climate

textiles glowing. On an autumn day in 2020, silver birch trunks threw shadows across the dirty glass and the studio looked rather forlorn, with an empty interior and smashed doors.

The studio is an exercise in balance, its decks cantilevered from the stair core and poised over a brick plinth. An architectural puritan would have used in-situ concrete throughout as a universal material, but Womersley realised that the best expression of its concrete-ness would be achieved using white precast cladding. He used precast in the same way that Mies used I-beams on the face of the Seagram Building: to represent the spirit of the material, rather than the load-bearing truth.

The studio fell out of use a few years ago, then Studio DuB won Listed Building Consent for its refurbishment into two apartments. However, a burst water pipe halted renovations and since then the studio has lain unused.

Brian Robertson of the Zembla Gallery in Hawick is a fan.

He told me, “I think that Womersley should be better known and his buildings better recognised and cherished. The Klein studio is a national disgrace at the moment. It brings shame on our small country, but we have previous, after all…”. Zembla Gallery hopes to run an exhibition of artwork

inspired by Womersley’s architecture some time during 2021, drawn from a wide array of admirers.

Speaking afterwards to Gordon Duffy of Studio DuB, “The Studio was the only Womersley listed building in Scotland (even then, only in 1994) and I nominated a number of his buildings including the stadium in 2006 which triggered a review of his oeuvre. Historic Scotland missed an opportunity to list the Port Murray house at the time before the application for demolition. External modifications had been made, but it was totally intact internally.” The loss of that house, near Maidens in Ayrshire, is a warning about Womersley’s legacy.

The former Roxburgh County Council buildings at Newtown St Boswells have a happier story. The racetrackplan office block with its soaring tower is still well used, and as Paul Stallan of Stallan-Brand told me, “Together with Graven we have been advising Scottish Borders Council on their HQ. Essentially we are attempting to purge the building of accretions to find its essential diagram. The ideal scenario would be decant and undertake a major defurbishment of the entire complex, unfortunately this has not been possible as the building is still so intensively used.”

De-furbishment, the skilful conservation of Modernist >

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David Narro Associates are undertaking essential repairs to this A-listed stand for Gala Fairydean Rovers

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buildings by removing half a century’s worth of alterations is also being pursued at one of the best-known Womersley buildings, the stand at Gala Fairydean Rovers FC in Galashiels. The cantilevers and backspans of the canopy are elemental forms – and if you can hear an echo of the Kingsgate Footbridge in Durham, that’s because Ove Arup engineered them both.

During a Zoom call with Jim Grimley of Reiach and Hall, I discovered that the initial conservation project will deal with repairs to the decaying concrete and steel reinforcement, but beyond that it’s hoped to strip away decades of clutter – such as the mock-Tudor timbers on the bar ceiling which would have horrified Womersley.

During training, doctors are taught that, “When you hear the sound of hooves, think horses not zebras”, meaning think firstly of common conditions rather imagining you’ve diagnosed a rare illness. All of Womersley’s healthcare buildings, but especially the Nuffield Transplantation Unit at Edinburgh’s Western General, are zebras. On first acquaintance the Nuffield Unit seems like a formworker’s nightmare, but look more closely and the rhythms and ordering principles are as sophisticated as Jørn Utzon’s at Bagsværd Church.

In an address to the RIBA in 1968, Womersley himself said, “This building has been dismissed, I know, as a piece of sculpture, not architecture. I don’t see why a building should not be both.” He explained that he strove, “To experiment aesthetically, producing at the same time a building which stands up to both gravity and weather, and satisfies the client in use and as an investment,” and summed up, “My approach to architecture is relatively simple: I try and give delight.”

A different side of Womersley manifested itself at the Edenside GP Practice in Kelso. He evolved a modern Scottish language, with consulting rooms contained inside the doocot curves which also delighted Mackintosh and Lorimer.

By contrast, the Boilerhouse at Dingleton Hospital is a much plainer building which relies on proportion and surface modelling: the prismatic coal bunkers sit in a tall, narrow tower with a stepped lean-to at the rear, and a soaring chimney. The Boilerhouse is currently empty, but unlike the Bernat Klein Studio it appears to have a future: Studio DuB is working with developer New Life to convert it into five residential units.

After completing a leisure centre in Coatbridge in 1977, Womersley relocated to Hong Kong, where he’d previously refurbished the Peninsula Hotel. Perhaps he left Scotland because his particular Modernism had fallen out of fashion – but by then, the Borders textile industry was also in decline, and his struggle and ultimate failure to realise a scheme for Edinburgh College of Art may also have contributed.

He left a few things behind. His work proves that URBAN REALM WINTER 2020 URBANREALM.COM

Scottish Modernism isn’t found solely in the big cities of the Central Belt; but neither was Womersley unique. The house designs of Morris & Steedman are comparable: they were also influenced by the same ideas of zoning, the importance of setting and an exploration of the grid.

There were other Modernists at work in what some might casually dismiss as provincial Scotland. Robert Matthew’s sequence of 1960’s hydro-power plants in Highland Perthshire offers a different template for how to integrate Modernism into the countryside. Another contemporary is Michael Shewan, whose work includes his own house in Forres which was also inspired by Case Study principles, plus Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen (Urban Realm, Autumn 2014).

Peter Womersley died in 1993 and sadly recognition came too late. The Bernat Klein Studio was listed in 1994

by Historic Scotland, following which DoCoMoMo Scotland took a Womersley study tour in 2004, then Historic

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Left - The Nuffield Transplantation Unit at Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital Right - Dingleton Hospital Boilerhouse, Melrose

Scotland carried out a thematic study of his work in 2007, following prompting by architects like Gordon Duffy and Rebecca Wober.

Womersley’s first international exposure came from the Scottish contribution to the 2014 Venice Biennale, selected

by Jim Grimley of Reiach and Hall, then 2016’s Festival of Architecture featured lectures, a tour of Womersley’s work and the Grey Gardens exhibition at Dundee Contemporary Arts, which was a major retrospective of Modernist and Brutalist architecture.

At that point, Simon Green of Historic Environment Scotland noted that Womersley’s work was “an acquired taste” and that he would never reach the mainstream like Mackintosh has done. Not so fast. HES has got it wrong with Womersley before – by failing to list the house at Port Murray, for example. Shelley Klein’s book, “The SeeThrough House”, was selected as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in 2020, which for a title about Modernist architecture

is as mainstream as it gets.

The Preserving Womersley campaign was set up to guard against Port Murray happening again. It consists of a small group dedicated to raising awareness of his architecture, in particular the Bernat Klein Studio. They describe themselves as “a strong voice on behalf of Womersley’s architecture in any discussions with the current or future owners about preserving the Studio in its original form and condition.” James Colledge from Preserving Womersley told me that around 350 people have signed up so far, and their website (preservingwomersley.net) is a repository of information about his work.

While Peter Womersley’s reputation isn’t in any doubt, his architectural legacy is. Although it would be fitting to have a book about him on the Scottish architectural bookshelf, it would be even better if that recognition was translated into respect for all his remaining work.

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HOKO DESIGN JOHN GLENDAY

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AL L NDER AGAINST A BACKDROP OF RECESSION, FURLOUGH AND UNCERTAINTY ONE PRACTICE IS BUCKING THE TREND WITH AN OPTIMISTIC APPRAISAL FROM BRIDGETON TO BIRMINGHAM. WE SPEAK TO HOKO DESIGN FOUNDER DANNY CAMPBELL TO HEAR WHAT OPPORTUNITIES CAN BE FOUND IN A CRISIS.

Glasgow-based architecture practice HOKO Design is going against the furlough grain by embarking on an ambitious expansion drive which, following £400k of private equity investment, will see it recruit five new architects, bringing its architect tally to ten across ten cities.

By being bold when others are fearful the business hopes to seize a growth opportunity and capitalise on a period where people have become acutely aware of their home environment by providing a one-stop service for aspirational homeowners looking to ease the pain of lockdown with a new extension, garden room or remodel.

Thinking small to deliver big the practice is focussed exclusively on delivering small-scale residential extensions at volume to build a niche for itself in a crowded sector.

Founder Danny Campbell bullishly brushes aside the chaos and uncertainty around him, telling Urban Realm: “It’s misery everywhere, all my contacts seem to be clinging on with furlough or on one day a week or redundancy. It’s brutal.

We’re hiring three more architects and in a week we had 150 applicants. There’s a huge talent pool out there at the moment.

“By the end of the year, we’ll be over 20 staff with at least 10 architects in ten locations despite what might happen with >

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Campbell has long had the world in his sights, be that art or architecture

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the lockdown regulations.”

Setting his sights south on Manchester, Dublin, Belfast Leeds, Birmingham and Bristol, Campbell is leapfrogging organic growth in favour of a big bang approach to deliver scale at speed, capitalising on an architecture profession which remains fragmented following the last economic crash in 2008.

Divulging the secret of his success Campbell cites a focus on small projects to the exclusion of all else. “The way

our model is set up works well for small extensions,” says Campbell. “We can make that model aspirational. Architects see that work as unglamorous but it’s one of the few small crevices in the construction industry where people say thankyou.”

Determined not to follow the diversification strategy that others have pursued Campbell sees value in a laserlike focus on domestic work and doing it well, particularly in an economic climate where the importance of the home >

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as a place of work and a refuge from the outside world has become more important than ever.

As a relative newcomer to the profession, Campbell has the benefit of a fresh perspective and lack of preconceived notions of how the world should be, seeing opportunities for growth where others see recession.

“The whole construction industry is very fragmented,” Campbell says. “Most people don’t know where to find an architect and don’t know what an architect does. By default, they make bad decisions. Architects don’t market themselves.”

Having identified a blind spot in the industry for the smallest projects Campbell has been swift to capitalise, commenting: “From day one in training we’re inspired to work on bigger and bigger projects. I’ve seen part 2 graduates who have prepared an urban masterplan, it’s unrealistic in the real world of building. There’s no mention of dealing with builders and clients, it’s all left to the imagination. They don’t even really mention planning or building control through university.

What you have is a few really big players who employ almost all the new graduates and it’s almost impossible to qualify if you’ve not worked for one of those.

“I qualified for my part 3 at 28 and went straight into my own company, I don’t know anyone else who has managed that, it’s a logistical struggle.”

Low fees require high volumes to be viable and here HOKO also claims an edge, by recruiting back-office technicians to handle drawing work, freeing up the architect to speak with many more potential clients, differentiating them from more established firms. As Campbell notes: “The way the industry is set up favours big players and anybody who doesn’t want to work in a huge organisation has to start up on their own while being trained on a model which completely clashes with the needs of private homeowners.

“What we offer to our project architects is they don’t need to do any draughting, no sitting behind the computer. They do drawings and genuinely spend a lot of time on design and the client experience. We’ve then got the engine room back in Glasgow that facilitates all that.”

HOKO differs from digital architecture companies such as Resi by employing of by employing local architects and builders to deliver projects, minimising risk during the fraught build stage. “All the risk is piled up in construction”, observes Campbell. “We put a lot of emphasis on building relationships with contractors, the volume of work facilitates it. I feel for the contractors because they’re in the same boat as a lot of the small architecture firms, there’s a lot to deal with and the tendering aspect gets rushed.”

Asked what the public reception has been to this more democratic form of architecture Campbell adds: “They’re often quite confused about what we do, they don’t understand what an architect does. We’re not trying to win the Stirling Prize for every project, we’re just trying to create something unique and special. There’s no bog-standard design we’ll throw up.”

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Left - Putting himself in the clients shoes Campbell is pioneering new mediums of communication Right - Rose tinted goggles are sometimes needed to see the future as it could be

Attention to the client experience extends to support for virtual reality technology which has proved a boon to streamlining communication with an online project dashboard and cost builder facilitating business during lockdown.

“People generally struggle to visualise stuff on plan”, explains Campbell. “ I struggle sometimes to understand material qualities and heights when you are looking at a flat drawing.

What we can do is share virtual reality with moving trees and realistic sun paths, it’s almost photorealistic and goes back to that question of how we can build a better client experience. It also saves time as people can misinterpret plans.

“We’re not making home visits at the moment which will dampen our sales ability but we have a strong pipeline of projects which we can devote attention to. We have seven-day turnarounds for producing drawings which we can bring down to three. It’s tough for small businesses to survive, no-one wants to turn to the government to bail them out. We all want to work and do what we love.”

Looking ahead Campbell harbours ambitions of taking the concept internationally, establishing HOKO as a household name in a world where only a few starchitects can boast name recognition. In doing so Campbell can democratise access to architecture and architects by eliminating barriers and the perception that architecture is only for the rich.

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New Year resolutions This autumn Urban Realm ran a reader survey inviting feedback on how we can improve and topics and subjects you would like to see covered in future. A selection of responses which will inform our approach to 2021 and beyond are printed here. We asked. We listened.

The website is very pedestrian in its structure and graphic presentation.

The items featured on the website don’t seem to have any quality/content filter or curated approach - it comes across as if contents is gathered purely from random screengrabs from existing council Planning portals.

I think a system where you had to put your real name would get rid of the anonymous ranting and would ensure that those who have something to say, say it with conviction!

I think it would be useful to use the UR100 as a platform to discussion around employment practice, issues surrounding gender equality, LGBT / BAME rather than current format, where’s the best practice to work?

The comments section of posts needs to be moderated. It’s become a face of humiliation for the industry. Others must think we are crazy. Headlines and journalism generally should be better and much less tabloid in their quest for a strapline. I think if the quality of the journalism improves then the quality of the engagement may also follow suit.

By making the inclusion of airtightness, energy performance, environmental strategies and whole life carbon figures a mandatory inclusion for all building case studies.

Design quality from hub (or lack thereof), lack of diversity in the profession (specifically Scotland). New and emerging practice profiles.

The website is so out of date - the level of critique - getting rid of the blanket news items and making a critical reflection on whether or not it is newsworthy, less is more, quality over quantity, all seems a bit stuck in the past.

The blogs on the website are rarely updated and lack diversity of voices. (also, how do people get invited to participate?)

The printed publication is always well composed and it would be good to see more synergy between this and the website.

Possibly more coverage of what’s happening - or could happen - on our remote islands where community groups are often in charge of appointing design teams.

Sustainability, Overdevelopment of green belt/ greenfield land and design quality. Our urban areas are being overrun by mediocre architecture. The planning system and AD+S seem to do little to promote or insist upon better design. All the control lies with the developers, who care little for the outcome and use marketing spiel to make it sound like they’re doing us all a favour.

The responses of local authorities to the Climate and Ecological Emergency, especially the progress of those who made public declarations in response to activists’ demands.

The responses of local authorities to the Climate and Ecological Emergency, especially the progress of those who made public declarations in response to activists’ demands.

Housing on remote islands. The forgotten issue in my view.

Is prefabrication the answer here or should there be more focus on a local solution using local builders.

Political direction of urban areas - eg comparisons between cities and what they get right or need to learn from. Climate resilience design. How is net-zero carbon achieved? Rural sustainability and small towns eg town centre renewals. Early career perspectives Creative stuff away from the mainstream - timber, low carbon, offgrid, hutting, innovative land use, rural - loads going on out there and most of it’s more interesting than a new office block or cheap affordable scheme!

Focus on projects and processes/practices that are addressing the climate emergency.

I think you should start a splinter website which focusses purely on great architecture in Scotland - something along the lines of Dezeen. UR seems to be a planning news platform whereas something that was designed specifically to promote, discuss and reward great Scottish architecture (and also interior & workplace design projects!) is missing. This would tie in nicely with your running of the Scottish Design Awards.

Comments section can be entertaining but isn’t necessarily a positive thing.

More frequent critical reviews of new buildings from a greater diversity of writers (in terms of gender and ethnicity). Encouraging/sharing more regular contributions from individuals in academia as well as practice, with reflections on both contemporary architectural discourse alongside insights into historic buildings, places and practices. Greater coverage of technical innovations within the industry, in particular, spotlighting the successful use of more sustainable construction methods and integrated technology helping reduce energy consumption. Would perhaps also be interesting to engage individuals from client backgrounds to contribute their perspective on contemporary issues within the industry, perhaps with reference to specific recent projects. Greater use of embedded video to communicate projects, lectures and events.

Opportunities for local development. How reducing car usage can improve cities. Datadriven studies and discussion on community first urban improvement I think it’s great that you’re looking ahead and how to plan your direction going forwards. I’m interested to see where it goes!

The website and the magazine need critical editor(s) working closely within the field of architecture/urban design (even part-time) for these platforms to be industry leaders.

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DIRECTORY LISTING ARCHITECTS & BUILDING CONSULTANTS AHR Tel: 0141 225 0555 Email: glasgow@ahr.co.uk Web: www.ahr.co.uk Clockwise, Savoy Tower, 77 Renfrew Street Glasgow G2 3BZ Carson & Partners Tel: 0141 442 0036 Email: mail@carsonandpartners.com Web: www.carsonandpartners.com Second Floor, Argyll Chambers Buchanan Street, Glasgow G2 8BD jmarchitects Tel: 0141 333 3920 Email: gla@jmarchitects.net Web: www.jmarchitects.net Michael Laird Architects Tel: 01312266991 Fax: 1312262771 Email: marketing@michaellaird.co.uk Web: www.michaellaird.co.uk 5 Forres Street, Edinburgh EH3 6DE Stewart Associates Chartered Architects Tel: 01475 670033 Email: info@stewart-associates.com Web: www.stewart-associates.com The Studio, 9 Waterside Street Largs, Ayrshire KA30 9LN ARCHITECTURE & MASTER PLANNING Hypostyle Architects Tel: 0141 204 4441 Contact: Gerry Henaughen Email: glasgow@hypostyle.co.uk Web: www.hypostyle.co.uk BUILDING SOLUTIONS/ FACADES Porcelanosa Tel 0141 533 100 Email: braehead@porcelanosa.co.uk Web www.porcelanosa.com/uk 2 Rocep Drive, Braehead, Glasgow PA4 8YT Contact: Chris Kerr, General Manager

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 Will Rudd Davidson Tel: 0141 248 4866 Contact: Brian Walker Fax: (0)131 557 2942 Web: www.ruddconsult.com/ 43 York Place, Edinburgh EH1 3HP COMMERCIAL FURNITURE Rakkaus Furniture Tel: 01563 501 887 Email: chris@rakkausfurniture.co.uk Web: www.rakkausfurniture.co.uk Trinity Business Spaces, 14-18 East Shaw St, Kilmarnock KA1 4AN CLADDING RHEINZINK Tel: 01276 686725 Fax: 01276 64480 Email: info@rheinzink.co.uk Web: www.rheinzink.co.uk Wyvern House, 55-61 High Street Frimley GU16 7HJ FIRE ENGINEERS Astute Fire Ltd Tel: 0131 4458607 Contact: Adam Bittern Email: adambittern@astutefire.com Web: www.astutefire.com FLOORING BONA Tel +44 (0)1908 525 150 Fax +44 (0)1908 311 677 Email: info.uk@bona.com Web: www.bona.com 6 Thornton Chase, Linford Wood, Milton Keynes MK14 6FD LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS LDA Tel: +44 (0) 141 222 9780 Email: kirstin.taylor@lda-design.co.uk Web: www.lda-design.co.uk Sovereign House, 158 West Regent Street, Glasgow G2 4RL

LUC 37 Otago Street, Glasgow G12 8JJ Tel: 0141 334 9595 Email: glasgow@landuse.co.uk 3rd Floor, Atholl Exchange 6 Canning Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EG Tel: 0131 202 1616 Email: edinburgh@landuse.co.uk Web: landuse.co.uk rankinfraser Contact: Chris Rankin Tel: 0131 226 7071 Email: mail@rankinfraser.com Web: www.rankinfraser.com LIFTS Stannah Tel: 0141 882 9946 Fax: 0141 882 7503 Email: contact@stannah.co.uk Web: www.stannahlifts.co.uk 45 Carlyle Avenue, Hillington Industrial Estate, Glasgow G52 4XX NATURAL SLATE Cupa Pizarras Tel: 0131 225 3111 Email: uk@cupapizarras.com Web: www.cupapizarras.com 45 Moray Place Edinburgh EH3 6bQ PHOTOGRAPHY Niall Hastie Photography Email: niall@niallhastiephotography.com Web: www.niallhastiephotography.com 567A Great Western Road Aberdeen AB10 6PA SIGNAGE CONSULTANTS Sign Supplier Tel: 0800 133 7555 Email: info@signsupplier.co.uk Web: www.signsupplier.co.uk Unit 15 Dale Industrial Estate Radcliffe, Manchester, M26 1AD SPECIALIST SUPPLIER OF SUSTAINABLE TIMBER Russwood Tel: 01540 673648 Email: mail@russwood.co.uk Web: www.russwood.co.uk

STONE Denfind Stone Tel: 01382 370220 Fax: 01382 370722 Email: sales@denfindstone.co.uk Web: www.denfindstone.co.uk Pitairlie Quarry, Denfind Farm Monikie, Angus, DD5 3PZ Dunedin Stone Tel: 01875 613075 Fax: 01875 615236 Email: info@dunedinstone.co.uk Web: www.dunedinstone.co.uk 17a Macmerry Industrial Estate, Macmerry, East Lothian EH33 1RD Tradstocks Natural Stone Tel: 01786 850400 Fax: 01786 850404 Email: info@tradstocks.co.uk Web: www.tradstocks.co.uk Dunaverig, Thornhill, Stirling FK8 3QW TILING Porcelain Plus Tel: 01236 728436 Contact: Moira Pollock Email: moira@porcelainplus.co.uk Web: www.porcelainplus.co.uk TILE SUPPLIERS Ceramexcel Contract Ceramics Ltd Tel: 01698 262442 Mob: 07825 612219 Email: sales@ceramexcel.com 12 Dellburn Trading Park, Meadow Road, Motherwell Lanarkshire ML1 1QB TIMBER ENGINEERING Scotframe Tel: 01467 624 440 Email: inverurie@scotframe.co.uk Web: www.scotframe timberengineering.co.uk Inverurie Business Park Souterford Avenue, Inverurie AB51 OZJ Contact: Gillian Murray TOILETS/WASHROOM CUBICLES Interplan Panel Systems Tel: +44 (0)141 336 4040 Email: contact@interplansystems.co.uk Web: www.interplanpanelsystems.co.uk Unit 2/2 Brand Place, Glasgow G51 1DR

A MAGAZINE ABOUT THE STREETS IS ON THE STREETS To advertise contact John Hughes on 0141 356 5333 or email jhughes@urbanrealm.com

PRODUCTS

TO ADVERTISE YOUR PRODUCT OR COMPANY IN THIS SECTION CONTACT JOHN HUGHES ON 0141 356 5333 S HARRISON AGREES SALE OF GORGIE ROAD DEVELOPMENT SITE

NORDAN REAFFIRMS ITS COMMITMENT TO FOUNDING VALUES

York based property development company, S Harrison, has sold a prominent development site in Edinburgh to Watkin Jones for an undisclosed sum. S Harrison secured planning permission on the Gorgie Road site earlier this year for a major new student accommodation scheme consisting of 248 bedrooms in two buildings made up of 35 studio rooms and a mixture of cluster apartments, ranging from six to 10 bedrooms.

NorDan is among Europe’s leading manufacturers of windows and doors. Since the founding in 1926 both the company and larger society has gone through significant changes, but one thing remains the same: NorDan is a family owned company, and is run by the same basic values as when founded.

Tel: 0113 2191975 Web: www.s-harrison.co.uk

PORCELANOSA INVITES CONSUMERS TO VIEW NEW PRODUCTS With more than 45 years’ experience, PORCELANOSA Group is one of the most prestigious ceramics manufacturers in the world, offering kitchen and bathroom furniture in over 970 stores across 150 countries. Throughout, consumers can see on-going developments in the innovation and design of all its products.

Tel: 01506 433 173

RAKKAUS BUILDS EUROPEAN REACH Established in 2017, Rakkaus furniture meaning love in Finnish is a family run supplier of commercial furniture and seating.

From our modern studios just 30 minutes from Glasgow, we can not only assist clients in Scotland but deliver projects up and down the UK including parts of Germany and the Netherlands.

Tel: 01923 656777 Email: group@porcelanosa.co.uk Web: www.porcelanosa.com/uk

Tel: 01563 501 887 Email: info@rakkausfurniture.co.uk

SILA SELECT SIBERIAN LARCH

XBURO LAUNCHES LONDON OFFICE AMID LOCKDOWN BOOM

Selected from the best available grades before being re-graded in house to our exacting standards.

SILA Select Siberian Larch, with its excellent durability properties, attractive figuring and versatility is the cladding of choice for architects, contractors and self-builders seeking a superior cladding product.

Scottish mechanical and electrical engineering consultants XBuro has announced a significant expansion into the south of England – including the launch of a new London office and a recruitment drive. Among the 55 contracts taken on by XBuro since March are eight substantial projects for the NHS, including the Covid-19 test facility at Gartnavel Hospital by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and the Western General Infrastructure Works project by NHS Lothian.

Tel: 01540 673648 Email: mail@russwood.co.uk Web: www.russwood.co.uk

TO ADVERTISE IN URBAN REALM PLEASE CONTACT JOHN HUGHES ON 0141 356 5333 OR EMAIL JHUGHES@URBANREALM.COM

Tel: www.xburo.co.uk

SOLUTIONS TO FIT ANY S P A C E.

Shop at your own pace.

01563 501 887

RAKKAUSFURNITURE.CO.UK