BUILDING HOME FOR SCOTTISH STEAM LOCOMOTIVES SCOTTISH LOCOMOTIVE MUSEUM DESIGN
ZHOUJIE CHEN Glasgow School of Art Mackintosh School of Architecture
“Springburn was really the home of railway production in Scotland. The North British Locomotive Company was the largest locomotive builder in Europe. It built locomotives for all the major railway companies in Britain but more importantly sent out thousands of locomotives to railways all across the globe.� said John Messner Glasgow's Museum of Transport.
Glasgow and Steam Engines In John Messner's short comment, it is not too hard to see what locomotives and railway industry bring to Glasgow and vice versa. From here some most successful and famous machines were produced, some of them serve for domestic railway, more were exported globally and become the first generation of industrial power for many countries. As for remembering this glory history of locomotive manufacturing in “the Workshop of the Empire�, and tell this story to this nations’ next generation and the visitors, a museum with locomotive exhibition and public activity centre will be planned and designed. And beside the educational purpose and public memory, as a public building, this museum will also promote the urban life quality in the central Glasgow by creating diversified urban activities for the city. The Scottish Locomotive Museum Project is a conceptual design project which aim to producing a locomotive museum design plan for Glasgow city. It is an urban building project which provides professional railway engines and collections to people who are interested in Scottish railway culture, and also designed with the resilient building concept which share its space with the city environment to who enjoy the urban life in public space.
Site Introduction & Selecting Strategy To select a suitable site for a locomotive museum, the project’s location problem should be considered from two angles, human and machine. From human angle, as a public building in a city, a museum should be easy accessing to serve a larger number of people. It means the location should not be far away from the urban life zone, and it should be connected by public transportation if possible. And also, as public museum, it should become a part of the urban life in a busy urban environment to create various urban activities. In this case, the first essential rule for site selection is to seek a site in a rich urban context area.
Secondly, as a locomotive monument, the museum is a place for people, especial for elderly people, who witnessed this history and the to share their lovely memory and recall their past on the track or platform. It means the site should be able to show certain relationship to urban context related to the historical or existing railway elements like railway works or station to tell a good locomotive story. From the machine aspect, the biggest problem in this design for machines is size, as most of the locomotives are big and heavy guys which are generally around 20 meters long and over 3 meters’ height. It means, to cover and store them, a huge shed or single space will be needed. And for a museum, the site of building should be large enough to manage all these stuffs.
Site Introduction & Selecting Strategy
Taking these key factors into consideration, there are four essential rules for a locomotive museum site selection: 1. In order to make the museum into a real urban building to serve more people, the museum should be surrounded by a complex urban environment. 2. As the technical requirement of locomotive exhibition, the site should be large enough for a large scale building. 3. To better present the railway item and for better managing locomotive collections, the machines should be placed on the track which are connected to the working railway system. 4. To echo the historical background of the railway culture, the ideal choice will be a site with significant railway context in the city.
Design Strategies
In the last part, the St Enoch car park has been explained to be a wonderful location which perfectly met the site selecting standards. In this part some concepts and strategies will be applied into the design process to solve the problem. Essentially, in order to solve the museum organization problem to make the collections portable and changeable, how to connect the nearby high level and to organize the track plan in the museum will be the first challenge. In order to achieve this goal, two ends of the existing high level track will be used, a train line started from both ends will be connected together to become a curve track. And a side-way track from the southern entrance will access into the exhibition space to make the collections in the show room as a part of general railway system. Secondly, as the museum will be a large public building in the busy urban area, it should take in charge of providing more public space and urban activities for Glasgow’s citizens. It means the museum should not just provide space for locomotive but also have to consider the need of other public functions. To reflect this requirement, the building will be considered and designed
in two part, museum space and urban complex space. And a concept echoing shared economic will be apply to balance these two main system in the building t o m a ke i t i n t o a r e s i l i e n t urban building. This part will be expanding in the following phase. After these two consideration, the next essential question will come to how to cohere the large space of building and the high density urban pattern. The main discussion and research of this question has been mentioned in the Research Paper 2. In Research Paper 2, a number of cases has been studies and the concepts or solution applied in these have been listed. In the final solution of this project, the volume close to the crowded urban environment was divided and minimized into a framework. A s e m i - vo i d s t r u c t u r e w a s established the echo the scale of the surrounding building. Apart from the location issue, the design of a museum should be able to explore an advanced method which can tell good locomotive story of Glasgow and Scotland through the architectural form and space. For this purpose, in order to better understand a railway exhibition space, a case study of British
Nation Railway Museum has been done in the Research Paper 2. Following the outcome of this research, a comprehensive plan for the functional organization in the museum has been produced in the design process. Furthermore, apart from the functional organization and site consideration which aim to explain the railway item, the design of Scottish Museum will explain its item through the architectural form. Some symbolic or characteristic elements in railway culture will be reflected or used in the building form to better spread its main item. In this way, a museum can tell its item with not just collections store in it but also the construction itself. The design process has taken all this background information into consideration, from these backg round information and a n a ly z at i o n t o g e n e r at e a n integrate design of a locomotive museum. The design process will present from these five aspects, which are design concept, design developing process, presenting item through architectural form, exhibition organization and the social meaning toward urban building.
PAYING TRIBUTES TO THE OLD ST. ENOCH STATION The location of project is in central Glasgow area where surrounded by rich urban fabric and a lot of significant urban elements. And it is large enough to place the huge volume building. Thirdly, a high level train line goes pass by the St Enoch car park provided the possibility for the museum to connect with the city railway system. Lastly, this site can tell good historical background to the public as it used to be a part of the old St Enoch railway station to locate its engine shed and an intersection area for managing trains, it is why the outline of the site was shaped like what it be today and also explained the existing of the high level track nearby.
ARCHITECTURAL FORM DEVELOPMENT
Step 1. The previous track pattern which linked the remain track with the St Enoch Station are highlighted and developed into two main volumes of the building. Step 2. Two ends of the east track are self-connected to create a curve volume for a station.
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Step 3. a symbolic item, turntable, is get involved in the central space to cohere buildings on three directions. This ring-shape volume soften geometrical contradiction of the existing volumes and created a uniform space between each other. Step 4. Considering the over scale issue of the building, the huge scale northern volume was divided into a 5mx5m framework to minimized the scale.
Telling Railway through Architectural Form
Unlike a general urban building like gallery or opera house in the city, an ideal museum should be able to tell the story through the characteristic space and form rather than just present item through paper and models. In the design of the Scottish Locomotive Museum, the item of engine and railway cultural is abstracted then explained by some symbolistic form and metaphors. For example, the essential elements in the railway system will be contained like turntable and station platform, these elements not only have their symbolic meanings but also have practical functional meanings for exhibition. Some symbols came from the railway images, but will serve as some other way like the “signal Box� on the framework. All these related elements tell the item in both formal and functional way, but serve not only to the exhibition but also for urban life to make the museum more efficient and flexible in the city.
EVOLUTION OF LOCOMOTIVES FROM STRAM TO ELECTRIC
The outline of the faรงade is echoing the outline of the engines abstractly. The tall volume at the north is echoing the early steam engines, which are str ucture exposed and shaped sharply. By the development of technology over a century, the locomotives have evolved and were shaped in a very smooth, slick, and lower way which are more aerodynamic.
RAILWAY TURNTABLE HOME OF ENGINES
As a key element in the railway organization, the turntable is not only a wonderful approach in order to manage the huge machines in a limited space in the city centre but also a symbolic space for exhibiting railway culture. It smartly changed the way the track place linearly into radial way, and the central area it created is like an intensive platform for the showing various locomotive simultaneously. This char acteristic is ver y important for a museum because it can show various collections in a same space or in a same picture to provide the possibility for typological contrasting.
STATION & PLATFORM CONNECTING RAILWAY TO LIFE
A s i t i s a r a i lw a y m u s e u m connected to the track, this means trains can access to the museum easily. So at the east side of the building a station with a curve platform like the Scottish famous Wemyss Bay Station (design by Jams Miller) was designed for the general city railway line to stop, and visitors can enter the museum space by the typical method which responds to the main item. It is a special first-person experience in the exhibition tour rather than just fixed collections and printing materials.
ALONG THE TRACK BRIDGE SINGAL BOX DOCK INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS
The north part of building is a semi-transparent construction called Urban Framework. this part is closest to the complex urban pattern and commercial area which it became an interface of building and city. explain the railway item, some abstract elements along the track like signal box and industrial loading structures were placed on this framework. For example, the signal box is supposed to be a bookshop so citizens can enjoy reading with a higher city view.
THE WORKSHOP A LIVEHOUSE FOR MACHINE CREATING
At the early age of 20st century, Glasgow have one of the hugest locomotive works in the world located in Springbur n. In the museum, a small workshop will be placed at the entr ance of track tell the story of locomotive manufacturing. But unlike the general works that were creating engines from non, this workshop is like a live house in order to show people the process of machine repairing. Visitors can get access to the gallery on the first floor to see how the run-down machines are fixed into a slick beautiful collection for exhibiting.
ENERGY FILLER COAL BUNKER WATER TOWER
To explain the railway item more systematically, some abstract elements along the track like signal box and industrial loading structures were placed on this framework. A series of these cubes can serve in various purposes which related to the exhibition or for the urban environment. For example, the cinema can play the film of railway item as well as general movie. The gallery shaped like a coal bunker can be used as a part of museum collection or some independent art show.
Platform Space In this show room, the engines are placed in a linear way which is similar to the general srailway station space. Under the engines, a gallery for railway posters and publications is located on the ground floor. Visitors can see the chassis of the locomotives from the gap between their wheels.
Platform Space The structure above the engines are railway library and data base. Skylight from top can keep the space bright enough for reading. From the gap between the library space, skylight can access into the platform space which provide natural lighting and shape the engines with shade and shadow.
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Resilient Urban Building To make this building more flexible to become a resilient urban building, this project is learning from an economic conce pt called Shared Economic. In this concept, people will share existing resource owned by others instead of buying. By creating an equitable communicating system, people with new needs can rent a shortterm right of using from holders. This method can widely enhance the service efficiency of existing production and cut the waste of natural resources. In today’s society, with the spreading and explosion of sharing economic concept, we can see life style in the city has been changed in many ways. For example, with the help of internet, car booking software like Uber is encouraging more and more divers to earn money by their idle cars. And Airbnb, a website is helping house holder to let their house or certain room of their home to travellers from all over the world. In the design of Scottish Locomotive Museum, to increase the variation of the experience, some additional space with certain special purpose will be required occasionally, like the cinema for railway film playing and the auditorium for meeting and academic lectures. These functions will not be organized regularly in the museum, instead, they will be extended into the urban framework located above the exhibition space to share the space with the city. Generally, the urban public space is serving like any commercial area like any other city area. Companies can rent the space form the museum for various services. The rent form this stores can support the running of museum in certain way.
General space expanding strategy Once the museum is built, its space is like the first circle (blue), with the increasing of functional demand, additional spaces (yellow)will be built, but once the need of these functions go down, the additional space will become a waste and decrease the building’s efficiency.
Resilient space expanding Strategy Resilient space expanding Strategy: Two independent systems, exhibition space (blue) and urban public space (pink) are sharing some function at the beginning. When the exhibition need more space, the urban part can share more to it. Once this demand reduced it can retune to its original state, or then reduce the exhibition scale.
Urban Framework A framework structure contents independent functional space and commuting path is located at the north of the museum above the exhibition space. the semitransparent structure provides good view of the city and the path on the roof the engines show room allow people to witness the engines from the top. The platform space is suitable for urban activities and citizen’s communication.
Urban Functional Space A series of boxes on the urban framework are playing various roles to the citizens. This is a bookshop located in a structure with a signal box metaphor. The functional book shelves from the ground to the roof are the main constructions in interior design.