Glasgow Design Awards 2020
Development is often viewed as at best an uncomfortable bed fellow and at worst a destroyer of our built heritage. In reality, the opposite can be the reality. When passionate clients, talented designers, planners and engineers and skilled contractors are aligned the results for heritage buildings can be, quite simply, transformative. Transformative for the building, the place in which it sits, the owner, nearby communities and even nationally. “Oh really? Prove it.” I hear the cynics say. So here goes…
I recently had the honour and good fortune to be one of the judges in the Glasgow Institute of Architects’ 2020 Design Awards. Despite the pandemic, 46 schemes were submitted by 25 practices for judging in 8 categories. Almost without exception they show Architects (and supporting technical professionals) and Contractors (and their specialist subcontractors) working at the top of their game, often with limited budgets, to deliver beautiful, life-enhancing buildings.
Applications including the refurbishment and repurposing of five Grade A, five Grade B and one Grade C listed buildings, several located in Conservation areas and one also in Edinburgh’s New Town World Heritage Site. Additionally, in the small works and residential categories a further four buildings of local heritage value were the subject of repair and renewal.
The Awards Ceremony on the 27th November provided an opportunity to celebrate the worthy winners. Heritage buildings feature strongly amongst the winners:
Aberdeen Art Gallery (Hoskins Architects)
Winner of the Supreme Award and Winner in Leisure/Arts.
The awards reflected the exceptional and outstanding renewal of this Grade A listed building. Some ten years in the making, this £34.6M project saw the refurbishment of the building fabric and systems, the number of galleries doubled and a bold new extension added, creating a world class building housing one of the UK’s finest collections.
The Watt Institution, Greenock (Collective Architecture)
Winner of the Conservation Award and Shortlisted in Leisure/Arts.
These awards celebrate the exemplary work that went into safeguarding this Grade A listed building and its collection on a budget of less than £2M. The project focused on full external repairs, access improvements internally, remodelling and reuse of rooms to extend the useable space and full interior redecoration.
Kyles View, Tighnabruich (Technique Architects and Stallan-Brand)
Joint Winner in Small Works under £250K and Shortlisted in Residential Small.
The brief was to transform two dilapidated flats into a home and studio. A contemporary exoskeleton and a ‘jacket’ enabled the architects to retain the richness of the existing building internally. Whilst outside the strict geometries of the cladding meet the ad hoc nature of the existing stone walls and deep angled window reveals hint at something irregular within. The only break to the historic building form is a large, asymmetrical dormer which looks out over the Kyles of Bute.
Taigh-Bainne, Eriskay (BARD)
Joint Winner in Small Works under £250K.
Additionally, the owners Andy and Janet Laverty (who commissioned young practice BARD and local contractor Paul Macinnes to take a two-celled stone ruin and make a new bothy for retreat and contemplation) were one of the two Winners of Client of the Year.
The Carpenter’s House, Stenton (Loader Monteith Architects)
Commended in Residential Small.
This project involved the very careful restoration, reconfiguration and extension of a category B-listed house in a conservation village.
The Registers, Edinburgh (Hoskins Architects)
Shortlisted in Office, Commercial, Industrial, Retail.
Incorporating the redevelopment of four existing buildings, one Grade B Listed, this scheme involved the comprehensive redevelopment of a prominent but under-utilised urban site in the heart of Edinburgh’s New Town World Heritage Site and Conservation Area.
Aberdeen Music Hall (BDP)
Shortlisted in Leisure/Arts.
The project has preserved the heritage of the Grade A listed Hall, whilst creating a new identity for the venue, making it inviting and relevant to contemporary audiences. A radical re-design of public areas, enabled by technically complex structural alterations and excavation of new basement areas, has addressed long-standing shortcomings providing universal access to new and re-purposed public spaces.
Braefoot Dumgoyne (Studio KAP)
Shortlisted in Small Works under £250K
This scheme (with the smallest budget of all the night’s entries) is a new striking, south-facing porch which ‘leans’ against the existing stone entrance wall of this 18th century farm building, and is ‘folded’ to create a sunny external place. The new structure accommodates front and back doors and storage. Described by the Architects as a piece of ‘Iroko origami’, the structure was hand built by the owner.
Strone of Glenbanchor, Newtonmore (Loader Monteith Architects)
Shortlisted in Small Works under £250K.
This project involved the decarbonising, extension and internal reconfiguration of an old bothy on a hillside in the Cairngorms National Park. The works doubled the floor area of the existing cottage and brought back to life an unused and unloved property.
New build schemes which responded to their heritage settings also featured as worthy winners and included:
Gannochy Trust Lifetime Neighbourhood, Perth (Anderson Bell Christie)
Winner in Residential Large and Winner of the Sustainability Award.
Adjacent to the neighbouring model homes constructed by the Gannochy Trust in 1923 (described by Neville Chamberlain, as “unique in character and the best I have seen”), this new intergenerational mid-rental neighbourhood has been carefully designed to meet the needs of tenants as they age, and attract younger families and accommodate carers to create an inclusive and resilient community. The original homes were all orientated on a south west grid – an early use of solar gain - so new homes are orientated similarly. The new, energy efficient homes have generous front gardens and share the same distinctive hipped roofs and simple massing and proportions as their predecessors. Green spaces include spaces which encourage sociability.
Market Street Hotel, Edinburgh (jmarchitects Limited)
Commended in Leisure/Arts.
Set within the Conservation Area and confined to a restricted site that had lain derelict and undeveloped for over 50 years, the architects have created a site-specific response which celebrates the unique qualities of the Old Town setting for this new hotel. The project was subject to an ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) assessment. This report and the understanding of over 500 years of history informed the design process. The design shows how a new-build project can be contemporary whilst drawing on the architecture and roof forms of the surrounding cityscape.
And so, I rest my case. Scotland has the talent and expertise to ensure that heritage buildings and settings, both small and large, can be conserved, renewed and repurposed in ways which bring delight and utility for generations to come.
You can read more about all of the entries and winners here.
Sue Evans
MBE FLI. Deputy Chair of Architecture & Design Scotland, Chair of the Scottish Civic Trust