Design & Research Unit [DRU] Carlo Scarpa: The Tectonic Design of the Olivetti Staircase This project has thoroughly investigated the intricate, metaphorical and tectonic architecture of Carlo Scarpa. By dissecting the famous ‘Olivetti staircase’ into individual components, a deep and thorough investigation revealed the role and necessity of each part. The language of place inspired a holistic approach – giving birth to a synergy between the DRU and MAXXI projects. MAXXI Museum [Museum of Art for 21st Century] Glasgow Using the research from the DRU project as a platform, the MAXXI was conceptualised as a building of national and cultural importance. It was essential that the new museum had a hard urban edge – synonymous with Glasgow streets and buildings. The museum repairs a fragmented urban block while complimenting the varied scale of surrounding buildings. Staggered routes within the Merchant City reflect the journey through the naturally lit spaces of the MAXXI. The streetscape extends into the museum, blurring the boundary between inside and out. The protected gallery spaces hover above. Sustainability Agenda Through the orientation of the central atrium towards the south, the sustainability agenda has been underpinned by a simple design move. This solution pulls in significant amounts of natural light but also collects the heat from the sun’s rays through a dual-layer glass canopy – in turn distributing the heat gain by ventilating it around the museum. Furthermore, this chamber acts as a heat recovery system – collecting hot air rising in the atrium before filtering and pumping it back into the museum. Sourcing of materials from local quarries cuts down on transportation emissions. A thick jacket of rigid insulation and argon-filled triple glazing retains heat whilst the essential insertion of an airlock vestibule maintains air tightness. Despite using an in-situ concrete structure, the addition of a porous aggregate further preserves and insulates heat within the museum.

Fraser Davie University of Dundee School of Architecture

Greenwich: Urban Rooms This design for the new architecture & construction school in Maritime Greenwich is about the creation of good internal and external rooms informed by a context of precise courtyards, colonnades and rhythmic streetscapes. The design is a response to the interesting tension that exists between the existing intimate scale, fine grain form, and the 21st century university building. The institution is embedded within the connective tissue of the city. Interpretations of urban typologies with rich tradition in Greenwich influence a hybrid programme of education, retail and student accommodation. Facades enter dialogue with the classical language of the townscape through repetition and proportion. Elegant but practical urban interiors independent from programme express an architecture concerned with continuity and understanding of place. Kahn’s Synagogue Jerusalem In his unrealised design for the Hurva Synagogue Louis Kahn reconciled tradition with site. The Dome of the Rocks presence was rebalanced and the narrative of Jewish architecture in Jerusalem reinterpreted. Sustainability Agenda Sustainability is interpreted as long-term flexibility and need for longevity in the fabric of our cities. This is embodied in Wren’s Royal Naval College buildings and their adaptation to different institutions over centuries. A concrete frame aims to maximise versatility and potential for remodelling. Interiors finished in flush jointed brickwork lined in pinboard and plywood suit present demands but allow modifications as a result of changing needs of both university and city. Courtyard spaces reduce plan depth with natural light reaching all rooms. Fixed panels within window units naturally ventilate and recycle heat. Under the courtyard a geothermal storage loop powers a water-based heating system. A significant roof area utilises rainwater harvesting and photovoltaic panels reduce reliance on the grid. As a holistic strategy for the city block green space is both buffer zone for neighbouring gardens and bicycle storage reducing pressure on infrastructure and discouraging car journeys.

Michael GrieveUniversity of Dundee School of Architecture

The Academic Edge Venice ‘The Academic Edge’ is a Venetian urban proposition that seeks to ‘house’ the 18,000 students of the ‘Università Iuav di Venezia’ – presently commuting from the mainland – in a new campus intended to acknowledge, activate and reinforce a community of residents, students and tourists within an architecture designed to embrace rising water levels.

Demographic, productive landscape, flood, drift, embedding and inhabiting are the predominant themes of the architectural project. The project hinges on the removal of the ‘Ponte della Liberta’ rail/road bridge, the reassertion of the Venetian Island condition and the mitigation of the material, environmental and social implications of the daily mass commute of students, tourists and workers.

Collectively, these themes form the structure of a unique architectural language of kinetic and static, inhabited walls, bridges, housings and docks and comprising: a film school, a sports institution, a contemporary archive, housing, bakery, aquatic and terrestrial infrastructures. Sustainability Agenda The fluctuating tide levels of the Adriatic are a great design opportunity for providing a sustainable future for Venice – the sinking city. Instead of trying to defend against flooding, the architecture proposed is inventive and resilient whilst embracing the aqueous environment. Floating architecture is flood resistant and provides an innovative, experiential alternative to using similar facilities on solid ground. The creation of a new student-resident community separated from the mainland is a considerable sustainable addition to the Venetian economy. Student residences could be rented to tourists during vacation periods and leisure facilities such as sports venues and cinemas would provide jobs in the city and would be available for anyone to use. The project utilises strategies such as rainwater collection, water source heat pumps, adjustable louvers and hydrogen generators to sustainably heat and ventilate the micro architectures within urban proposition.

Judges’ comments: “This grouping of buildings, essentially a new quarter utilising the existing city as its backdrop, is carefully considered. The city acts as host to this appropriately scaled project, rather than its immediate context.”

Shona Black Ruth Acheson Stephen Wilson Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA)

COMMENDED A+DS URBAN DESIGN AWARD

Drifting City Venice Venice is delicately poised on the brink of inundation by the rising sea and suffering an exodus of its citizens. ‘Drifting City’ seeks a means to sustain the city, proposing the dispersal into the lagoon with new interventions catalyzing the adaptation or salvage of the flooded city. A surveyor’s chain embedded with the rhythms, proximities and narratives of the city is drifted across a rich lagoon ‘game board.’ Empirical data and narrative connections snag and distort the surveyor’s chain, its embedded information retained and intrinsic structure intact but affected and unique to new lagoon contexts. The drifted chain acts as a framework for further elaboration. Cultivating: An algae bio-ethanol farm creates a lagoon spectacle along the northern edge of the city. Sustaining: Tethering in the flooded city, drifted accumulations and tangled knots house diverse functions vital to the sustenance of Venice. Migrating: A ballast water treatment plant filters alien species migrating in the hulls of international ships. Sustainability Agenda Seeking a sustainable future for Venice through an experimental approach to design, the project proposes radical lagoon scale strategies that inform carefully detailed architectural proposals. Pertinent themes of tourism, ecology and the encroaching sea influence a series of proposals for the adaptation of Venice in a scenario of extreme flooding. Rather than attempting to build barriers against the rising water, the imminent flooding of the city is an opportunity to intervene in a way more akin to the character of Venice, embracing the sea and allowing the city to expand into new lagoon territory. A diverse range of architectural proposals respond to themes of sustainability which are specific to Venice, suggesting imaginative and contemporary solutions to issues related to tourism, protecting the existing city fabric and the development of industries which rely on the unique ecology of the lagoon.

Judges’ comments: “The careful analysis gets ‘under the skin’ of the city. However the city is understood, not simply on a pragmatic or technical level, but through a more poetic reading, carefully weighing history, symbolism, expectation and delight. The scheme meshes with the existing fabric, portraying a strong sense of movement, fitting to this context.”

Douglas Tullie Ben Watson Phoebe Yu Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA)

HIGHLY COMMENDED A+DS URBAN DESIGN AWARD

The Canal Bakehouse Dublin ‘The Canal Bakehouse’ engages foremost with the socio-economic context of the city. The grain is transported to the Bakehouse by the canal system that crosses Ireland. At Site 01, grain is unloaded, stored, cleaned and milled. It is then either sold as flour, or used to make bread, which is sold both along the canal and amongst local retail infrastructure. This process can be repeated at different points along the canal infrastructure, thus forming a network to provide essential local resources to the population of Dublin. The Burrell In-Post Glasgow ‘The Burrell In-Post’ served as a basis to explore the urban context of Glasgow in built and material terms. Different techniques are used to explore how to create heavy materials that can trigger light and depth of reading and touch. Sustainability Agenda This relationship between a project and its urban context is central to any form of sustainability. The first project explores how it is possible to generate sustainable communities through the import, use and creation of resources that serve both the local and wider areas. It aims also to explore how nascent socio-economic interventions could develop within the city. The second project explores, literally, how it is possible to create new materials using techniques and resources readily available. This is done in such a way as to avoid further pollution in the search for new construction materials.

Michael Godden Mackintosh School of Architecture

Urban Building: Glasgow Literary Institute This project aims is to promote the written word in a city that is already home to many literary events. Within the Institute spatial modulation is used to facilitate public and private interaction. The Institute has been considered as an eroded volume, within which the overlapping of activities provides mutual benefits to all, with continuity through a simple gridded structure, palette of materials and interlocking spaces. Interdependency: Smithfield Hub Dublin A building and system that incorporates the ideas of interdependency in sustainable and holistic way, without one singular function but a collection of interrelated and dependent functions that feed off one another. As a parasite on the Luas light-rail system, and utilising the network to its full current and future potential, the Hub will become a public forum for energy and resource awareness in Dublin city centre. Building upon, rather than replacing work already happening on the outskirts of the city, the Hub creates employment and skills based education opportunities in an area of the city centre primed for sustainable urban interventions, the ‘arc of disadvantage’. Sustainability Agenda The two projects selected highlight an ambition to integrate architectural design, construction technique and materials, whilst resolving design issues and programmatic requirements, and working to reduce energy and CO2 emissions. In Glasgow, the cross-laminated timber panel construction maximises thermal performance and indoor air quality, whilst minimising energy demand and time on site for construction. The material echoes the binding of the books held in the institute itself. The Hub in Smithfield follows the principle of ‘minimum not minimal’. This node is part of a wider network that embodies the principles of minimising energy and resource usage, whilst maximising efficient infrastructure usage to promote its extension to other areas of the Dublin City Region. The project establishes a more sustainable urban experience, promoting cycling and street culture in the ‘arc of disadvantage’. The proposed programme, construction method, materials and energy system are all designed to maximise the use of the Cargo tram network, waste materials and therefore the efficiency of resources.

John Robson Mackintosh School of Architecture

Urban Narratives – The East End Library and Archive Glasgow In the creation of a completely new settlement for 100,000 people in the East End of Glasgow, issues of place making and culture are inevitably raised. The Library and Archive is part of a wider ambition of creating a completely new settlement in the East End of Glasgow. The focus of the Library was simply to create a space for books. The Archive proposes the creation of a living archive that captures the spirit of the times as an on-going record of culture. Each person in the new settlement is given a depository box to store everyday objects and documents of importance to them. Once a person dies or moves out of the settlement the depository box becomes historical and accordingly it is moved into permanent storage in the historical section of the archive. The collection of records can be mapped and interpreted over time, giving an insight into the life of the city. Sustainability Agenda Sustainability could be described as the capacity to endure. The carefully considered programme of both the Library and Archive means that the community will hold the proposal in high regard. The selected palette of heavy materials complements this and gives the design a feeling of permanence in the new settlement. Both proposals set a framework in which to house books, objects and documents. This is the outcome of a strong concept, which sets the parameters for function but allows an ease of movement and changeability within the spaces. The nature of the spaces is defined but the programme and use remain flexible thus giving the proposal the ability to endure time and change.

Jennifer Jarman Scott Sutherland School of Architecture

Nominated for two awards.Submission featured within book containing entries for the RIAS Rowand Anderson Silver Medal for best 5th Year Student

Peterhead Cultural Fishing Centre The Peterhead Cultural Fishing Centre consists of six boat shed forms, which stretch out over the water on piles, linked by a stone walkway with floating timber jetties. The centre is clad in charred Siberian larch battens allowing views out over the surrounding bay. Building one provides information and the remaining five buildings are each planned around one of the five senses. Exhibits such as fishing vessels, video/sound clips, poetry, artwork, fishing equipment and sea debris are included to appeal to particular senses in order to build up an authentic fishing experience for visitors.

Aberdeen Silver Square Hotel The Aberdeen Silver Square Hotel is part of a proposal to open up the surrounding site to the general public by creating a large urban square with areas for people to relax surrounded by a perforated block typology. The two buildings contain hotel accommodation, serviced apartments, retail units, office space, restaurants, and a gymnasium and ticket booth. The façade is wrapped in fibre cement panels to connect with the silver tones of the Granite City.

Sustainability Agenda The sustainability agenda of the projects focuses on the idea of creating passive architecture with a reduced carbon footprint through the removal of an additional specific heat source. This is achieved in the Aberdeen scheme through the employment of a Community or District Heating Scheme, which allows the proposed buildings to be connected to a new central boiler plant that heats a significant number of buildings through a network of well-insulated underground pipes along Union Street. In order to reduce wasted energy, the system includes combined heat and power (CHP). This system transforms previously wasted energy into heating and hot water for the nearby buildings.

The Peterhead scheme includes industrial warehouse forms that are appropriate for the industrial location and for the fishing process itself. As with the surrounding warehouses, the Peterhead Cultural Fishing Centre is unheated which adds to the authenticity of the visitors’ fishing experience.

Calum PatersonScott Sutherland School of Architecture

COMMENDED RIAS ROWAND ANDERSON SILVER MEDAL FOR BEST 5TH YEAR STUDENT

Nominated for two awards.Submission featured within book containing entries for the RIAS Rowand Anderson Silver Medal for best 5th Year Student

Glasgow @ Hand | THE PLAN for a Better Glasgow Glasgow @ Hand is a 25-year regeneration plan for the greater Anderston and Tradeston areas and surrounding portions of the Clyde Riverfront. These are the places most severely effected by M8 motorway. Central to the scheme is the proposal to redirect the M8 motorway into an underground tunnel and convert the Clydeside Expressway into an Urban Boulevard. Glasgow @ Hand is Glasgow’s best option to overcome the obstacles that have plagued the City for years; isolated development of neighbourhoods, lack of intra-city communication and a multitude of socio-economic problems. This submission consists of highlights from the comprehensive Glasgow @ Hand project, delivered as five work packages, resulting in a detailed masterplan of the area. Included are excerpts from the initial Strategic Planning, portions of the Local Urban Coding Framework, the Foundational Masterplan and studies and investigations from the Final Masterplan, all of which highlight Glasgow @ Hand in Anderston Cross. Sustainability Agenda The sustainability of a place is its ability to endure changes over time. This means that a sustainable city is one that can adapt to changing economic climates, changing technology, changing ideas and changing people. A city design for today will not function tomorrow, and the effects of this fallacy are evident across Glasgow. The Glasgow @ Hand regeneration plan implements a vast array of tools applied to the greater urban fabric and to the buildings themselves, to ensure that Glasgow’s built fabric can seamlessly adapt to any changes that the future holds. New bus and rail stations and lines give every Glaswegian public transportation options. Strategically located local and district nodes combined with pedestrian oriented streets promote the ‘5 minute rule’ of walk-ability. Finally, the implementation of ‘Plot Based Urbanism’ guarantees the ability to adapt buildings to changing times. Let Glasgow once again be our ‘dear green place’.

Jacob Dibble Alessandra Feliciotti University of Strathclyde

Nordic Exodus: Moving Kiruna Sweden Within our thesis we aim to contextualise the New Kiruna, through the creation of a masterplan in which important architectural landmarks are moved from the old city to the new. This will create a visual reference, which the people of Kiruna can readily identify, whilst memorialising the old city. The movement of the City is an opportunity, to further diversify the economy away from mining into the growing sectors of tourism, research, education and space industry, and to preserve historically and culturally important buildings, whilst allowing the addition of layered complimentary functionality. Kiruna has an ageing population, and there is currently a shortage of certain types of housing in Kiruna, particularly senior housing. To address this issue, new housing is being commissioned and so this was an appropriate typology for the first blocks to be built within the new city centre and to test the masterplan which we have drafted.

Sustainability Agenda The most sustainable and rational way to develop is to create mixed use zoning and where possible eliminate single-use or Euclidean zoning, increase the density and diversity of land use, and integrate segregated uses. This reduces travelling distances and therefore dependency on cars. It activates urban areas, which would otherwise be derelict during certain hours and creates social cohesion by facilitating the development of communities. Sustainable developments should utilise mixed tenure housing, arguably the most socially and economically sustainable development model. The variety of ownership within mixed tenure developments helps create a diverse community whilst being a sound economic model, containing a mix of privately owned, rented and shared ownership housing. By adding layers of complimentary functions to existing or future developments, it can enhance the lives of those resident in, working in or visiting the area of development, as well as making them more economically, socially and politically sustainable.

Judges’ comments:“The analysis is iterative, from the macro to the micro scales. It does not follow an established formula or strategy but subtly demonstrates a more personal and innovative approach. This new way of reading the city leads to a quiet, modest, understated and thoroughly appropriate conclusion. The design is set gently within the established context, neither declarative or disruptive. Through independent thinking and sophisticated analysis this project gets it spot on!” Judges’ comments:“Social and urban sustainability issues are explored and addressed in this careful and intelligent project. While there is significant emphasis on the micro issues of sustainability in many contemporary projects, this scheme addresses the future of a community threatened by issues of ageing and natural wastage. From the masterplan, through density, use, structure and materials, every element contributes to a long-term future generated through this comprehensive vision.”

Michal Scieszka Dale Smith University of Strathclyde

WINNER A+DS URBAN DESIGN AWARD

WINNER A+DS SUST. AWARD FOR SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

The work featured in this book formed part of a public exhibition displayed in the Lighthouse, Glasgow from 31st July until 5th October 2012.

A+DS and the RIAS would like to thank all of the students who took part in this year’s competition.