Hasta La Ideas

Scottish architects Page\Park have completed a centre for blinded sailors, soldiers and airmen in Wilkieston, Scotland.

The single-storey Centre for Scottish War Blinded curls around the site and has an undulating zinc roof, inspired by a sculpture of a dragon found in the charity’s existing facilities.

Located on an adjacent site, the new day care and rehabilitation centre replaces the old buildings and includes a workshop, art space, training areas, a gym, therapy spaces and administration as well as a remembrance room and sensory garden.

Photography is by Andrew Lee.

The following information is provided by the architect:

Scottish War Blinded was founded in Edinburgh in 1915 with the object of caring for Scotland’s sailors, soldiers and airmen and women who were blinded in the service of their country. With the organisation now taking in a higher number of veterans of more recent conflicts, the Scottish War Blinded recognised that a new facility was required so that the scope and quality of the services they offer could be improved.

Their new 750m2 facility is located on an inspiring site at Linburn, West Lothian and replaces the charity’s 1950’s facility which occupied an adjacent site. The scheme takes inspiration from a hand-carved Chinese celestial dragon memorial sculpture which was housed in the display room of the previous facility. This inspiration manifests itself in the sweeping and twisting geometry of the building’s undulating zinc roof.

The building operates as a day care centre and offers a comfortable and sociable environment whilst also providing rehabilitation and life skills assistance for ex-servicemen and women suffering from visual impairments. Facilities include a workshop, art space, training areas, a gym, therapy spaces and administration as well as a remembrance room. A terrace and landscaped sensory garden to the south of the building is also provided for recreational use in addition to education. The shifting demographic of users that the organisation now supports has influenced this broad mixture of activities.

The building harbours a strong focus on internal flow, with a mainly open plan arrangement fed by one, generous circulation spine. The accommodation is organised so that the circulation and larger spaces are placed near the external walls, while smaller, ancillary spaces requiring enclosure, privacy and acoustic insulation are placed in ‘pod’ elements nearer the centre of the plan. The organisation of the building aims to be as simple as possible so that the users can easily form a mental picture of the building, thus allowing straightforward navigation. In addition, bold gestures (both architecturally and through the use of colour) are made at doorways and changes of direction to further assist building users’ wayfinding.

The curving geometry has been formed by the use of steel portal frames set out on a radial grid and in-filled with cold rolled purlins. The twists and sweeps of the geometry have been formed by gentle facets, with the steel frame only including two relatively short curved structural members. A restrained palette of materials are used throughout the building to clad the steel structure beneath. The roof is formed in zinc strips with the external walls clad in timber panels set out alongside large glazed openings. Internally, the ‘pod’ type spaces are picked out in oak and detailed to sit like pieces of furniture under the large twisting roof.

Inclusive Design

Given the nature of the Client, inclusive design was at the forefront of our thoughts from the very start. With the building users having visual impairments of varying degrees, in addition to many of the users being elderly, careful consideration had to be given to a number of key areas of the scheme. As a team we had to go much further than simply meeting the DDA requirements. Advice was received from Adapt Access Services in addition to members of the War Blinded Client group.

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Firstly, the building and surrounding garden are all on one level so as to allow full access to wheelchair users. In addition to this, there are ultra low-profile thresholds throughout the building so as to avoid any potential trip hazards.

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Inside the building, the primary circulation route is a generous width and has a continuous handrail down one side to provide support where required in addition to acting as a guide to the visually impaired. Where access to rooms occur off this corridor, bold gestures have been made at these locations both in the layout and in terms of the colours used on the walls.

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By studying the Light Reflectance Values (LRV) of each of the finishes (floors, timber panelling, door laminate, ceiling), this allowed us to carefully select the colours of the painted slots at these access points so as to provide sufficient visual contrast.

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Green Credentials

From the onset the design of the new centre for the Scottish War Blinded was based on sustainable principles. Natural ventilation is utilised in the majority of the spaces and heating is supplied from a ground source heat pump. In order to minimise energy requirements, high levels of insulation and air tightness have been designed in to the building envelope. In addition, carefully controlled amounts of glazing have been provided, balancing the need for pulling light deep in to the plan with the need to control glare and solar gain / heat loss.

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Method of Procurement: Traditional SBCC
Value: £2.4 million
Planning Granted: October 2009
Site Start: January 2010
Project Completed: January 2011
Location: Wilkieston, Kirknewton
Key Design Features: Sweeping zinc roof, Curving geometry, Designing for the sensory impaired
No.of Floors: 1
Funding: Solely funded by the charity, Royal Blind / Scottish War Blinded
Client: Scottish War Blinded

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Page\Park
Project Architect Jamie Hamilton
Director Karen Pickering
Partner David Page
Structural Engineers: SKM Anthony Hunt, Douglas Walker
M&E:Harley Haddow, Chris McLaren
QS: NBM, Bryan Houston
Landscape: Ian White Associates, Sam Shaw
Contractors: Main -Brown Construction, Grant MacIntosh

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Edinburgh studio Malcolm Fraser Architects have completed this wooden treehouse housing an artists’ studio in Glen Nevis, Scotland.

The wood-panelled structure sits atop a pillar and is reached via a bridge.

A meandering wooden walkway leading out from the hut nestles into the sloping landscape.

Called Outlandia, the project was commissioned by art and architecture collective London Fieldworks.

The structure is made partly of trees that were cut down to clear the site.

See also:

Spontaneous City in the Tree of Heaven by London Fieldworks
Tree Hotel by Tham & Videgård Arkitekter

More architecture on Dezeen »

Here’s some more information from London Fieldworks and the architects:

Edinburgh studio Malcol, Fraser Architects have completed a treehouse in Glen Nevis, Scotland,

Outlandia is an off-grid treehouse artist studio and fieldstation in Glen Nevis, Lochaber, Scotland. A flexible meeting space in the forest for creative collaboration and research. Imagined by artists Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson (London Fieldworks) and designed by Malcolm Fraser Architects, Outlandia is inspired by childhood dens, wildlife hides and bothies, by forest outlaws and Japanese poetry platforms.

It is located in a copse of Norwegian Spruce and Larch on Forestry Commission land, at the foot of Ben Nevis in the Scottish Highlands. “Construction was part-joinery, part-forestry and part-mountain rescue, with a local contractor who nicely combined all three, and an unusual set of Risk Assessments”.

Outlandia is an artist-led project, built in 2010 to foster links between creativity and the environment; a multi-purpose platform for the use of local and invited artists. London Fieldworks were invited by the Highland Council to make a proposal to celebrate the Year of Highland Culture that would create a lasting contemporary art legacy for the Fort William area. Outlandia is the outcome, a platform from which to consider creative responses to the environment. The proposal was inspired by London Fieldworks’ previous experience working in Lochaber: whilst there is an abundance of artistic talent and creativity in the Highlands there are few dedicated contemporary arts facilities in Fort William or in the surrounding area.

The Outlandia project is sensitive to the shifting ecology between human population, industry and landscape. The site is on Forestry Commission land overlooking the southwest facing side of the glen with its ancient, native trees. This context makes explicit the dichotomy within a landscape under pressure to function as an area of outstanding natural beauty (the area has been branded Outdoor Capital of the UK) as well as a resource for society’s raw materials – a schism common to many rural communities. During its time of service, Outlandia will provide a multi-purpose platform for the use of diverse community groups as well as selected artists and researchers. Outlandia is in line with The Scottish Forestry Strategy that aims to create opportunities for more people to enjoy trees, woods and forests in Scotland, and to help communities benefit from woods and forests.

OUTLANDIA: PROJECT DESCRIPTION
By Malcolm Fraser

The Project Brief was nice and loose: an artists’ fieldstation in Glen Nevis, to allow and encourage creative interaction between artists and the land, its history and people.

The site was even looser: somewhere in Glen Nevis. Where, exactly, grew out of a complex negotiation with partners, landowners and the local authorities, which brought to the surface some interesting tensions – a portion of the climbing fraternity, for instance, believes that hills should be for serious craggies only, and that artists should be kept away. On the ground, the choice of site grew out of long crawls through wet undergrowth and up wooded slopes, in clouds of midges and carpets of pine needles, in search of natural and human drama.

The site chosen is full of it. Sitting half-way up the opposite side of the Glen to Ben Nevis, a visitor approaches Outlandia through the path we cut through the dense woods behind, descending out the musty dark of the trees into a big view which, from dark-to-light and framed by old, tall larches, opens-up across the Glen to the shoulder of the Ben. The view of great nature dazzles, but we soon start to see the multiplicity of human interaction with it: the routes threading across the view, from the main road and West Highland Way along the foot of the Glen to the tourist route up the Ben, with its strings of tiny bobbling hats working their way up the hill; the car parks, caravan parks and visitor centre, places of the modern tourist trade; the old mills and older burial mounds, traces of more ancient useage; and the great industrial aluminium smelter across the Glen and the hydro that powers it.

Nothing could be further from the idea of the Highlands as “unspoilt wilderness”. We have long been part of this landscape, and it seems unlikely that any artists making work for, from or aound Outlandia would fail to enjoy and illuminate the tensions around nature, industry, tourism and heritage.

The building itself sits out from a 45 degree slope: a treehouse, part-built out the trees cut down to form the site, entered across a bridge from the slope behind; a simple box, leaning-out into the view with big windows opening-up to it. Part of the building of it was a low-impact, eco-friendly use of material recovered from the site; part the opposite, high-impact and hairy landings of concrete, for the foundations, from a helicopter. Construction was part-joinery, part-forestry and part-mountain rescue, with a local contractor who nicely combined all three, and an unusual set of Risk Assessments.

London Fieldworks commissioned Outlandia and are curating the work in and around it.

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Spontaneous City by London Fieldworks	Tree Hotel by Tham & Videgård Arkitekter	Takasugi-an by Terunobu Fujimori

Work starts today on Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel, a cancer-care facility in Glasgow, Scotland, designed by Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

The single-story building consists of a ring of interlocking spaces.

The facility is the latest in an ongoing series of Maggie’s Centres designed by leading architects. See our earlier story about the centre designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

See all our stories about OMA in our special category.

Here’s some more info from OMA:

Construction begins on Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel designed by OMA

Rotterdam, 9 November 2010 – Ground will be broken today for Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel, a facility in Glasgow providing emotional and practical support for people living with cancer, their families and friends. Designed by OMA, the building, which is located on the grounds of Gartnavel hospital and close to the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, is one of several Maggie’s Centres in the UK and part of a pioneering project using thoughtful architecture and innovative spaces as tools for solace and healing.

OMA’s single-level, 534m2 building is a ring of interlocking, carefully composed spaces that provide moments of comfort and relief. With a flat roof and floor levels that respond to the natural topography, the rooms vary in height, with the more intimate areas programmed for personal uses such as counseling, and more open and spacious zones providing areas to gather and creating a sense of community.

Located in a natural setting, like a pavilion in the woods, the building is both introverted and extroverted: each space has a relationship either to the internal, landscaped courtyard or to the surrounding woodland and greenery, while certain moments provide views of Glasgow beyond.

The project, led by partners-in-charge Rem Koolhaas and Ellen van Loon, and associate-in-charge Richard Hollington, will be completed in summer 2011. The Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres foundation, founded by Maggie Keswick Jencks and Charles Jencks, opened the first Maggie’s Centre in Edinburgh in 1996, and has since commissioned a series of innovative buildings designed by world class architects. The foundation approached OMA to design the Glasgow site in 2007.

On OMA
OMA is a leading international partnership practicing architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. The office is led by five partners – Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu and Managing Partner, Victor van der Chijs – and employs a staff of around 220 of more than 35 nationalities. To accommodate a range of projects worldwide, OMA maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing, and Hong Kong.

Current projects under construction include the new headquarters for Rothschild bank in London, a major extension to the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University, the headquarters for China Central Television in Beijing, and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in southern China

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Office in the Woods by Selgascano	See all our stories on OMA	More architecture stories on Dezeen

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