Scottish Architecture

The FELSSO project

A ground breaking research project, has pioneered a new system of restoring works of art using engineering simulation and analysis technologies – methods that are widely used in architecture and the building industry.

The FELSSO project, led by Dr. Angela Geary, International Drawing Research Institute, The Glasgow School of Art, has announced that Henry Moore’s ‘Large Arch’, once displayed in Kensington Gardens before being dismantled due to structural problems, will be able to be safely restored after 12 years in storage.

The sculpture has been the focus of the project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Henry Moore Foundation, which has been exploring new methods of structural analysis for cultural heritage conservation.

Dr Angela Geary with Dr. John P. Harrison at Imperial College, London and sculpture conservation expert Derek Pullen at the Tate, set out in 2006 to prove that engineering simulation and analysis technologies – methods that are routinely used in the field of architecture and engineering - could be effectively applied to the complex forms and structural problems met within museum collections.

The team’s collective expertise in 3D visualisation, engineering and conservation has enabled them, not only to successfully prove this, but to develop methods that are highly adapted and effective for the specific concerns of museum artifacts.

The researchers were offered the opportunity to study Henry Moore’s ‘Large Arch’ at an early stage in the project, although they had initially anticipated working on smaller sculptures.

The seven large and heavy travertine blocks of the sculpture were scanned using long-range 3D laser scanning technologies, with the assistance of Royal Parks and heritage survey specialists the Scan Team Ltd. The huge data sets were then processed, over several months, to generate models suitable for analysis. The team worked closely with experts at the Henry Moore Foundation whose knowledge of the artist’s techniques, materials and the history of Arch's construction were invaluable in progressing the work.
Dr Angela Geary, 3D visualisation expert and senior researcher from the International Drawing Research Institute, The Glasgow School of Art, said: “We were delighted when the Henry Moore Foundation invited us to study ‘Large Arch’ as a subject for our research. It was a huge practical challenge, but it was very exciting and motivating be working on such a significant real-world problem. It’s been very rewarding to see such a positive application for our research findings take shape from the outset.”

“We are now planning a larger scale project to study a wide range of museum objects using the analysis techniques we developed on Large Arch. We would like to develop the simulation techniques as a usable tool for museums to predict the structural behaviour of many kinds of artefacts – and potentially entire collections - over time and under various conditions of storage, environment, display or handling. This could have profound implications for the way collections are managed and conservation is practiced in the future.

ABOUT FELSSO

FELSSO is a collaborative research project led by Dr. Angela M. Geary (formerly Reader in Virtual Interpretation at the University of the Arts London, now a senior researcher at the Glasgow School of Art) with Dr. John. P. Harrison (Senior Lecturer in Rock Mechanics, Imperial College London) and Derek Pullen (Head of Sculpture Conservation, Tate). FELSSO was supported by an AHRC research grant (www.ahrc.ac.uk) and by the Henry Moore Foundation (http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk).

About IDRI

The International Drawing Research Institute (IDRI), established in 2000, is an international collaboration between The Glasgow School of Art, the Central College of Fine Art at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. It aims to explore the similarities and differences arising in the use of drawing between disciplines including art, design and scientific visualisation and across international cultures. IDRI undertakes a range of collaborative research projects and generates communication and discussion via activities including exhibitions, publications, conferences and staff and student exchanges.

The researchers are currently seeking funding to expand their work to museum objects and materials. They are also interested in hearing from new partners, particularly museum collections, who may have “problematic” artifacts that they would be interested in putting forward as case studies for the research.

Images: Reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation and Glasgow School of Art
Link: www.gsa.ac.uk

Pioneering student project: John Isaacs

John Isaacs, a PhD student working at Abertay University in Dundee, has unveiled the prototype of a video game-based system he hopes will be used to speed up Scotland’s planning process.

With an aesthetic style resembling the Sim City game, the Sustainable City Visualisation Tool could enable planners and the public to map out future developments, using 3D architectural models to create an accurate simulation.

The models show sustainability, likely traffic levels and even carbon output and allow interested parties to see the how the development might work in practice before ground work begins.

John Isaacs, who is in the second year of his PhD in the role of visualisation in urban sustainability assessment, has been working with Dundee City Council on their plans for the development of the city’s waterfront. John’s studies have led to the development of the new software which combines sustainability assessment with computer games technology.

“At the moment planners use very complicated formulae to work out sustainability, carbon output and traffic levels," explains John. "This means the whole process can be very confusing for laymen, especially when they are trying to picture what a new development will look like. The software we have developed is designed to create a 3D model of the proposals giving everyone involved the chance to see how the development will look before a single brick is laid. It also shows predicted traffic levels and the likely carbon output in relation to energy use. This kind of information is essential if future urban developments are to be truly sustainable."

"I’ve been working with Dundee City Council for about six months and we’re using the software to help fine tune the proposed development of the city’s waterfront. Using the Sustainable City Visualisation Tool will help ensure that the development is as environmentally friendly, economically sustainable and acceptable to the local population as possible.”

Click on the following link to find out more about John's project www.scityvt.co.uk

John Isaacs is a post-graduate student working from 'White Space' - a unique facility at the University of Abertay in Dundee

White Space provides a knowledge environment for students, staff and local businesses. The facility opened in 2007 and is already a thriving hub of activity, mixing the talents of Computer Arts students, PhD students, lecturers, together with business people, broadcasters and artists, plus an in-house graphics and digital media teams. The White Space concept allows students to share real-world knowledge and experience.

White Space is also about creating a set of essential, personalised assets including: creativity; the ability to work in teams; the ability to work within, across and between disciplines; an understanding of the limits of knowledge and the significance of research; enterprise and entrepreneurship; and an ability to make correct and ethical decisions in the absence of all relevant facts. Essentially, the facility aims to make sure that students know how to direct their own learning in order to achieve success.

Key Features of White Space include: Embreonix - Abertay's innovative graduate enterprise training and support facility which is designed to help students and graduates get their business idea off the ground - from the initial idea through to trading; and Dare to be Digital, UK’s premier computer games design competition for students.

For further information on White Space and the University of Abertay click on the following link http://www.abertay.ac.uk

The images below show an aerial view of the 3D visualisation of an example of an urban environment produced by the software which shows energy efficiency. Images copyright John Isaacs.

Virtual Guide to Glasgow

The task of this project , which was carried out by student's of Glasgow's Metropolitan College, was to use multi-disciplinary skills to create a virtual experience of architectural time and space.

The students were asked as a group to build an architectural guide to Glasgow's architectural heritage. Each student was then allocated one building from a given list, and required to produce a digital exploration of that building to be put on-line at scottisharchitecture.com.

It was important that the students didn't recreate what already exists as the website already contains factual architectural guides to many of Glasgow's buildings.

The expressed aim of the project was to produce an experience of each given building - not just a factual guide. It was also important that the building was placed in context and that a whole range of multimedia design and artistic skills were used in realising the project.

To see the results click on the links above to launch the students work.

Tour of Scotland's Architectural History

Although Scotland's historic and prehistoric architectural heritage stretches back over many centuries, it is dominated by the sharp division between the 'modern' age - the late 18th, 19th and 20th centuries - and what went before.

During the earlier centuries, back to and beyond the emergence of the Scottish nation, Scotland was an overwhelmingly rural society. Only a few elite buildings, including churches and the palaces of the rich, were constructed in permanent, monumental stonework. Everything else, including the homes of the poor, was made of temporary, perishable materials, with all activities muddled together: all of this has vanished almost without trace. Among the elite buildings, the 'Renaissance' period in the 16th and 17th centuries saw the gradual appearance of many of today's basic attitudes to building, including the demand for formal architectural 'style' (at that stage, inspired mostly by the ideal of 'classical' Rome) and for the specialised, segregated spaces of modern living.

But it was only from around 1750, with the sudden wave of economic and social modernisation in country and town - the so-called 'Improvement' movement - that these ideas began to spread more widely across society. At first, the pace of industrial and urban growth in Scotland and England, along with the growth of the British Empire, sharply marked off Britain from all other countries in its 'modernity': something that applied just as much in architecture. Scotland was one of the world's richest countries, and its architecture benefited accordingly, both in the diversity of its forms and ideas - represented in the work of architects such as 'Greek' Thomson or Robert Adam - and in the sheer ubiquity of high quality stone construction. The appearance of buildings was still inspired by the past, but now a vast range of 'historical styles' was available for architects to draw on.

All of that was thrown upside down in the 20th century, with its incessant wars and the disappearance of the Empire. In the general revulsion against the free market society of the Victorians, the use of historical styles to convey architectural significance was overthrown, and a 'modern' architecture of unadorned surfaces and flowing space became dominant instead. But with the exception of the flamboyant turn of century work of C R Mackintosh, Scottish modern architecture was fairly conservative, and avoided revolutions and radical gestures, concerning itself above all with the social issues of community planning. Only at the end of the century, with the renewed capitalist demand for 'style' and 'branding', did Scottish Modernism take on a more image-dominated, 'signature-designer' approach - as exemplified in Enric Miralles's design for the new Scottish Parliament in the form of a cluster of 'upturned boats'.

© Miles Glendinning

Main Image: Old Parliament House, Edinburgh

All Images © The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS)

Scottish Architecture in the Movies

When we think of Scotland in the movies, its probably the mist and heather blockbusters like Highlander, Rob Roy or even Braveheart (which was shot mainly in Ireland) that first spring to mind. Undoubtedly these movies have been a great boon for visitscotland.com, however when it comes to popularising the misconception that Scots must either live in a croft or a castle, some of the blame has to lie at their door.

Alternatively, there's also the new wave of gritty, uncompromising dramas set against a grim post-industrial urban landscape - more often than not Glasgow - which have been in our face of late. Danny Boyle's Trainspotting (1996) started it all, and the trend has continued with the likes of Peter Mullan's Orphans (1997), Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher (1998) and Ken Loach's Sweet 16 (2002). But there's a lot more to Scotland on celluloid than calendar/chocolate box castles and harsh urban underbellies, although admittedly both do have their place.

Most of the films featured in this virtual tour have taken elements of Scotland's architecture or aspects of its built environment and placed them right at their heart. For example the idiosyncratic Modernist landscape of Cumbernauld New Town is as important to the charmingly eccentric mood of Gregory's Girl as Dorothy's silky footballing skills. Then there's the castles of Moy and Duart on Mull which create a mythical, dream-like backdrop to the Powell/Pressburger romance I Know Where I'm Going.

And in terms of evocation, The Wicker Man's unique eeriness is achieved by setting the unfolding events against the incongruously jolly pastel painted houses and creepy closes of Kirkcudbright, as well as the exotic gardens and bizarre castle of Culzean. A different kind of evocation, that of acute urban realism, is also central to the sixties set drama Small Faces, and later in the more uncompromising My Name is Joe, and could only have been achieved against the backdrop of Glasgow's unique tenement streetscapes.

One of cinema's most enduring images is represented in Alfred Hitchcock's The Thirty Nine Steps, where the hero Hannay flees his pursuers from the Flying Scotsman onto the vast Forth Bridge. The stark black and white contrast of the tiny figure against the massive, monolithic bridge is both awesome and iconic.

Finally, two movies have been featured to show how aspects of Scottish architecture can feature in more unorthodox contexts. The House of Mirth takes the Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove, and with the help of some steam, subdued lighting and a little trickery, succeeds in transforming it into New York's Beaux Arts masterpiece Grand Central Station. Then there is Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is generally described as being the most authentic recreation of Arthurian England, except that it was shot in Scotland, principally at castles Doune and Stalker.

In terms of recent Scottish films, Scotland has usurped the Swiss Alps as the preferred location for the new generation of Bollywood film producers. Danish Dogme film-maker Lone Sherfig opted for Glasgow's down and dirty reputation as the setting for films such as Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself (2002). And in much the same way Scottish director David Mackenzie focussed on the city's darker architectural aspects as the backdrop for Young Adam (2003).

More recently the uncompromising architecture of Glasgow's Red Road flats not only forms the 'brutalist' backdrop but also the title of Andrea Arnold's Red Road (2006). Finally, Edinburgh gets its cinematic day in the sun again - following its nineties celluloid renaissance with Trainspotting and Shallow Grave - looming large as it does in David Mackenzie's Hallam Foe (2007).

To view the virtual tour use the link above.