Date: 11 September 07
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In The Muckle Canal 2057 Glasgow-based Collective Architecture, working with Prue Chiles of Bureau of Design Research, Sheffield and Riccardo Marini, Design Leader for Edinburgh’s City Council, propose a return to the canals as a major transport artery. Building on the ambition of Scotland’s 1769 canal network and taking forward an equally bold project that had been proposed in the early twentieth century but never got beyond the drawing board, their vision sees the creation of a canal connecting Greenock to Grangemouth wide enough to take a floating football stadium or even Scottish Assembly!
Complementing the “slow moving” canal is a network of high speed, Maglev rail corridors replacing the motorways which have carpeted the countryside in concrete and tarmac in the late 20th century.”
The group’s Utopian vision is attractive, seeing as it does a reversal of the gap between rich and poor that has widened during the early 2000’s by a steady economic reform and strategic land management to ensure the country’s wealth is more evenly distributed for wider socio-economic benefit. Uncontrolled desire for petrol guzzling, status vehicles has become “old fashioned” and there has been a move away from individually owned land and buildings towards the pursuit of shared land ownership and resources, with collective control of public services such as education, transport and health. Centrist forms of governance and economics are eroded to create locally controlled decision-making with wider access to arts, agriculture and commerce. Travel, housing and leisure are developed to ensure that they have a positive effect on Scotland’s physical and social landscape.
The Propositions
GRAS - M8-PARK
Cadell2 - The Counter Tectonics
VD&B - Sloap Shifts
Collective Architecture - The Muckle Canal
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