Date: 01 October 07
Author: Caroline Ednie, Web Editor
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In 2000 Gareth Hoskins Architects won an open competition to design a new arts centre and community library with life long learning facilities for Glasgow City Council (GCC). In 2006 the new centre, Platform at The Bridge, emerged, providing a naturally ventilated auditorium space, rehearsal workshops, recording suites, education and gallery spaces, café and local community library.
Rather than create a freestanding ‘arts centre’ the new centre nestles between the existing public swimming pool and further education building, John Wheatley College, to form the Easterhouse Cultural Campus, collectively know as the Bridge.
The project, now adopted as a model for GCC’s Cultural Strategy and also designated as the home of the newly created National Theatre of Scotland, aims to create a public meeting place, with the new library conceived as a street surrounded by the activity of the new facilities and linking between the pool, college and out to the surrounding streets.
The building form, dictated by the shape of the site, is that of a simple rectangular timber box housing the auditorium, adjacent to the double height triangular volume of the library. A restrained palette of materials - timber, concrete, glass and aluminium is used throughout, allowing bright accents of colour to be accommodated in key areas such as the auditorium. Within the library space, roof lights at the head of the columns, help bring brightness into the depth of the plan and give the appearance of a lighter, floating roof. These same roof lights are opened and closed by the Building Management System to provide natural ventilation.
The overall aim of the Bridge is not only to promote the arts but also to help stimulate the wider regeneration of the Easterhouse area.
Andrew Doolan Award 2007 - shortlisted project
Project: The Bridge
Architect: Gareth Hoskins Architects
Client: Glasgow City Council
Main Contractor: Kier Scotland
Location: Easterhouse, Glasgow
Cost: £8,509,000
Link: www.garethhoskinsarchitects.co.uk
Images: Andrew Lee
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