Space for Practice, Dundee (United Kingdom) 2016
Space for Practice was created to run as a fringe project alongside the RIAS Festival of Architecture, part of Scotland’s Year of Innovation and Design 2016.
Our Year 2 students were asked to address the problem of the vacant buildings at Broughty Ferry’s railway station, the oldest station still in operation in Scotland. The primary aim of the project was to propose an appropriate, sustainable use for the buildings which sit at the heart of the town. We worked with our client and members of the local community to develop a brief and design proposals for an Arts Residency Centre which aims to build on Dundee’s art and design history, recently strengthened by a UNESCO City of Design award and construction of the V&A Museum of Design on the city’s waterfront. Presentations of the students’ drawings, models and visualisations helped raise awareness, opened up new lines of communication between the local community and the building owners, and supported the community’s bid for funding, with progress underway to bring the buildings back into use.
Client: Jan McTaggart (Broughty Ferry Traders Association)
Tutor: Carol Robertson
Students: Rasita Artemjeva, Mahlon Asante-Yeboah, Jordan Burne, Natalia Kowalska, Mohammad Lawal, Miisa Lehtinen, Taylor McArthur, Sarah Shannon, Martina White
Research Question: The project developed student awareness that in architectural practice the answer is not always a proposal for a new building, but can be an imaginative reinterpretation of the existing situation, to clarify and strengthen intrinsic qualities. Acting as professionals in the public realm and listening to the needs of the community, the students experienced first hand the potential for architectural design to create opportunities in daily life.
United Kingdom, Architecture, Initiated by institution, Undergraduate, Months, Self-funded, Propositional, Collaboration, Curricular, Students with tutor, Dundee Univ.
