September 6 2023

A vacant 1970s office building at Blythswood Square, Glasgow, is to be swept aside for the city's latest purpose-built student accommodation block.

A public consultation by Courie Investments sets out plans to replace 249 West George Street with new student accommodation, supplanting the pursuit of a hotel conversion.

Again led by Mosaic Architecture & Design the new approach spells the end for R Seifert & Co's 1972 building, which has been deemed unsuited to conversion owing to a non-compliant layout and low ceiling heights.

In a consultation statement, the applicant wrote: "The design team have investigated numerous options to repurpose the existing building. However, with its dated, non-compliant layout and restrictive ceiling heights it has proven to not be suitable for office or any other use. This, along with the sandstone facade proving to be beyond economic repair, has led us to conclude that a full demolition and construction of a new building to current standards is the only viable option for this property."

Initial designs show an L-plan building that extends the stepped cornice line of adjacent properties. Lower floors are treated as a solid mass with 'punched' windows with lightweight upper levels melding with the roofscape.  

14 Comments

#1 Posted by Peter on 6 Sep 2023 at 16:05 PM

It's about time that calling someone an architect being considered an insult, right?

#2 Posted by Randy Hall on 6 Sep 2023 at 16:16 PM

#1 Great patter. Could you please restructure your sentence so that it makes sense?

#3 Posted by Grammar monitor on 6 Sep 2023 at 16:40 PM

it had i thought been for years that way, changed has nothing.

#4 Posted by spike on 6 Sep 2023 at 16:58 PM

Is it really necessary to demolish this building considering the amount embodied energy involved?
Are there really no other alternative uses?

#5 Posted by Fava on 6 Sep 2023 at 17:12 PM

I think this is one of the few instances in which the 1970s office building looks much better than the proposed replacement.

#6 Posted by outraged individual on 6 Sep 2023 at 22:20 PM

what a waste

#7 Posted by Hairy Hipster on 7 Sep 2023 at 11:10 AM

@#4 - yes, i would say its very necessary to demolish a building that can't provide the function that the developer requires. I'm pretty sure the 'embodied energy' hasn't even crossed their minds, and nor should it for rational people.

#8 Posted by James Hepburn on 7 Sep 2023 at 13:43 PM

I thought it took years of study before you were allowed to call yourself an architect?

#9 Posted by A Local Pleb on 7 Sep 2023 at 14:05 PM

Yet more student accommodation, is that what we really need? If so then we need a sustainable solution, demolition is not the answer.

#10 Posted by FHM on 7 Sep 2023 at 15:08 PM

#2 if you understand the first point as being "great patter" then you you can make sense of it.

#8 a qualified Architect is not tested on design, at all. Chances are the agents are excellent Contract Administrators.

#11 Posted by Mick on 7 Sep 2023 at 15:25 PM

At first glance, unexceptional and it’s maybe the mock up but its massing looks wrong.

#12 Posted by Call me old-fashioned but... on 7 Sep 2023 at 15:55 PM

10. Confused, surely? All Architects are qualified by the very definition of the word, 'Architect'. To use the phrase, 'qualified Architect' is tautological, just as all objects are inanimate. Also, to qualify and gain ones RIBA part 3, one must have had gained RIBA parts 1&2, in which design is a significant and substantial component. Or am I missing something here? I do understand however, that too many architects missed their real vocation in life...

#13 Posted by FHM on 7 Sep 2023 at 16:39 PM

#10 Ok Old-fashioned but, in today's contemporary world the terribly naff protection of the title "architect" means little when the function is watered down. If you are objecting to the use of "qualified" then again, you are mistaken and missing something. Perhaps you would wish to write in your objection to every single job post on UR and other publications that specifically seek positions of "qualified architects"? As to the "design" at Parts 1 & 2 having anything to do with Part 3, haha. Brilliant.

#14 Posted by Lovely on 8 Sep 2023 at 11:01 AM

Another supermax for Glasgow, when can the inmates move in?

Post your comments