March 20 2024

Glasgow City Council has given unanimous consent for a new residential neighbourhood in Cowcaddens, Glasgow, to be built from the bones of a failed office block.

One Cowcaddens will transform the northern entry point to the city centre at Port Dundas Road by 'deconstructing' Buchanan House and building a series of residential blocks in its place. Keppie Design, on behalf of developer Global Mutual, will deliver 595 homes set amidst landscaped gardens, community facilities and amenity space with a promise to recycle 94% of the existing building fabric in doing so.

In a statement Keppie Design wrote: "The proposal ranges in height from 7 to 21 storeys, creating a layered urban response and providing opportunity for an active roofscape on the south-facing amenity terraces.

"Fronting onto Port Dundas Road, the development will enhance the public realm by providing ground-floor commercial units that activate the street. The public realm incorporates space for spill out from these commercial units, public seating, planting and pedestrian movement.

"The proposal has also considered the future context of the Cowcaddens Road ‘Avenues Plus’ project. This will see the pedestrianisation of a section of Port Dundas Road and the creation of a neighbourhood-scale public space which includes an integrated active travel route, extensive planting and public seating."

An eyecatching bronze ‘Locomotion’ statue, designed by Frank Cossell in 1967, will be retained as the centrepiece of a new public realm.  

5 Comments

#1 Posted by Ben on 20 Mar 2024 at 10:29 AM

This is a fantastic project, well done to all involved so far, hopefully we will see this start on site soon.

#2 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 20 Mar 2024 at 13:31 PM

Big picture being forgotten about.
Glesga PLC -- the site should be handed over to Caley for expansion.

With the movement of more local students to its courses it is bursting at the seams.

Glasgow and Strathclyde are being encouraged to expand -- Nat export drive / chasing the overseas student dollar -- Caley has been left behind.

Some might suggest that UWS / Paisley site is where Caley will be allowed to expand -- not Good for either but the Auld Reekie civil service just sees it as stack-a-pleb education for the masses.

#3 Posted by Jaded on 20 Mar 2024 at 14:18 PM

This is great. Exactly the kind of big development required to take Glasgow into the next decade.

#4 Posted by Roddy_ on 21 Mar 2024 at 00:02 AM

Nice visualisations of a fairly dull cookie-cut design. I will be astonished if this gets built as presented here.
Note also that trees are in the 10+ years old category too.

#5 Posted by Mo on 21 Mar 2024 at 22:54 PM

Really missed opportunity here with selling the site over to GCU next door.
The uni has been up on so many fronts and its new emerging campus masterplan would have benefited from such a key site.

Instead Glasgow and Strathclyde are afforded the luxury of massive funding pools and priorities for their innovation districts as they’re seen as more ‘worthy’.

GCU will continue to flourish as a great hub for research and learning, whilst the council sticks to its close minded thinking, offering little support to the development of caledonian’s campus.

As a young student, it would have been great to see this area turn into a university district anchored in GCU’s principles for the common good. It would have given the uni a chance to be unique with expansion and new builds to bring community, learning, and research into one area that serves the local economy.

Now all your left with is a further island like development meant to shelter people inside homes rather than a bustling university community campus which would have really incorporated a mix of uses.

Terrible decision which should have been given another site in the city than plopping right next to a campus crying out to be revitalised and opened up.

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