The University of Glasgow builds a new centre of gravity at St Mungo Square
July 24 2024
Rapid progress at the University of Glasgow's new western campus will be capped off by a whole-life net zero-carbon building designed to address the climate and biodiversity crises.
The Keystone Building is a learning, teaching and research space, that will occupy the heart of the former Western Infirmary site, now established as an important new public space and extension of campus life.
Touted as more than just a building the development is heralded as the start of a new era of interdisciplinary collaboration. Planning documents prepared by HOK show how Keystone will anchor a network of new public routes from Byres Road to Kelvingrove Park at St Mungo Square, a new hub of university life.
Maintaining the height and form factor of the Advanced Research Centre (ARC) Keystone will intersect the public realm with a collonade with large format glazing inviting views within in an active ground floor extends to New Moy Street.
Detailing the relationship between both buildings HOK wrote: "Due to their locations facing each other on St Mungo Square, at the heart of the new part of the University Campus, the ARC and the Keystone Building will be in architectural dialogue with each other.
"The concept for the ARC consisted of a rational block of laboratories, wrapped in a ribbon of activity. The Keystone building contains the same fundamental DNA in its constituent elements - rational blocks tailored to their program and a ribbon of activity. As a result, the two share a deep similarity at a fundamental organisational level.
"The Parti, or concept diagram, of the Keystone Building however evolves this common architectural genetics by inverting the ribbon into the glazed streets of the building, resulting in a unique form reflective of but inescapably unique to the ARC."
The bulk of the building will be sliced through by two 'glazed lanes' that serve to improve circulation while punching natural light deep into the plan. This leaves three wings of teaching, laboratory and research space sheathed by a Passivhaus performance 'architectural veil' that facilitates natural ventilation.
![]() A combination of buff sandstone, glazed black terracotta and reconstituted stone is proposed for the facades
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13 Comments
I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'could be anywhere design.' Can you give examples of any building that style is unique to a particular city? A lazy criticism.
Building itself has merit but the whole development is a huge wasted opportunity that shouts Warwick / suburban office park and not Gilmorehill for the 21st century.
The Western Infirmary had more presence and character than its replacement.
You are clearly not acquainted with the idea of Local Distinctiveness - a key component of the National Planning Framework and a well understood concept/ theory in the domain of architectural design.
If you don't understand that as a concept, you clearly won't understand what I meant by 'could be anywhere design'. I would invite you to research the concept and you might be forearmed with a more cogent and coherent response to my criticism.
Why not start with the typologies of Glasgow Tenement or Glasgow Square, Edinburgh Tenement, London Terrace or perhaps the Canal Houses of Amsterdam. Once those are embedded move on to Hausmann's Paris - it'll blow your mind. :)
GCU’s been a driver for home student recruitment and widening participation as-well leading up the ranks in learning teaching and research. I’d hope it’d be worth expanding their city centre campus and really innovating in terms of the changing landscape of Cowcaddens and making state of the art facilities designed around the students.
It’s always the bigger universities that get to have all the new facilities and investment opportunities. You’d think we’d have moved on from this kind of attitude and afford equal opportunity to those with great growth potential as GCU has demonstrated in recent years
Meantime just for the record there is absolutely no such thing as 'a whole-life net zero-carbon building' and the idea that such a glassy monster like this will solve the 'climate and biodiversity crises' in a city with loads of empty buildings is beyond daft.
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More of the same coarse detailing and over-wrought forms, more of the same lack of active frontage (glazed and occupied doesn't really count as can be seen from the ARC building), more of the same sterile -could be anywhere- design.
What is abundantly clear is that 7N's parameter plan was simply not enough to create a beautiful and vibrant set of urban spaces and buildings. I think the 3rd image says it all really - among the myriad other issues - service spaces at ground level really ought to have been proscribed.
I think for anyone that had expected the University to be an inspirational patron - as it has been in the past- this is just about as disappointing as it gets.
Joyless.