September 12 2024

Student housing developer Valeo and Flow Design have put meat on the bones of their plans to create a 23-storey tower of 551 'stacked' bed spaces in a stepped block turning from Carrick Street to Brown Street, Glasgow.

Hugging the retained City Mission building tight the planned build will meet the ground with publically accessible landscaping and the promise of elevated trees to green the urban environment. A blue roof system will also be employed to harness rainwater for use in building services.

In a statement, Valeo wrote: "With a clear brief to keep this residentially oriented-building ‘honest’, we have embraced the stacked nature of the accommodation which is reflected in the fenestration pattern of the building.

"The consistent rhythm is enhanced with the use of an articulated grid where an interplay of textures will provide variations with light & shadow."

Outlining the approach to materiality Valeo added: "The facade is composed of high quality bricks that utilise complementary light buff tones – with one being single colour smooth (wire-cut) and a more textured (split-face) ‘multi’. The grain of these two bricks will provide subtleness in the facade that will follow the stepped massing from Crimea St to the summit on Carrick St.

"The upper portions of the building are treated with a lighter stone effect cladding that will emphasise the greening of the roof terraces and ultimately crown the building."

A double-height ground floor housing commercial uses will help draw pedestrian activity to the area. 

5 Comments

#1 Posted by Lovely on 13 Sep 2024 at 09:55 AM

The first steps to the Matrix are coming sooner than predicted or at least some early 1990s Sim City computer game buildings seem to be actually getting built in poor old Glasgow. Sad.

#2 Posted by town planner on 13 Sep 2024 at 10:54 AM

Just read the blurb, but have to say the bricks aren't that obvious from these images. We have the example of Love Loan (and elsewhere) where bricks look pretty good, and I am hoping they will make a similar contribution here.

"With a clear brief to keep this residentially oriented-building ‘honest’..." hmm I'm assuming that means there's nae budget?!

#3 Posted by Chris on 13 Sep 2024 at 11:25 AM

#2 These images are just to indicate massing. I would expect the planning application that follows to have have more realistic visuals.

But this is probably just a land banking exercise anyways so nothing to fret about.

#4 Posted by Lovely on 13 Sep 2024 at 12:05 PM

Yup nothing to fret about as you can't beat a good bit of land banking on an important city site during a housing crisis.

#5 Posted by town planner on 18 Sep 2024 at 17:14 PM

#3/4 - Ok thanks for the clarification.

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