February 7 2025

The University of Glasgow will stage a second public consultation outlining its plans to build student accommodation at Lilybank Gardens.

LUC and Stallan-Brand are working with the institution to revitalise an existing car park by introducing two stepped blocks bisected by a terraced pedestrian route to George Street Lane.

Outlining the opportunities presented by the well-connected site, the team wrote: "The site offers a unique opportunity to reinstate the historic tenemental forms that once occupied the site fronting north and east, whilst formalising and enhancing key routes between Lilybank Gardens and Byres Road. Along the site’s western edge, there is potential to continue the non-residential uses of Ashton Lane creating active frontage and enhanced public realm along Great George Lane."

Acknowledging the junction with Great George Street with an articulated corner the buildings will step up in scale as viewed from Byres Road with a setback building line to the rear permitting tree planting.

Particular attention will be paid to the building gables with the university crest framing the development at both ends. A planning application is expected in March.  

9 Comments

#1 Posted by Ross Mitchell on 7 Feb 2025 at 12:46 PM

will be great to get rid of that car park
anyone know why it's a gap site in the first place?

#2 Posted by Lovely on 7 Feb 2025 at 13:22 PM

Yaay for the madness of a 5 storey mews house (with the height at the wrong end)...!

Central pedestrian route looks half decent although a bit too corporate for the area. Same feel as other new corporate GU structures in the area.

Just awaiting the fast interconnected cheap or free public transport and proper working cycle lanes to make this really add up.

Another 40 years might just do it....

#3 Posted by Partick Bateman on 7 Feb 2025 at 14:30 PM

Why the setback building line? Ashton lane is supposed to be a narrow, cobble stoned little street. Like Ruthven lane or Cresswell lane or Dowanside lane, it doesn't need setbacks and trees.

#4 Posted by Alexander Thomson on 8 Feb 2025 at 13:01 PM

#1 The University demolished the terrace in the 70s and early 80s to construct a Business School building which never materialised...

You can catch glimpse of them here:

https://www.theglasgowstory.com/images/TGSD00234.jpg

And here in their final days:

https://canmore.org.uk/site/147850/glasgow-36-40-lilybank-gardens

#5 Posted by Jimmy Scroggins on 8 Feb 2025 at 22:19 PM

When will this box trend end? It's so sterile and depressing - great that they're building someting here. Not one flourish, not one acccent, whats the point

#6 Posted by Lovely on 9 Feb 2025 at 09:24 AM

Profit is the prime motive here.

#7 Posted by Rickardo on 9 Feb 2025 at 17:46 PM

#3 There is a current row of trees there, so perhaps to accommodate that?

#8 Posted by Roddy_ on 11 Feb 2025 at 14:07 PM

The really obvious and incongruous thing here are the roofs.

The local context is of pitched roofs with dormers. Ashton lane is a perfect example of how the street gains its character through its roofline. So too Lillybank Gdns with their Mansard and dormers. One would have thought that this would have been a really easy and obvious place for the designers to hang their hat - especially in a Conservation Area. Alas no.

Flat roofs are a particularly lazy and mean way to top off the buildings. I can't think of a pitched roof these designers in particular have deployed recently. It seems like a dogmatic adherence to a kind of 'modernism' without ornament (sorry Uni crests not quite doing it), without art and in this case without decent roofs. The roofs seem merely to be the domain of lift overruns or roof-mounted services that inevitably need screening (see also Gilmorehill Masterplan).

PS - I strongly suspect that the existing trees on Great George lane (the drawings suggest their retention I think) will have to go.

#9 Posted by Lovely on 13 Feb 2025 at 12:15 PM

Those little trees on the lane are very optimistic unless they will be holographic trees which may actually be the case given how dystopian all this is.

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