We are trying to imagine what the tenements that were demolished might be like today.
(but add in at least two more floors, remove any expensive details and try to "obscure a a low quality brick housing estate" with a low quality brick base)
would be interesting to see a street elevation along there, can't understand how anyone would think a six storey building on the corner of two streets made up of two storey houses is overdevelopment....

I think this looks reasonably neat from the corner view, but not so clever at the gable end and the brick plinth is quite a let down..

This is as grim as a grim building that's been painted all over with a coat of grim paint then beaten soundly with a big grim stick. Grimly. Call that celebration?

Lovely!

It's clearly over-large for the site. The massing is unsubtle, the detailing just bland. Could be from 1982, which I suppose means they could spin it as post-punk...

Looks like over development, but a massive improvement to a street that has become scruffy and in need of TLC - its an indicative design and the elevations can be softened/enhanced as required to make fit.

This is a cynical stackem-packem-rackem development. Comparisons with a tenement are misleading. Those were designed for a multitude of family types, with shared closes and an eye to creating something that the occupants could call 'home'. This is a one-entrance battery chicken student coop
of cells.

The developer should quit the fake eulogising, and focus on creating a place that people will be happy to live in and live beside. Alternatively, just get on with the S-P-R method, and stop insulting our intelligence with sentimental tenementalism.

And what's a mansard roof doing in Glasgow?

Clearlt the mansard is to reduce the scale whilst keeping the numbers up, you're right Noah it has nothing to do with Glasgow but I'll bet it came as a consequence of the discussion with planners. I don't have a particular problem with this development, it's a non descript building which fills a corner, of which there are many in Glasgow. As student accomodation goes it's a decent project, the developer would have to stack em to make the finances work, that's the way it is.

Putting the issues of financing, over-development, lack of scale and disregard for context to one side, there is no excuse for this sort of incompetent, third-rate architecture in Glasgow.

Scotland with Style? You're having a laugh, mate.

not incompetent, it is what it is. student accomodation, stone clad as a consequence no doubt of west end location and other conservation issues and heavy on the numbers to make it stack up for the developer. mansard as a result of trying to reduce the scale to satisfy local area concern. It's a non descript building, that's all not third rate at all.

it is what it is - i.e. completely inappropriate developer/profit-led rubbish that has the sheer cheek to say it celebrates the glasgow tenement - sounds like total nosense to try and pull to wool over the public eyes, it would be a non descript building if it wasn't four storeys taller than anything else on the block....

I can see there will be no reasoning with you here, neither is there a discernable building height nor typology in this area of the west end

Glasgow was built by developers that were motivated by profit, nothing wrong in that.

you are right,
however, on an urban block containing low rise development it is completely inappropriate to put a building of this scale and justify it by saying it's meant to be something like a glasgow tenement!
it's like saying a upvc conservatory is a nod to joseph paxton...

i wonder if the "designer" actually ever visited this site of if it was just an in house competition to see who could cram the most students into a tight corner site

...and glasgow might have been built by developers, but not spec house developers or student accomodation developers - and just because it happened before it doesn't still have to happen!!

If only Architects were more principled as in the Gary Cooper type thing in The fountainhead

Have any of the boot-sticker-inners above got any better ideas or design solutions, or is this just a the usual hit and run comments / bitching section?? I don't think this represents overdevelopment in terms of scale and massing and there are plenty of mansard roofs in Glasgow (they don't have to be old to qualify...). However, I do think that the ground floor facade and the narrow fenestration are a bit odd (the latter of these could be linked to a high density induced internal layout I admit). The removal of an old boozer on a decrepit site and its replacement with students who provide and support much of Glasgow's 'buzz', which many of the above folk no doubt enjoy, is a good thing in my opinion.

oh sorry, are we not allowed to critique anything put up on the site unless we have designed an alternative scheme??
i walk past this site daily and i would say that that scale and massing certainly represents over development - no political agenda on students either, just the wrong building on the wrong site (with a completely outrageous justification behind it)

I think you should look up the difference between critique and criticism!

it would be critique if there was anything positive to comment on here, unfortunately there isn't.
i would like to hear why you think the development isn't over developing the site?
or what this building has to do with a tenement (or what a mansard roof has to do with a tenement) and why replacing a local pub with 100 students is good for the "buzz" as you put it

the Glasgow tenement was a response to an imediate and sustantial housing need, its materials, structure, mass, scale and height was directed by the availability of those materials, social class and even the limits of engineering at that time, so in this respect it is like a tenement, mansard included, sorry.

.........and 19th century economics of course,as this is directed by 21st century student accomodation economics

If you can't find one little positive aspect about the scheme, Wang, then it simply reflects your over cynical approach.

Bang on response from FW there. In terms of the scale and massing, I think the site and its surroundings have the capacity to absorb it and there won't be much of an impact. I don't know how much an average student pumps into the economy of Glasgow each year, but I know that students make a significant contribution to sustaining Glasgow’s bars, restaurants, pubs and shops etc, which all combine to create a sense of place which most folk can enjoy one way or another. I don’t think the existing pub makes much of a contribution to this… that’s all I’m saying.

apologies, i had forgotten about the redrow tenements and the wimpey tenements too!
the one little positive is that something is happening with the site, the major negative is that this is the solution being pushed through on pretense...
i would argue that flats for working people would contribute more into glasgow than students, they just don't pay developers as much in the current climate, studentspay no council tax and the majority living in student residences like this are only there during term time, that's hardly a massive contribution

Simple fact is that its absolutely gash.

There is no getting around that.

Simple fact is that its absolutely gash.

There is no getting around that.

Bored now!
The world develops through change.
If closed minds can't adapt they perish. Same goes for those who are too open, they just leave themselves exposed to every Tom, Dick and Harry. A nice middle ground should be found.
Unforunate thing, for most people involved in Architecture, is that they have no idea where this is.

Not amazing.
Not awful.
I would say that it is nowhere near as bad as some of the stuff that has published on here over the last couple of years.

Bored too El, mainly by the narrow-minded ranting... Good to see a carefully thought out, well measured comment on here for a change though, I agree wholeheartedly with your thoughts.

well, c'mon then jimbo, let's hear the merits of the scheme then, all you have done is disagree with all the critisism, take sly digs and say how good students are for glasgow.
as has been said, the only thing this has in common with a tenement is that it's a roof over a head when needed, this can be said of high rises and all spec building,
students contribute very little to the economy of the city in comparison to tax paying employees, and we still haven't heard why a six storey buiding on the corner of an urban black containing two storey low rise accomodation is not over development
i guess we can leave you to say how well thought out the views you agree with are and how norrow minded the ones you don't are - without actually contributing anything yourself...
the point that el raises about change is indeed correct, but why must this building be seen as a tenement, why is it not something new, on it's own standing - the reality is that this is nothing new, repeating the same old cram-em in developer approach with no regard to urban fabric as long as there's enough units on the site, look what dualchas did with the long house, they actually studied it and re-interpreted it, they didn't just say, they did - this scheme moves nothing forward as it claims (apart from the developers bank balance)

I'm sure the quality of comment and debate would improve if the articles included plans, sections etc, and if the developers and architects included some brief background notes to explain how they arrived at their preferred solution.

For instance, a google map view shows this site might have river views from its upper floors. This could be justification for the proposed building height, but probably not for the fenestration.

This level of information would be much more informative and interesting, compared with vague statements about tenements, which tell us nothing.

Ah, but that would involve some actual journalism taking place. Something that seems highly unlikely.

Reading the articles on this site is cringeworthy at best. They often stop in the middle of sentences and have mangled structure to them.

I come here mainly for the arguments. And the animal puns - that was a high water mark for sure!

The standard of debate would improve if people attached their names to their posts. Simple as that.

Yes, like I do.

:-)

Not necessarily FW, because obviously a lot of the folk posting work in the industry, personal and professional opinions don't always align, so they might not post at all, or at least it would be diluted down comments etc!!