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Historic Glasgow office building comes full circle

Historic Glasgow office building comes full circle

December 11 2019

Faulkner Brown Architects are aiming to bring a historic Glasgow office building full circle by restoring it to its original use as a 149-bed hotel.

The prominent B-listed façade at 250 St Vincent Street dates from 1878 and hides modern concrete-framed office space dating from the 1980s but Union Property Services now intend to repurpose the structure in line with its original guise as The Windsor Hotel.

Melia Hotels have been lined up as an operator for the venture which would entail demolition of a reinforced concrete ‘mansard’ roof to allow the addition of up to three additional floors of accommodation.

As part of these works a car lift void would be infilled with the ground and basement areas reconfigured as ‘front of house’ facilities including conference rooms and a restaurant.

An associated planning statement read: “The development provides significant conservation gain through the careful repair and conservation of the historic façades, remodelling of the internal spaces and reinstating a number of external features which had been lost as part of a 1980’s redevelopment which involved the demolition of the majority of the building where the elevations to St Vincent Street and Douglas Street only were retained.

“The proposed roof extension has been sensitively and carefully designed to mitigate the sense of scale and to complement the existing architectural characteristics of the building.”

The vertical extension is described as a prerequisite for the project to proceed owing to the costs of refurbishment and the constraints of the existing building in terms of restaurant and lounge capacity.

8 Comments

#1 Posted by wonky on 11 Dec 2019 at 11:59 AM

Surely this cannot receive consent in its present iteration? Surely there has to be a technical solution to retaining the mansard roof? Without the subtle crown of the roof it hardly resembles the same building- the replacement roof extension is monstrous. I would reccommend either the present mansard roof is incorporated aesthetically into the extension/ or the extension vi away from the functional banality of the planned roof and instead sensitively incorporate the mansard style into the extended roof line- this particular effort just comes off as lazy & overtly utilitarian

#2 Posted by wonky on 11 Dec 2019 at 12:11 PM

Of course the aesthetic brutality of this design is that it's exacerbated by the destruction of the beautiful row of dormer windows on the east-side of the building- it has a formal harmony that is removed in the re purposed design brief. I have little doubt this poor effort will meet with little opposition from planning- one only has to look at the acquiescence to the recent demolished Argyle Street listed tenement to see how enthusiastically 'open for business' Glasgow is.

#3 Posted by Partick Bateman on 11 Dec 2019 at 14:01 PM

Surely this points to a deeper problem. GCC are in a position where they can either bend over and receive this kind offer, or they can watch as the owners open the windows and let the building rot for the next 10 years, alla Argyle Street, Egyptian halls, etc, etc...
There needs to be a fundamental shift in the balance of these negotiations.

#4 Posted by Clarinda on 11 Dec 2019 at 16:05 PM

I am usually a fan of these types of extensions. They allow the developer to get a little of what they want without much disruption to the street and they can work well.

This is far too top heavy and could do with losing a storey. It also seems a shame to lose part of the original design to achieve it, most buildings where this works well don't have roof features already.

I agree with #3 if GCC don't approve it there is so many examples of buildings fading into nothingness. Better communication between parties is required.