Vehicles banished in Rottenrow rain garden reveal
May 22 2020
The University of Strathclyde has revived plans to transform Rottenrow Gardens and surrounding streets into a cohesive public space serving as a physical campus hub and events space - just 16 years after being first developed by Gross Max.
The Heart of the Campus project envisages improved kerb appeal for the area through enhanced biodiversity and a focus on providing students with improved recreation space.
A project team including engineers Stantec and landscape architect Raeburn Farquhar Bowen have been assembled for the public realm job which will introduce a covered green walkway to provide both shelter and plant habitat.
The east-west link will provide a weather-proof pedestrian link from the James Weir Building to the Learning & Teaching Centre
These works will extend to North Portland Street where the intent is to introduce demountable bollards to prevent vehicle access with similar manual barriers in operation at both Rottenrow and Richmond Street.
By restricting through traffic to Montrose Street the university will be able to extend the current gardens to the east and north, introducing varied new planting in the process.
In a statement of intent, the university wrote: "Heart of the Campus will embrace the sustainable management of rainwater throughout the gardens, positively expressed through the landscape, both in a functional and attractive way: cleaning, slowing and integrating the rainwater through rain gardens, swales and channels, and enhance biodiversity in the Gardens.
"The walkway will be a bespoke, elegant feature within the gardens and will be a mass timber structure with a green roof."
Existing features such as a sandstone archway surviving from the old maternity hospital which once occupied the site will remain as a graduation wall with a branded corten steel panel.
The gardens will be reorganised in favour of pedestrian usage with only service access permitted for vehicles
The university has expressed a keeness to deliver the project as soon as practically possible in a single phase of work
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3 Comments
#1 Posted by Mary Hill on 22 May 2020 at 12:34 PM
Oh dear. What a shame. Rottenrow Gardens is one of the most successful Glasgow parks of the last 20 years. I appreciate that spaces need to change and evolve, but I would have liked to see Gross.Max get the opportunity to shape it's evolution. The design of this walkway looks totally at odds with the geometry and aesthetic of the park. This is in danger of turning a great park into a dog's dinner.
#2 Posted by robert menzies on 27 May 2020 at 13:41 PM
It would be even more interesting if you could walk along the top of the covered walkway. It works well with a sloping site.
#3 Posted by rm kartoffell on 13 Jun 2020 at 02:05 AM
Wow! Much worse than the perfectly fine park that is already there! Honestly, who the fuck is in charge of such ideas? The amount of money that is just thrown away on stupid vanity projects - the park is fine. Leave it.
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