Output details

Glasgow School of Art

The output presented is a building, commissioned by Glasgow School of Art, as a new school of design. Henry McKeown and Ian Alexander are partners of JM Architects and also work as lecturers and researchers at The Glasgow School of Art. McKeown and Alexander collaborated with Steven Holl architects from New York and won the project in an international competition in 2009. Part of the design challenge is to make something new in the context of the A listed Mackintosh building and that is reflected in the wonderful watercolours and original designs of Steven Holl. The focus of the research for McKeown and Alexander (in addition to the practical task of coordinating a cross-Atlantic team and realising the project in situ) was on the design in detail of the project.

The portfolio presented with this output highlights some of the major challenges for creating the design in detail from the original concept images. The central research questions are:

1.What should the spatial characteristics of a 21st Century teaching art studio be?

2. How was Steven Holl’s original ‘thin skin’ concept interpreted in aesthetic and technical terms?

3. How was Steven Holl’s original design concept as described in his watercolour sketches translated into built fabric?

There is a particular design issue faced in taking Steven Holl’s ‘phenomenological’ position into the aesthetics, and technical realisation of the ‘thin skin’ of the new building, through detailing, experimentation, modelling and testing. Essentially this involved a techincal and engineering challenge that was addressed through some innovative and ground-breaking approaches that are detailed further in the portfolio.