Collegelands completion emphasises community, art and parks
March 26 2024
A mixed-use inner city development close to Glasgow's historic core is set for completion, 20 years after work first began.
Dawn Developments and Drum Property Group are returning to Collegelands with plans for Collegelands Park, a combination of student and build to rent accommodation spread across two separate blocks.
Set amidst 2.5 acres of parkland the dual build will be joined by a community lounge and arts centre, to be owned and operated by Dream Machine, a Calton-based charity dedicated to building community cohesion through art.
The joint venture partners have agreed to transfer a triangle of land suitable for three key spaces, a community lounge, an events space and a staff area facing a shared dining hall to make this happen.
In a consultation statement, the developers wrote: "This development proposal is the last element of the Collegelands Masterplan, which will complete the vision established almost two decades ago. "Collegelands is the last gap site in the regeneration of this eastwards development of the city centre. It is strategically placed to continue the placemaking vision within the Meatmarket and Calton’s masterplans."
Concept sketches emphasise connectivity between the High Street and Dennistoun via a landscaped active travel route lined by a sequence of stepped blocks rising from west to east. A full planning application is expected in the summer.
Sketch drawings illustrate a stepped sequence of accommodation
The developers promise to tackle anti-social behaviour and improve landscape maintenance
|
4 Comments
The question to be asked here is - just what is so different here to the woeful stuff that has been delivered hitherto? The answer is nothing. The same coarse detailing, the same shoe-boxes-on-end and the same overshadowed interstitial spaces.
The random footprints and cranked entry make the site more awkward,less legible and less contextual than anything that was proposed in the orignal Collegelands Masterplan; a plan that has to rank among the worst the city has produced in the last 20-odd years and whose implementation has been apalling. The original masterplan did however attempt to link to Hunter St and beyond to the East. This doesn't.
One suspects that the ground offered up for a park is a mere sop or makeweight for the woeful looking built proposal. Again - what is it about this awkward piece of land that will draw folk to it given the already tragic nature of the existing townscape.
The designers should not be blamed for the apalling original masterplan but they should be held to have analysed the site, understood the issues and produced something better than this - even at this conceptual level. Kind of embarrassing.
One issue about the whole area -- where does the spending power go?
West vs East vs South?
Do they have a local?
The site next to the Moxy has had plans put forward some three years ago but not sure how they are progressing.
Good to see the site being filled up -- density is good.
Better that it is a mixed development with commercial housing for sale as well as the currently fashionable / profitable PBSA style units.
One down one to go -- the area next to the Moxy is in desperate need of progress. They had a plan but progress would appear to be glacial.
I wonder if someone will give the coach company an offer they cannot refuse -- big yard / too good for bus storage.