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New images show a courtyard events space fronting the GSA

June 12 2025

New images show a courtyard events space fronting the GSA

Fresh perspectives illustrating the impact of a planned 356-bed student housing development on the Glasgow School of Art have been published, depicting a new courtyard events space at the foot of the burnt-out shell.

Vita Group is working with Haus Collective to transform the site of the former ABC venue on Sauchiehall Street, by erecting a £70m student block above a flexible space housing a food hall by day and an events space by nightfall.

James Rooke, planning director for Vita Group, said: “We believe our proposals offer a unique approach to student living and the benefits the development will bring extend far beyond the student community. It will generate significant economic benefits, will help to re-energise Sauchiehall Street and contribute to the city’s Golden Z ambitions.

“This is an incredibly challenging site to redevelop and we’ve worked hard to create proposals that are deliverable and appropriate.”

Reacting to the proposals architect and GSA alumnus Alan Dunlop told Urban Realm: "Ridiculous images of sunlight flooding into this space. Only if you remove four or five storeys from the front onto Sauchiehall street then you may get some sunlight into there - in June. The proposal is vastly over-scaled with ubiquitous student accommodation and lacking refinement.

"Damn right it’s an incredibly challenging site to develop but the developer and their architects clearly need to try much, much harder. If this gets approved then Glasgow has lost all credibility as a City of Architecture and Design."

ABC owners OBARCS were instructed to partially demolish the fire-damaged building by Glasgow City Council earlier this year on health & safety grounds.

The event space will abut the monolithic northern elevation of the Mackintosh Building
The event space will abut the monolithic northern elevation of the Mackintosh Building
The project is billed as a key plank in the rejuvenation of Sauchiehall Street
The project is billed as a key plank in the rejuvenation of Sauchiehall Street

The terraced block will step up Scott Street
The terraced block will step up Scott Street

24 Comments

Fat Bloke on Tour
#1 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 12 Jun 2025 at 11:08 AM
Interesting views on offer.

Have to say that CRM phoned in the southern elevations of the GSA.

OK Sauchiehall Street has covered it up for decades but it is still pretty poor fare.
KLD
#2 Posted by KLD on 12 Jun 2025 at 12:14 PM
The Glasgow School of Art no longer exists. Is it customary for developments to relate to nearby ruins?
Roddy_
#3 Posted by Roddy_ on 12 Jun 2025 at 12:37 PM
Not just an embarrassment for Glasgow and Scotland but one which will echo around europe and the world. To have such an appallingly insenstive, mis-scaled, coarsely detailied, relentlessly modulated , artless, over-wrought and over-bearing accretion next to the GSA kind of beggars belief. And the scale relationship to the Grecian chambers is woeful too.
Given the critical nature of the GSA rebuild, this gives the naysayers another reason not press on . HES says that this will wreck any hopes of the school becoming a didactic tool (which Mackintosh fully intended in the design) once more. I tend to agree.
I have a strong inkling that this will get consent this time around.
Roddy_
#4 Posted by Roddy_ on 12 Jun 2025 at 13:10 PM
P.S nice to see that FBOT, among other things, is also an expert on CRM and the GSA..
'phoned in the southern elevations'... knowledgable, nuanced and not crass in any way shape or form. See below and get signed up immediately.

https://www.crmsociety.com/
James Hepburn
#5 Posted by James Hepburn on 12 Jun 2025 at 13:22 PM
Imagine as much effort was put into affordable housing as is for student accommodation. Probably not enough 'incentive' on offer to the councillors involved.
Chris
#6 Posted by Chris on 12 Jun 2025 at 14:32 PM
#5 Who is footing the bill for affordable housing then? The cash-strapped public sector certainly isn't. The private sector will walk if you try and force them.

Maybe the shortage of affordable housing (across the West in general, this isn't a Glasgow specific issue) has more to do with deep systemic failures rather than some greedy local councillor?
Heidfirst
#7 Posted by Heidfirst on 12 Jun 2025 at 16:14 PM
I strongly suspect that more of that space is going to be in shadow than the illustration shows ...
Tororojo
#8 Posted by Tororojo on 12 Jun 2025 at 16:36 PM
Whatever the merits or otherwise of the articulation, use, detailing and accessibility of this proposal, it is clearly two stories too high.
Showbiz Sam
#9 Posted by Showbiz Sam on 12 Jun 2025 at 19:26 PM
Sorry for elbowing in here, but i dont think this proposal is the real story here. Having recently watched Prof. Gordon Gibb's illuminating, cogent and succinct talk on the historical demise of the GSA building (due to the incompetence of the board and extremely lax management of the building) I came to the following realistic conclusion (due to a mooted 350M rebuild cost): That after lying in its current state for the next 50 bureaucratic years, it will eventually be demolished to make way for another banal development. What is proposed is very very short-sighted and merely puts another nail in the coffin of the GSA, (What's new in Tamany Hallsville?) blighting any more visionary development of the southern half of the block related to a repurposed Art School buildinng. But forgive me, i am forgetting my place, this is Scotland. The government couldn't run a raffle, or dare I say, permit some other organisation that would be willing to further a working solution to this national embarassment. Otherwise, why bother, the baw's on the slates, well and truly. Compared to how European countries treat their international artistic brandnames it really is shite being Scottish.
Parkguy61
#10 Posted by Parkguy61 on 13 Jun 2025 at 09:34 AM
If the courtyard is genuinely publicly accessible as a condition of planning this could be an asset to the city as it will allow people to enjoy a view of the consolidated ruin of the GSA
Gandalf the Grey
#11 Posted by Gandalf the Grey on 13 Jun 2025 at 10:11 AM
How this is a key plank in the rejuvenation of Sauchiehall Street I can't imagine. Looks likely to pan out much as Showbiz Sam outlined, leaving Sauchiehall Street in an even more desperate condition than it currently is. On the GSA, Neil Baxter was right.
Roddy_
#12 Posted by Roddy_ on 13 Jun 2025 at 19:20 PM
There is plenty of deserved ire for the the GSA and its 'custodians' but by the same token, the owners and developers of the ABC site really ought to be copping it too.

To not have cleared the debris from the second fire and consolidated the remaining facade immediately is incomprehensible to me, and for the city to have allowed it to be so beggars belief. There are still lingering questions about whether the facade really needed to be demolished too - and the lack of a conservation accredited engineer to assess the viablity and make propositions for its retention. Latterly, to have tried it on with earlier iterations of the scheme above - which were even more bloated and over-scaled.

To have left the site half demolished is a stroke of evil genius. A clear and tidy site, with clean and tidy hoardings would reveal more of the remnants of the school as well as be much less of a physical and visual blight on the street. We must get a consent in order to build something and clear away the mess that we have already created.The current blight would be far worse than any other consideration - like perhaps a building with architectural merit or scaled properly. Evil genius.

The School will, in time, be re-built and in the long term the current and former directorship will be forgotton but will the school be the lesser for the presence of the above? The answer is a clear yes.

Had the architecture been in any way half-decent and scaled sympathetically, they might have already had a consent, but the planning gymnastics that this scheme has been through, clearly points to designers that are out of their depth with little or no real comprehension of the city ; how to modulate a facade or introduce any form of art or decorative expression - even of the most minimal kind. We get this ham-fisted radiator.

It will be interesting to see who is on the committee and if the vote goes along party lines. The Greens will object and probably one or two Labour. The rest ? Well who knows? If you tune in regularly to the planning committee webcasts, you'll understand the shambolic nature of these conferences and the facile interpretations of material consideration that is often on display. The more I think about this, the more I think I might change my mind. It might not be just as cut and dried a decision as I intimated in #3. But if this passes muster, the city will be the laughing stock of Europe. A decision to go hand in glove with the decision to build a multi-storey carpark next to Scotland Street school.
KLD
#13 Posted by KLD on 13 Jun 2025 at 21:01 PM
With multiple universities on the verge of financial collapse the likelihood of a replacement school of art being built is very slim. We can't compromise the regeneration of an entire city centre block because it might affect the views to a ruin.
Maboza Aitken
#14 Posted by Maboza Aitken on 14 Jun 2025 at 16:08 PM
They had their chance of moral
Authority.

They allowed
It to be BURNED DOWN TWICE!!!!!
Roddy_
#15 Posted by Roddy_ on 14 Jun 2025 at 20:34 PM
The 3d artist doing the visualisations would probably have struggled to light the interior of the external courtyard effectively. The images must be on the Summer Solstice at midday - based on the very acute shadows in the images. The reality is that most of the courtyard will be in shadow for most of the day and for most of the year as indeed Alan Dunlop asserts. The fact that the word shadow is only mentioned in the D&A Statement in the context of the pre-app issues is telling. Daylighting is mentioned about a dozen times but mostly in relation to the effect on the GSA, not the space subtended by such a deep plan. You do not need to be an expert in the BRE assessment of daylighting to know that this will be one of the gloomiest places in the city.

I have no doubt that the benches, umbrellas and faux grass will, if consented, be replaced by the kind of heated wendy houses that you see in Royal Exchange Square. The 'traditional Glasgow lane'* (*from the D&A Statement) that is conveyed, is anything but traditional in that it is gated. Understandable for out of hours security and all that - just please don't call it 'traditional'.. I suspect that the first chance the operators get to close off the lane and direct folk to their front door and food offering will be taken. It will not be a route of conveyance between Scott St and Dalhousie St - this is the way 'traditional' lanes often work.

The more you look at this - the D&A statement gives away a lot of clues - page 8 has what looks like the architect's initial sketch (or at least the initial sketch of this particular iteration); a 3d doodle of mute, blank facades with randomly placed stringer courses and an arcade topped by arched window panels. When you begin to dig into it- like the more detailed visualisations, they reveal more and more to be troubling.That broad arched window panel at the corners followed by the narrow arched panel (which arrays across the width) is as visually jarring as I've seen in many a year and the turning of the the corners at Scott and Dalhousie Streets is as coarse and facile as I've seen in a long time. The fact of the matter is that it is planners, not designers that have the ultimate sanction, and this will count in favour of the design. There is what used to be called City Design - now subsumed into the Neighbourhoods, Regeneration and Sustainability dept but I'm yet to see where and how their influence has been brought to bear positively on any (and I mean ANY) development in Glasgow. The technocrats have deemed that the building has ticked all the boxes and so it shall be. I'm reminded of the quote from the great Ian McHarg - I'm paraphrasing -' Never underestimate man's abilty to create ugliness.' Whether the Planning Committee see it the same way remains to be seen.
Neil C
#16 Posted by Neil C on 15 Jun 2025 at 16:33 PM
Sharp practise here Roddy, the sun in Glasgow tops at 58 degrees at noon on the summer solstice 21st June. Much less than indicated in the supplied image. On average the sun highest point is at 34.5 degrees above the horizon. So you and the prof are right it would be dark, sunless and damp for the vast majority of the year.
kerblam
#17 Posted by kerblam on 15 Jun 2025 at 21:35 PM
Pretty awful, utterly unresponsive and over-scaled to the GSA setting. But credit for the light relief in showing students wandering around various rooftops protected only by knee-high glass railings.
kerblam
#18 Posted by kerblam on 15 Jun 2025 at 21:36 PM
#2 Yes, if it's still a grade-A listed building. Which it is.
Ghost
#19 Posted by Ghost on 16 Jun 2025 at 10:11 AM
It is a truly awful proposal and much worse than the previous scheme that was rejected.

On the face of it, this should be an obvious refusal for the committee, but with Glasgow City Council, who knows!
devilish advocaat
#20 Posted by devilish advocaat on 16 Jun 2025 at 17:05 PM
Has anyone heard from Roddy_? I feel like he'd have something to say on this.
FBoT2
#21 Posted by FBoT2 on 16 Jun 2025 at 17:12 PM
Useful filler.
Roddy_
#22 Posted by Roddy_ on 16 Jun 2025 at 19:48 PM
Has anyone heard from devilish advocaat? I feel like he'd (she'd?) have something to say on this.
Perhaps not.. :)
Robert Zimmerman
#23 Posted by Robert Zimmerman on 17 Jun 2025 at 14:20 PM
''and it's all over now...''
KLD
#24 Posted by KLD on 18 Jun 2025 at 09:26 AM
Consummatum est

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