March 13 2019

Smith Scott Mullan Associates with Nicoll Russell Studios have filed plans for an ambitious £50m upgrade of The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, securing the future of its globally important plant collection.

The Edinburgh Biomes project encompasses seven new and three refurbished buildings across two sites spanning both public and research spaces.

In a statement, Smith Scott Mullan Associates wrote: “On the public side, Smith Scott Mullan Associates will conserve and refurbish the magnificent Victorian Palm Houses and the unique 1967 glasshouses with their steel lattice exoskeleton.

“This succession of A-Listed nineteenth and twentieth-century glasshouses will be complemented by a new, twenty-first-century public glasshouse by Nicoll Russell Studios. A revised visitor route through the glasshouses will enhance the display of the plant collection to promote public understanding of plant biodiversity, conservation and research.

“Support areas have been redesigned by Smith Scott Mullan Associates to provide a substantial new glasshouse to safeguard the research collections, an education centre and a horticultural building.”

Two further buildings on the garden’s nearby nursery site will complete the interventions; namely a Plant Health Suite incorporating plant pathology and micro-propagation laboratories. It will be joined by a Sustainable Energy Centre serving both sites.

8 Comments

#1 Posted by boaby wan on 13 Mar 2019 at 15:37 PM

the actual buildings are so disappointing sitting beside the new and old glasshouses, what an awful way to spend £50m

#2 Posted by Damp Proof Membrane on 13 Mar 2019 at 17:31 PM

The support buildings appear to be very poor indeed. Gimmicks. The large new glasshouse appears unconvincing, particularly its integration to the landscaping - there's some form of apron in front of it. Difficult to believe that that structure won't be cumbersome and fatly detailed. Would be nice to have some finesse to the glazing.. Overall proposals that merely make the existing glasshouses from the previous two centuries look as good as they are. Disappointing.

#3 Posted by Inahuf on 13 Mar 2019 at 18:57 PM

It’s the massive bubble of a greenhouse that’s half eating the exiting block that I just don’t get....

#4 Posted by StyleCouncil on 13 Mar 2019 at 19:34 PM

The brick elements are completely inappropriate....like miserable little value engineered PFI schools dropped from space.

#5 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 14 Mar 2019 at 11:47 AM

The Auld Reekie vampire squid act continues.

Who cares about value as long as the money is being spent close to Holyrood.

Who cares about the Peoples Palace or Springburn -- they are just for poor people so they don't matter.

At some point the elastic will snap and the people will ask why?

#6 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 14 Mar 2019 at 12:16 PM

Just to confirm the design of the new greenhouse is terrible.

Even worse that the new Queen Street frontage terrible.

Looks like a giant slug trying to eat an out of date mars bar.

#7 Posted by Edward Harkins on 14 Mar 2019 at 12:24 PM

And of course Style Council some of those walls built with those PFI bricks from space have a tendency in some places to fall down...

#8 Posted by Landschafter on 15 Mar 2019 at 10:36 AM

Is an Urban Realm story even an Urban Realm story if someone isn't complaining about money being spent in Embra instead of the Weej?

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