October 16 2019

Mosaic Architecture + Design has unveiled Glasgow’s newest purpose-built student residences following completion of a 301-bed block sandwiched between the B-listed Piping Centre and A-listed Scottish Ambulance building in Cowcaddens.

Led by Soller Real Estate Base Glasgow has been developed for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and takes the form of a stone-clad rectangular block on Dunblane Street offering a mix of studio apartments, cluster flats and accessible dwellings arranged around a U-shaped plan.

Neil Haining, Director of Mosaic, said: “The development has been carefully designed in response to the site’s immediate context and the surrounding townscape in this part of the city and provides a new urban block with appropriate scale and quality of materials.

“The ground floor forms the primary access level with the primary entrance off McPhater Street. This level also supports a large percentage of the student amenity space which is focused around the entrance onto the public square. The amenity space also breaks out into the upper courtyard to ensure this external space is used as part of the everyday life of the building.”

Designed to reinforce the streetscape the accommodation is supported by a range of amenity spaces including soundproof practice rooms, a gym and cinema. Residents will also have access to a private landscaped courtyard.

3 Comments

#1 Posted by Charlie_ on 17 Oct 2019 at 09:04 AM

A really decent addition. Which makes you wonder what has gone so, so wrong elsewhere in so many student builds. Why cant we demand this baseline of stone cladding and decently proportioned windows elsewhere?

#2 Posted by Neil C on 18 Oct 2019 at 09:08 AM

This is a lovely addition to Cowcaddens, and as #1 says, it's a quantum leap above the usual guff students are palmed off with. Great work, Mosaic.

It also throws into stark relief the grotesque grey flatted blocks either side of it - one post-war social housing, the other a private Millennial development. Both utterly grim, and both an absolute eyesore.

#3 Posted by G Man on 18 Oct 2019 at 11:54 AM

I agree Neil C, with Glasgow being Glasgow, I wonder what intellectual came up with the idea that white render was a great exterior finish on these developments? The building you speak of is filthy, looks worse when it rains and its around 15 years old.. How stuff like this got by the planning committee is anybody's guess, they must have thought that the building and others they approved might have stayed white as there is less industrial pollution these days..

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