July 6 2020

The University of Edinburgh is furthering efforts to decentralise provision of student accommodation around the city with moves to deliver purpose-built studio accommodation on the site of the former Northfield House Hotel, Lasswade Road, Liberton.

Led by 56Three Architects the 'castellated' design will occupy a gushet block bounded by Ellen's Glen Road with a recessed upper level finished in fretted weathered steel to reduce the apparent scale of the brick main body.

Closed since the coronavirus outbreak the hotel takes the form of an unlisted Georgian-eras villa which will be demolished to allow 103 beds with associated facilities to be introduced.

In a statement, the applicant wrote: "The owners have reviewed the business model for the hotel and have concluded that the retention of the existing house is not viable.

"The house provides a limited internal floor area compared to its large plot size. We have reviewed options for extending the building however due to the small scale of the house and its position on site there is limited opportunity to provide a suitable increase in density.

"The proposal is to demolish the house to make way for a new purpose built development. The house is not listed and there is limited architectural merit to warrant retention."

Perimeter woodland will be retained with a large semi-circular garden area to the south serving as a focal point for a lounge and reception.

3 Comments

#1 Posted by Islands of sanity on 6 Jul 2020 at 11:33 AM

Looks more like a villa from c1870.ie Victorian. Not listed but still a fine building and what about factoring other issues such as embodied energy into their so called appraisal.

#2 Posted by Bob on 7 Jul 2020 at 09:02 AM

One persons “inefficient use of the site” is another’s “has some Greenspace”.

#3 Posted by jimapple on 7 Jul 2020 at 18:15 PM

"there is limited architectural merit to warrant retention." I think a vacant lot has more merit than what is proposed here

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