August 26 2020

Work to convert and extend a historic school in Glasgow's west end is nearing completion, with the finishing touches being made to 60 apartments.

Fronting Dowanhill, Chancellor and White Street's the combination of new build and refurbishment will complete a city block by Collective Architecture. This includes an underground and upper parking deck which together will provide dedicated off-street parking for each flat.

In an update on progress so far Partick Housing Association wrote: "In the last few months there has been a lot of progress both internally and externally. Externally the majority of the scaffolding has now been dropped and you can see the final form of the building. The red brick was chosen to tie in with the converted south block.

"The ground floor feature brickwork has been added to mirror the design of a traditional tenement with its feature ground floor brickwork."

Redevelopment of the former St Peter's School was delayed by the demise of Central Building Contractors, having initially been earmarked for completion in March. 

7 Comments

#1 Posted by monkey9000 on 26 Aug 2020 at 11:23 AM

Good grief! One of the most impoverished looking buildings in the West End and Partick! Novosibirsk apartments have more character than this atrocity.
"Feature brickwork to mirror the design of a feature tenement"... someone is talking bo****ks! A very poor comparison with traditional stone rustication seen on the neighbouring tenements. A shame to see a fairly talented group of architects put their name against this.

#2 Posted by Peter on 26 Aug 2020 at 11:48 AM

"Your dream East Kilbride home in the heart of iconic West End". Build cheap shoeboxes, advertise as gemstones, double the price, proceed to another location. Typical Glasgow, what's the surprise?

#3 Posted by Hmm on 26 Aug 2020 at 12:18 PM

I walk past this frequently. I think it looks good; it fits in well scale-wise with the surrounding buildings, the brick is of a good quality and there are some nice details in the brickwork. Nice to see reuse of part of the old school building too. Yes the floor to ceilings and square meterage per apartment won't beat the neighbouring tenements but the architects can't really be blamed for that. Compare this to the tat being thrown up on Meadow Road in Partick. I know what I'd rather see built. This is a decent bit of new build housing on a previously derelict site, with some historic building re-use to boot – this is exactly what Glasgow needs more of.

#4 Posted by Colin on 26 Aug 2020 at 13:00 PM

When you click on the link above to “St Peter’s School” it shows a development with “smooth cut blonde sandstone” cladding which didn’t look too bad. What happened to that plan?

#5 Posted by George on 26 Aug 2020 at 13:24 PM

Well spotted Colin #4 and something that really annoys me with Glasgow planners. So many projects get approved with reasonable materials and then quietly this gets value engineered down to brick or even roughcast which looks terrible after 6 months. No other city planning allows this, Glasgow why do you allow so much rubbish to get passed?

#6 Posted by Robin B's Discount on 26 Aug 2020 at 13:34 PM

It's blinking social housing.... the cheaper the cheaper they can build, the more they can build. If having a less attractive facade allows for multiple more families to be housed then I'm all for it.

Totally agree with #3, it compliments the area well. Not every development is looking for an award winning design.

#7 Posted by ur on 26 Aug 2020 at 15:55 PM

@4 A range of amendments were submitted post-2016 which were passed as non-material variations
https://publicaccess.glasgow.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=O597R4EXIZD00

These included: ’Change of the Stanton Moore blonde Sandstone to facing brick type ‘Birtley Old English Buff’ with flemishbond brick detailing.'

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