January 19 2021

Aberdeen City Council has joined forces with jmarchitects and RankinFraser landscape architecture to spearhead the redevelopment of the former Craighill Primary School in the Kincorth area of the city for social housing.

99 dementia-friendly apartments and terraced homes have been earmarked for the plot, each fronting a shared surface streetscape to establish a pedestrian focussed neighbourhood.

Explaining their approach the architects observed: "The blocks have been arranged to form a new urban edge to the site, articulating gable ends at key junctions and framing new landscaped amenity spaces. Secure communal amenity courtyards are formed within the central area between the blocks.

"We believe that the mix of scales of blocks within the site and a mono-pitched roof approach with an emphasis on the important corner buildings and highly visible gable ends will reinforce a response which proposes an appropriate scale and form."

Individual blocks will be covered in a robust weathered brick outer skin with generous corner windows and projecting precast balconies adding depth and precast stringer courses distinguishing each storey.  

12 Comments

#1 Posted by 7yrsatuni on 19 Jan 2021 at 14:11 PM

Genius.....worth all the midnight oil to train your monkey

#2 Posted by MV on 19 Jan 2021 at 14:18 PM

That looks like a full storey of brick above the top storey of accommodation. It looks uncomfortable and slightly wasteful.

#3 Posted by TheFakeArchitect on 19 Jan 2021 at 14:37 PM

Sorry but this looks hideous. "Consistent architectural form" they say, not half.

#4 Posted by Housing Officer on 19 Jan 2021 at 16:52 PM

#2 - have you read and understood the elevations or brought out the scatter-gun before bothering to click 4 times?

Thought so.

#5 Posted by Auntie Nairn on 19 Jan 2021 at 19:45 PM

UR, are there any images available showing the gable or opposite elevations?

#6 Posted by Scoop on 19 Jan 2021 at 21:20 PM

Having read through the planning application it is heartening to see decent architecture for social housing, and in such quantity. More of this please.

#7 Posted by Zoltan on 19 Jan 2021 at 22:00 PM

Spent way more time than you should have to trying to decipher the orientation of the blocks thanks to complete lack of north points - as far as I can tell that clumsy quasi-monopitch form is not to optimise PV orientation, as most of those roofs face north, along with the balconies! Not the only odd decision here - a nice brick and a quirky window arrangement does not make it a good housing scheme

#8 Posted by MV on 20 Jan 2021 at 09:38 AM

#4 yes. Yes I did thanks and stand by my comments. Utterly uncomfortable and wasteful. Question for you is: Do you know what scatter-gun means? No? Didn't think so.

#9 Posted by Do as you say on 20 Jan 2021 at 09:54 AM

" The blocks have been arranged to form a new urban edge.." - sorry they haven't. The site is a single geometry layout with the usual left over spaces which this generates. The pre-application layout in the design statement was much closer to this ambition with blocks arranged to respond to surrounding streets and provide positive links through to the adjoining housing. Site layouts which ignore context and edge conditions seem to becoming popular.

#10 Posted by The Demon Headmaster on 20 Jan 2021 at 11:42 AM

JM-A? I'll give this a JM-B.

#11 Posted by Judge not lest thee be judged on 20 Jan 2021 at 14:38 PM

Not bad as far as UR engagement is concerned. Trolling bubbling along at circa 25% with some actual design comments in amongst.

As far as the scheme goes, I will let the great minds of UR battle it out in mans greatest proving ground - the comments section - before i pass judgment.

That being said, i do like a nice brick and a quirky window arrangement.

#12 Posted by Urban Realm on 20 Jan 2021 at 15:33 PM

@5 yes, south facing roofs will slope to accommodate photovoltaic arrays and sun pipes.

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