Urban Building

Central School for English Language & Literacy

Gordon Street, Glasgow

Situated on Gordon Street which links the main shopping thoroughfare of Buchanan Street to the iconic Central Station, the school is ideally located for those who are predominantly newcomers who are unfamiliar with the city. The building's strong landmark presence enables it to stand out from the mainly commercial surrounding premises, making it an ideal meeting place and somewhere to feel comfortable interacting with new people.

Given the building’s large presence on the street, there were many important considerations to make. Gordon Street has quite a rich composition of Victorian and Georgian facades, mainly local red and blonde sandstone, and I wanted to examine how my building relates to its immediate context, the Georgian buildings on either side.

1:200 site model

The schedule of accomodation in the brief required 16 classrooms but I wanted to challenge whether it was necessary to have this regimented number of cellular type rooms. Herman Hertzberger’s idea of articulated rooms and the building as a city, with the circulation areas, or streets, as a room was an idea I wanted to explore. These enlarged articulated circulation spaces facilitate the gathering and interaction of students, and in effect become informal learning spaces. In order to achieve high levels of productivity and to be a stimulating learning centre, the spaces need to have adequate daylight and be naturally ventilated with frequent air changes. The building's constrained site and north facing aspect would provide challenges in achieving these aims.