Speculative Architecture
18 Jan 2008
- Summary
- What was Speculative architecture?
- What was the rationale for such a competition at Bellahouston park?
- How did the competition work?
- How were the submissions assessed?
- What stage are plans at now?
- The proposals
Summary
In 2005 House for an Art Lover, based in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow launched a competition, ‘Speculative architecture’. It was seen as a way of encouraging thinking about what a public park could be, and also as a means of encouraging speculation and collaboration across and between artists and architects. In October 2007, as the first of the winning competition proposals – the Glasshouse – A Garden for a Plant Collector by Gross Max architects – was realized, Fiona Dean met up with HAL Board member James Cosgrove who provides some background and images to the project.
What was Speculative architecture?
Speculative Architecture was a competition that was devised in 2005 by House for an Art Lover (HAL – built in 1996 from Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s 1901 entry to Alexander Koch’s competition to design a house ‘for a connoisseur of the arts’). It was seen by HAL and their partners City of Glasgow Land Services, as a major step forward towards considering the creation of Bellahouston Park as an important outdoor venue for ‘live’ architecture, art and design to be known as ART PARK, Glasgow. It also importantly would build on the history of art, design and architectural speculation that had been established via the 1938 Empire exhibition and 1988 Glasgow garden festival. Indeed, a working mission statement for ART PARK Glasgow could be that ‘it will seek to combine innovation in the visual arts with excellence in environmental design within an ecologically sensitive space which acknowledges its historical and cultural context’.
Doocot, Paul Cosgrove
What was the rationale for such a competition at Bellahouston park?
Bellahouston Park already has a rich and varied cultural and historical identity and is adapting to changing patterns of need in the community with an emphasis on sports activities from a well equipped and highly popular Leisure Centre to an advanced sports facility centred on the Palace of Art – a singular, and now refurbished, relic from the Empire Exhibition, which was staged across the entire park during the summer months of 1938. The Empire Exhibition was in itself an amazing installation of ‘Speculative Architecture’ – pavilions, palaces and towers – a wonderful expression of the essence of thirties architecture, design and art in the context of exhibiting the cultural, commercial and industrial strength and diversity of the Commonwealth.
Since this time, House for an art lover with Glasgow city council land services have invited competitions for commissioned sculptures, play and seating areas. These include ‘First season’ in 1999 which led to a number of commissioned sculptures; ‘Benchmarks’ in 2000 and ‘Grounds for play’, which began in 2002. By means of the Speculative Architecture competition, the idea was that this work would be taken on further, by a group of architects, artists and designers representing a broad range of collective and individual practice – including some with academic and research backgrounds – who would be invited to consider the nature and current use of a public park and, as a result of their deliberations, propose innovative ideas for interventions, structures or activities which would engage visitors and enhance their experience.
How did the competition work?
The Brief for the competition welcomed singular or collaborative approaches by individuals or design practices and invited each ‘to make propositions for objects, structures, installations or buildings to be set within the confines of Bellahouston Park’.
While the Brief was deliberately open-ended and not prescriptive, a key aim was that propositions should embrace ideas of public interaction. The function and narrative of how this ‘interaction’ would be achieved as well as the conceptual framework was to be determined by the participants. The Brief announced the intention to choose three entries to be constructed and installed in the park over a three year period – providing that the budget for each was within an absolute ceiling of £100,000 including below ground works, landscaping, professional fees, infrastructure, servicing and any other ancillary costs.
How were the submissions assessed?
The Assessment criteria for judging the entries encompassed ‘buildability’, durability, maintenance and operational revenue implications and ‘eco-consciousness’ – all within a framework of aesthetic and human factors. Given that the structures would be viewed/used by members of the public and in particular children and those with particular needs, health and safety issues would be required to be addressed and proposals constructed within the Construction, Design and Management (CDM) regulations.
Submission requirements, like the Brief, were not prescriptive and competitors were encouraged to design the format and medium of their visual presentation. Models, orthogonal/3D drawings, digital presentations, art works, were examples of what might constitute a submission methodology. However, a text-based narrative of no more than 1000 words was mandatory in support of each submission accompanied by associated costs. Submissions were to be assessed on an anonymous basis by a jury comprising architect, Professor Andy MacMillan; Cllr. Aileen Colleran; Robert Booth Director of Land services; David Leslie architect and Chairman HAL; Janice Forsyth Writer and broadcaster and Dr Stuart MacDonald (then Director of the Lighthouse Glasgow). Competitors were given an honorarium of £750 for each entry and the three winning proposals were each awarded £2250. An exhibition of all complete submissions was mounted in House for an Art Lover and an edited version was exhibited at The Lighthouse, Glasgow, where a catalogue was published to coincide with the intention to build the three winning entries:
- Glasshouse – A Garden for a Plant Collector by Gross Max.
- Glasgow Roots by Gareth Hoskins Architect,
- Maze – A Modern Labyrinth, by JM Architects.
What stage are plans at now?
The aims were to install the three projects in Bellahouston Park by 2008 to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the British Empire exhibition and 20 years since the Glasgow Garden Festival. The Glasshouse and its associated interpretation centre, a converted gardener’s bothy, was opened in October 2007. Glasgow Roots and the Maze are each at advanced stages of design detailing while an outreach programme of related schools and community involvement is underway.
New Allotments for the city of Glasgow. Justin Carter
dot. dot. dot. Designed by Shauna McMullan and Paul Hughes
Fusion: Building, Dwelling, Thinking. Tony Barber and Paul Cosgrove
Uncovering the Traces, Studio Kap
Circular Walkway, Designed by Chris Stewart Architects
Secret Garden, Designed by Sutherland Hussey Architects
Desire...Lines, Mike Angus and students of Strathclyde university
Glasshouse, Garden for a Plant Collector, Designed by Grossmax
Miegakure ??? Garden gateway, ZM Architecture
AMAZE, JM Architects
Untitled - The Block, Katty Barac/One Foot Taller
British Empire Exhibition virtual model of Peace Pavilion By Digital Design Studio GSA, Designed by Ranald MacColl and Peter Welsh
Dumbreck, Designed by Nord Architecture
Glasgow Roots - Building Blocks, Designed by Gareth Hoskins Architects
The proposals
A brief synopsis of each of the fourteen proposals illustrates the range and diversity of ideas from architects, artists and designers given an opportunity to individually or in collaboration, apply, extend or cross boundaries in their practice – in a very public arena.
Proposal: New Allotments for the City of Glasgow
Carter’s proposal considers the possibility of speculative architecture from the grass roots. By setting aside land for allotments, creative risk and complex issues of ownership would be addressed directly. This would be the first comprehensive re-assessment of plot size and layout since the eighteenth century – a re-think with today’s user in mind. The introduction of allotments to Bellahouston Park would provide both a response to the rising demand for such spaces in the city, and present a timely living monument acknowledging their place in our cultural heritage. By shifting the context of allotments from the urban outskirts to the centre, questions of value in relation to land, education, food production and the environment would be addressed. Allotments are one of the few remaining ‘institutions’ that informally encourage a mix of age, ethnicity and social background. At the centre of the new plots would be a communal building with provision for social events, communal eating, tool storage and skills sharing. A community orchard would be planted providing blossom and fruit, and a number of plots would be reserved for school and community initiatives. Ecological composting toilets would be provided.
Proposal: dot.dot.dot.
McMullan and Hughes’ proposal saw the location of Bellahouston Park, as being at the heart of a city with an ever increasing and diverse ethnic population. Touching on every side of the park are communities and individuals who have travelled from various corners of the world –some now resident in the City for over a generation, others who have more recently made it their home. The central idea is to create ‘pockets of land’ within the park which were from other places to echo the cycles and histories of immigration into the area –and the City. Could Bellahouston Park host earth from different countries throughout the world –could the introduction of platforms of earth from as far away as China and Pakistan encourage a revision of our understanding of what it means to be from Glasgow? The series of forms would enable visitors and users of the park to sit on a piece of India or Turkey while observing Glasgow. The concept is to import into Bellahouston Park approximately 6 tonnes of earth from each of 5 or 6 locations across the world to be used to create a dotted line of platforms connected visually and physically on an existing grassed area. Grass seed from the respective countries would be grown on each of the circular forms, which will merge with the surrounding environment as well as drawing attention to it.
Project: Fusion: Building, Dwelling, Thinking
Barber and Cosgrove’s proposal was rooted in speculation – considering the relationship between the artist and architect in terms of ‘making’ and ‘building’. This relationship between sculptural and architectural practices as they occur in the built environment formed the basis of Barber and Cosgrove’s proposal, which, aimed to consider what collaboration between an artist and architect might offer to this area of practice. Grounded in Heidegger’s Writings from being and time which traces the etymology of the word ‘build’ to its roots in ‘to dwell’/‘to be’, the proposal sought to explore the interconnection between making and building. As a collaboration through making, ‘Fusion’, sought to identify and fuse a number of techniques and processes at the core of architectural and sculptural practice, creating a multi-functioning structure that would act as a shelter, meeting point, play form, passage, object to view and to view from. As such it was an attempt to craft a continuous three-dimensional line that would move seamlessly across terrain – bridging architecture and sculpture through a work that would provide a place to ‘dwell’ by acting as foundation, floor, wall, ceiling and roof. The proposal was to make the work entirely on site and in public view, where form and surface textures would be created using castings and moulds – made from a variety of materials – laid on compressed sand and earth, to provide support and shuttering. These would then be flooded with cement and aggregate. which, once cured, would result in self-supporting forms. In its mode of making, the work aimed to make reference to the many ad-hoc vernacular building processes, materials and techniques to be seen across the urban landscape and within a range of sculptural and architectural practices.
Project: Uncovering the Traces
Studio Kap proposed a series of subtle interventions to create a thoughtful landscape narrative that would weave tales of the existing park, past and present. The proposal intended to strike a very subtle note, implicitly encouraging visitors to the centre of the park and only then revealing its hidden treasures and qualities in a gentle manner.
Primarily the sunken former basement of Bellahouston House was to be transformed into a marsh garden, heavily planted with reeds and foliage to attract wildlife, visible from ground level and above. The marsh garden would then be overlaid with an accessible metal grillage to develop its mysterious character and evoke a feeling of not quite knowing what you are walking above. A new arrangement of path, step, ramp would connect the marsh garden to two grassy scooped out terraces, and the excavated foundation of ’Tait’s Tower’ – the now demolished ‘Tower of Empire’ which was the highlight of the Exhibition of Empire in 1938 – thereby introducing a journey of discovery: of ‘uncovering the traces’ of the park’s rich history. The marsh garden would create a new world designed to attract and support wildlife while providing a sensory and educational experience. Intriguingly sunken yet located on the brow of a hill, marshy underfoot yet laid with grillage, the perception of gravity, surface and texture continues the exploration of the mysterious world under the surface. Uncovering the traces… revealing a series of secret events.
Project: Circular Walkway
Chris Stewart architects recognized that Bellahouston Park is widely used for walking, running and cycling below the wooded hill at the centre of the Park. The elevated path, which borders the wooded area, provides very good views towards the Eaglesham Moors and the Renfrewshire countryside. However, due to the vigorous growth of trees, splendid views of the City to the north are obscured. At the top of the hill, where stood Tait’s Tower (The Tower of Empire of 1938) views are entirely removed by trees, and the sunken garden of the former Bellahouston House is now shut off to the public. Yet this is a key part of the park with enormous potential for panoramic views. The proposal was to insert a partially sunken, partially elevated promenade/walkway circulating from the top of the hill into and around the coniferous wood canopy promoting access and enjoyment of the wooded hill section of the park. Users could experience views of the surrounding area from the elevated walkways with a greater awareness of growth at the top level and of wildlife, which inhabits the trees – at times close to the ground and at other times closer to the sky. It was also intended to encourage new planting of woodland plants (seasonal, fragrant and/or flowering). Sustainable, recycled, and reclaimed materials as much as possible would be used for elevated structures and balustrades. Local communities would be involved in the project leading to a greater and wider understanding of the park’s character, history and wildlife.
Project: Secret Garden
The Secret Garden would occupy the basement of Dumbreck house; a building originally positioned for its commanding view of Glasgow, but now reduced to its perimeter/basement walls. It is now a barred sunken garden hidden from the City by a dense covering of trees – only viewed obliquely through the layers of foliage and fencing; accessible to none. The proposal would heighten the sense of discovery and mystery in this ‘hidden space’ – a space of discovery in a public park – to create an intimate herbal garden that observes the seasons and passing of time.
A glass box viewing platform would conceal steps, which lead down to the garden, where planting would be influenced by traditional herb gardens and each section would be devoted to a single species.
Project: Desire… lines
Desire…lines is derived from a number of observations of Bellahouston Park, and parks generally,
From these observations, the concept is to introduce an alternative route that might present different experiences – another ‘line’ but one which crossed the hill in a north/south direction – penetrating into the wood and up and across the hill. These experiences would include a line of post as opposed to a path – of a scale and proportion differing from the familiar. St abruous pints on that line across the hill are a number of experiences; climbing into a age, a chasm, slicing into the hill, a look out, steps, terraces, a hanging garden.
Project: Glasshouse, garden for a plant collector
The glasshouse as an archetype can be regarded as a sublime example of speculative architecture. Infact the origin of modern architecture is directly derived from the 19th C glasshouse. The project proposes a minimal glasshouse packed with a spectacular display of some of the world’s most weird and even grotesque plants: a horticultural freak show from carnivorous plants to genetically fabricated fluorescent plants. The building would be constructed entirely from glass, giving the structure an ethereal luminous quality. The flooring would be steel grille with under-lighting, e.g. ultraviolet light to encourage the growth of fluorescent plants and fibre optics to provide drama. At dusk the glasshouse plants will glow mysteriously in the woods.
Project: Miegakure – Garden gateway
This proposal would create a new gateway to the existing Victorian walled garden – but one, which, is itself a ‘notion of another place’, a space for contemplation, and a significant passageway from one place to another. Sited in a woodland glade between the car park and the walled garden, it would become a counterpoint to both.
Project: Maze
For 3,000 years mazes were in the form of labyrinths consisting of a single convoluted path without junctions used for ritual walking, running and processions: from mythological and fertility spaces to those walked by fishermen to encourage good catches. This proposal would create a modern maze, a fresh interpretation of what has gone before in which visitors can explore a series of unusual spaces and experiences on a triangular site between House for an art lover, Palace of art and Bellahouston house. The idea is influenced by the writing of Lewis Carrol (Alice in wonderland and through the looking glass) and a relationship to the film The Matrix, generated by their common themes of numbers, puzzles, frames and the mystery of spatial arrangements derived to engage and explore. The idea is predicated on the project being sustainable and ecologically driven to maximize use of plants for their colour, seasonal characteristics and their ability to encourage wildlife and insects into the park. The possibility of children and garden societies participating and influencing the project would also be a positive opportunity to make a truly community-based work for the park.
Project: Untitled – the block
This proposal begins from a premis that in parklands, people, like to have opportunities to explore freely in order to relax, discover and contemplate; by climbing to get new perspectives or listening to the sounds of rustling leaves or water, seeing the tiniest movement made by the wind or just watching clouds move across the sky. The idea behind this proposal is to build into a particular place opportunities for views/sounds/resting to remind visitors of simple pleasures. The project would be to build a ‘block’ which has spaces taken out of it – to climb on, slide on, look through, sit in, look out from, or simply to let water fall from.
Project: Peace in our time
Peace in our time, proposes an installation on the site of the original Peace Pavilion of the British Empire exhibition, where the outline of the building is recreated to form a gateway and contemplation space overlooking the ‘Grounds for play’. The entrance would be flanked by base metal plinths; moulds for giant toy solders and steel columns with rust finish to recreate the Pavilion portico. One column would be topped with an illuminated stainless steel beacon while concrete, embossed to suggest children’s play blocks would provide enclosure and seating.
Project: Dumbreck
Dunbreac – ‘the spotted rising ground where heather, bracken and pasture alternated’.
Dumbreck is a proposal for a site specific installation physically mapping the footprint of the former house on the top of Bellahouston hill. The proposal would be for a single, tall, and reflective structure and landscaping within what was the basement of Bellahouston house, which would be entered by two entrances, corresponding to existing pathways.
Project: Glasgow roots
Since the 18thC, Glasgow’s growth and prosperity has meant that the lands occupied by Bellahouston Park, having successively been landscape, field, garden, exhibition and park, are now subsumed by the urban grain of the city. This proposal would add a new layer of meaning to the viewer’s experience of the park. At the top of the hill, the sunken footprint of the long demolished Bellahouston House, a relic of Glasgow’s colonial trade, acts as a fulcrum from which the entire installation can be understood and interpreted. Linking to the city, on the northern side of the hill, would be robust cubes of engraved stone and concrete. These blocks would be etched with names/dates/trade routes and function as a comment on the values and achievement of times gone by. Within the footprint of Bellahouston House, the cubes would be aligned into a formal grid echoing street patterns of much of Glasgow’s urban expansion, creating an amphitheatre for performance, play, rest or contemplation.
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