Project Feature | Clydesdale Community Hub, Grant Murray Architects

(c) Image by Alexander Fraser Photography; Grant Murray Architects Ltd

The Clydesdale Community Hub presented a rare opportunity to contribute to the historic town centre of Lanark. The building houses new offices for Clydesdale Housing Association, community spaces available to the public and housing for social rent.

The three parts to the project work in conjunction to make the most efficient use of the site and maximise available funding to the client. Squeezed into the heart of the Lanark Conservation Area, the solution for the 504m² / 0.12-acre site was driven by a desire to integrate the building into the identity of the area, offering a modern yet sympathetic regeneration of a brown field site.

Designed to reflect a traditional domestic scale, the building has sought to assimilate with the local historic fabric and appear as a collection of smaller forms rather than a single mass. Steeply pitched roof two storey elements to the front and rear of the site are linked via a single storey mono pitched section to the middle of the development to emphasise this philosophy.

Alongside the CHA’s main open plan office space, the ground floor houses facilities not only for the Association themselves but for the benefit of the Association’s tenants and the wider surrounding local area. The 1st floor of the development provides 4 new flats for social rent. Incorporated into the overall design as to not disrupt views, privacy or reduce the efficiency of the ground floor to accommodate access, the flats provide much needed affordable housing in the centre of the town.

Clydesdale Community Hub provides a location for the outreach delivery of services and activities and a meeting base for groups to hire. The Association work with a range of partners representing voluntary and public sector to offer services and support to be made available from the Hub which will target the most vulnerable residents. The building will allow joint initiatives to be put in place to allow CHA to make better referral routes for tenants and wider public with partner agencies that will use the building as a base for services.

Gary Pinkerton on behalf of Grant Murray Architects February 2022