This thesis investigates how reconfiguring a structure of historical significance can create a node of connection and activity.
The architecture agenda focuses on adaptive re-use of the viaduct structure of the old city union rail line in the Gorbals just south of the river Clyde. “reconfiguration. Here, the fact that something has broken serves as an occasion to make the object different from before, in both form and function.” (Sennet). The idea of reconfiguration holds an ethical stand point whilst celebrating the architectural value of this victorian structure. To showcase the artefact in the museum that is the city. The aim is create architecture which welcomes and encourages connection between both places and people by inhabiting this artefact.
The site location of this project is relevant due to the deprivation of this area and due to the amount of change has occurred. The re-development of this area saw it’s people feel unheard and its place destroyed.The Gorbals ‘ a place once famed for it’s community’ now lacks this spark.
I want to re- establish a heart in the body that is the community. The city union rail line spilt the community into two, it remains now as a scar.
By activating the viaduct, perhaps the only remaining element of the architecture of the Gorbals. It holds significant value of the people and place of the past . The demolition of the area has had an adverse effect on the people of these re developed communities. A space for them to express themselves and their stories , so as to not feel as dispensable as the architecture.
The project responds to the need for both quiet places for contemplation and loud spaces for expression within the city. Especially within deprived communities where there is an absence of types of spaces. These spaces are wrapped together in the programme of the project ; storytelling. The project infuses these symbolic spaces together, from the introvert, intimate spaces to the extrovert, social spaces. Both types of these spaces will encourage story telling whether its reading a book on your own or having a chat with a friend or its expressing a story through dance and music with a collection of people.
