Housing at Dublin Street Lane, Edinburgh

This project was won in in a limited competition in 1994 but was not constructed until some time afterwards.
The starting point for the design of this housing project was the realisation that the site represented one of the very few examples of a land use pattern in the Georgian New Town that predates the New Town's construction. The buildings that existed on the site were of indeterminate age, but the footprint of them could be traced back to the partially destroyed Broughton Village, which as can be seen from the succession of maps originally sat in countryside, had been scheduled for total elimination, but eventually found itself encircled by New Town tenements. There is therefore an almost archaeological significance to the site and although it was impossible to save or reuse the existing buildings, we elected to preserve broadly their footprint and also to a degree the spirit of an organically planned village. In this sense we designed the antithesis of the formality and hierarchy of the New Town pattern.

Our project consists of a walled precinct of houses arranged in two three storey "ranges" corresponding to previous buildings. The vehicle and pedestrian gates of the precinct are and both marked by three storey gate houses. Most of the project is for one and two bedroom flats except for six family houses on the north side.

In the spirit of reinterpreting the medieval, all apartments are reached by external staircases, Living rooms of the top floor flats are placed under the section of the roof with ridge light glazing. All the elevations are freely composed and include timber panels (a memory of the former timber yard nearby) and the spaces between the building's develop in an equally informal manner.

The project was completed in 1999.