Blog: 107 Niddrie Road
Niddrie Road is a quietly unassuming street, just along from Queens Park, in the southside of Glasgow. I myself have walked by, on my way from the Train Station towards the park, and never noticed this hidden gem that is 107 Niddrie Road. I suppose it was designed to blend in, and despite its subtlety, it doesn’t fail to impress me in its quiet brilliance. The project I am referring to is the deep retrofit of a traditional tenement block on Niddrie Road, containing eight, one-bed flats. This isn't any standard retrofit however, this pushed the boundaries of possible energy [...]
Blog: The BOAC Building by Gillespie Kidd and Coia
The BOAC building in Glasgow was built for the British Overseas Airways Corporation in Buchanan Street, Glasgow, and was completed in 1970. A five-story steel-framed office block, the upper floors are clad in copper, formed of sleek hexagonal openings around windows arranged in a gridiron. Although the facade's rhythm and proportions are in keeping with Buchanan Street’s array of finely crafted mercantile facades, the building also reads as quietly stark - its language of geometrically folded sheets of copper speaks more of the machine age that followed industrialization. Stonemasonry and handicraft are replaced with precise, modular systems and new kinds [...]
Blog: Trongate
RKA’s Glasgow office is in the Merchant City area, located just off Trongate. The name of this thoroughfare has intrigued me since we moved in and is the subject of this blog. Trongate is one of the oldest streets in the city of Glasgow, it begins at Glasgow (Mercat) Cross, where the steeple of the old Glasgow Tolbooth is situated, being the original centre of medieval Glasgow. The name Tron comes from the Scots word of Norman origin for weighing scales. These weighing scales were a weighbeam erected in the mid-16th century, used for all goods requiring to be weighed for duty reasons, including from early shipping on the Clyde and connected on the key route [...]
Blog: RKA Plaque
Etched Brass and Walnut Timber Wall Plaque I was flattered to be commissioned out of work by RKA to make a door plaque for the recently opened Glasgow office. Following a few design reviews with Richard and Chris, making sure I understood what they were after and informing them on what could be achievable at my end, we came to a resolved design for me to produce. Carefully, using the acid etching process I had experimented with on a small custom RKA branded bottle opener, I was able to make the debossed practice logo into the brass, with a unique [...]
Blog: Kölner Dom
It had been 8 years since I had gone back to the city I grew up in; Cologne. Cologne is one of the oldest cities in Germany with a deep Roman History. Going back after so many years, I got to appreciate the city in a different light. Cologne has a wide variety of architecture throughout the city, from Romanesque churches to Brutalist buildings and contemporary crane houses. However, the structure that you will notice first arriving is the cologne cathedral called the ‘Dom’. Throughout most of my childhood the Dom was constantly hidden away by scaffolding, meaning I [...]
Blog: Glasgow School of Art
As you have noticed in our previous blog we have recently opened a new RKA office in Glasgow, in the city centre to be precise. If we talk about Glasgow we cannot overlook the name of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928), and his influence within architecture and art in Scotland, but mainly within the City of Glasgow. His most famous work and that which represents his legacy is The Mackintosh Building, which is part of The Glasgow School of art. In this blog we will address a little of the tragic history of this important building, a hotbed of talent and [...]
Blog: 1.5 Years with RKA
The past 1.5years has seen a fantastic growth in projects and clients, both in scale and number. I picked up a number of residential projects Richard and the current team had established, all at various stages and some of which you might recognise from our RKA blog. For much of that time, we have all worked from home, waiting out COVID19 restrictions with interactions predominantly virtual and online. It was a very interesting hybrid work model that, despite the difficulties of distance, has seen a very a steady growth in our team and work culture. During this period, the St [...]
Blog: Our Lady of Good Counsel
Our Lady of Good Counsel. Dennistoun, Glasgow. Architect: Gillespie Kidd and Coia Completed in 1968 Had you been asked to imagine a category A listed Catholic church, you would’ve been forgiven for imagining images of spires and a crucifix form, with tall stained-glass windows populating the elevations which then allow light to cascade upon a rigorously ordered nave. However, this time you couldn’t be more wrong. Almost bunker-like in its brutalist appearance, Our Lady of Good Counsel lacks almost any architectural characteristics of a church and had it not been for the cross above it’s doors you may not have [...]
Blog: LDN to ST.A
Perhaps one of the only good things to come out of the pandemic is the ability for us all to work remotely opening up the options for where and how we work, much less restrictive on location. I recently relocated back to my home city of Glasgow at the end of 2021 and the opportunities for remote working has allowed me to team up once again with Richard on the opposite side of the country after spending many years working together at Orms. Having lived and worked in London for the past 11 years moving from a 65 strong architectural [...]
Blog: RKA in Glasgow
Moving out of London was such a joy in so many ways but from a business point of view it was a shock. From an established business network in London with everything that goes with that to a smaller business environment in Fife where long established connections exist and the large consultancy group events are much less prevalent was a challenge. Through hard work, investment in marketing, a strong CV and some lucky breaks we’ve been able to make connections and have been fortunate to be appointed on some fabulous projects. However the drive to push the business forward and [...]
