{"id":757941,"date":"2024-10-01T08:52:45","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T07:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/?p=757941"},"modified":"2024-10-01T10:22:20","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T09:22:20","slug":"foster-checks-out-of-glasgow-buchanan-galleries-scheme-amid-major-rethink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/foster-checks-out-of-glasgow-buchanan-galleries-scheme-amid-major-rethink","title":{"rendered":"Foster checks out of Glasgow Buchanan Galleries scheme amid major rethink"},"content":{"rendered":"

A proposal for developer and site owner Landsec, led by the top AJ100 practice, would have seen the 25-year-old mall, designed by Jenkins & Marr Architects, demolished to make way for a \u2018mixed-use urban district\u2019.<\/p>\n

However, the AJ understands Fosters is no longer working on the development nor local firm New Practice, which completed its work on the scheme in March last year. It is not known whether Michael Laird Architects remains on the job.<\/p>\n

Landsec told the AJ it now favoured an \u2018incremental\u2019 approach to redeveloping the shopping centre. The developer last provided an update on the Fosters-led scheme during a round of public consultation in January 2023.<\/p>\n

A Landsec<\/a> spokesperson said: \u2018In Glasgow we are evolving our plans to focus more on masterplans that can be delivered in incremental phases. Alongside this we will seek to embrace opportunities to retain and reinvent existing buildings in our ambition to reduce embodied carbon.\u2019<\/p>\n

Landsec, which reported annual pre-tax losses of \u00a3341 million for the year ending March 2024, said it had recently bought 229-249 Buchanan<\/span> Street, next door to the Buchanan Galleries site, in a sign of its \u2018commitment to Glasgow\u2019.<\/p>\n

An annual report unveiled in March that Landsec\u2019s major Glasgow scheme at Buchanan Galleries would be delivered in stages, with a change in approach to \u2018retain and reinvent existing buildings in our ambition to reduce embodied carbon\u2019.<\/p>\n

The same report continued: \u2018This new approach will improve overall returns by retaining more of the existing income and growing this, alongside discrete development interventions. We are still finalising our plans, but this will likely result in less embodied carbon, lower risk and less capital intensive routes to realising the potential of these mixed-use estates.\u2019<\/p>\n

As a result, the Buchanan Galleries<\/a> will likely be subject to a third set of designs following never-realised BDP proposals which were approved in 2015, and now the scrapping of Fosters\u2019 concept.<\/p>\n

Like the Fosters scheme, BDP had also controversially proposed flattening the existing Buchanan Galleries to allow for an eastward extension of Sauchiehall Street towards Glasgow Queen Street station, resulting in \u2018a challenge in retaining the Royal Concert Hall steps in their current shape\u2019.<\/p>\n

Labour MSP Paul Sweeney, who has called for the steps to be retained, told the AJ that Landsec\u2019s decision to reset the development \u2018comes as little surprise, particularly given the financial difficulties they have encountered\u2019.<\/p>\n

Sweeney continued: \u2018While their outline proposal to restore the traditional grid street plan in this part of the city centre was welcome, their plan to wreck a principal fa\u00e7ade of Sir Leslie Martin\u2019s final building, the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, was deeply unwelcome and I hope that any revised approach will be more respectful to this civic landmark, which should be listed.\u2019<\/p>\n

Glasgow City Council aims to repopulate the city centre with 40,000 residents by 2035. Sweeney added that he hoped any revised plans would factor this objective in.<\/p>\n

He said: \u2018Ultimately, Glasgow urgently needs to increase its inner-city residential population density, which is still the lowest of the big British cities, so I hope that the phased approach to the redevelopment of Buchanan Galleries hinted at by Landsec will look to do this with a popular design code that is inspired by the outstanding traditional commercial architecture of Glasgow\u2019s late Victorian and Edwardian gilded age, typified by the work of Sir John James Burnett and James Miller.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Buchanan Galleries site also sits astride one of the biggest potential transport interchanges in the country, so any new development plan must consider how to fully realise the opportunity for proper integration between Queen Street Station, the Subway and Buchanan Bus Station.\u2019<\/p>\n

Foster + Partners, New Practice, and Michael Laird have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n