The ‘bridge’ between St Andrews Square and St James quarter, has a 250 year history of storing archival records in Edinburgh. A revealing of the everyday working life, timetables and conditions of trainline workers across the Forth and Clyde Canal region lies hidden within the existing walls of the Register Houses and Sasine offices, on one of the oldest functioning record sites in the world. The streets behind Dundas House are difficult to wander. It is the original ‘home’ and symbol of ‘being seen’ in the city belonging to Lawrence Dundas, a key Forth and Clyde Canal financial investor. Only margins are visible and discovered through turning corners, navigating ‘around’ instead of ‘through’ the site.
The thesis question composes the following: How do we make these spaces become more ‘exposed’ to the public? In a world of rectos and verso, what becomes a back street and what becomes a frontage? The questions are formed in tandem with the future integration of the Dunard Centre of music. A dichotomy of printmakers who translate documents into music performances and poet laureates are accommodated within the proposed architectural corners. While the Dunard Centre ‘folds in’ on the site, the architecture performs a ‘folding out’ dialogue in comparison. The musical connotations within ‘Four Scottish Dances’ by Malcolm Arnold, 1957, inspires the rhythmic moves. Existing walls and underground rooms work with and against existing grids. Structures of glulam timber and steel echoes a contemporary language of exposure and provides scope for future architectural integrations.
