University of Glasgow Masterplan

A masterplan for a major campus expansion to one of Scotland’s oldest universities to stimulate greater interaction between disciplines, with business and the local community.

The University of Glasgow appointed 7N Architects and AECOM and to develop a masterplan for the significant expansion of their historic Gilmorehill Campus in the West End of the city. Incorporating the adjacent 14 acre site of the former Western Infirmary, the Campus expansion is an integrated development and placemaking framework to realise the University’s vision for a world class, world changing university.

Drawing on the University’s key strategic principles of ‘People, Place and Purpose’, AECOM and 7N’s placemaking approach to the masterplan focused on bringing people together in a dynamic urban environment to stimulate progressive, collaborative research - a place that will enhance the student experience and cultivate greater integration between academics, local communities and entrepreneurial businesses.

The masterplan creates a vibrant and animated new quarter within the West End that is integrated with the surrounding community. A process of ‘taking down the black railings’ of the institution. To achieve this the masterplan opens up new routes and connections to weave the Campus into the natural movement patterns of the neighbourhood. The principal move is the new diagonal route between Byres Road and Kelvingrove Park, opening a strong desire line with a new university square at its heart, both a university amenity and a new civic space.

The buildings have active and social uses at ground level to bring life and activity to the public spaces and to facilitate the greater level of interaction between the University and the local businesses people. The ‘public space’ within the masterplan is considered as an animated network of external, sheltered, and internal social spaces that people can freely move through and dwell in, to facilitate informal interaction in all weathers. The structure of the masterplan further enhances this by locating the uses and activities that are more publicly facing to the western edge, blurring the boundaries of where the University begins and ends.

The masterplan, and associated design guidance prepared by 7N, creates a unified placemaking and development framework for the new buildings and spaces to be flexibly phased over a number of years, seamlessly weaving the new Campus into the social, physical, and cultural fabric of the University and the city.