Welcome to the Spring 2012 Newsletter of Richard Murphy Architects

NEW OFFICE AT JUSTICE MILL LANE, ABERDEEN WINS BRITISH COUNCIL OF OFFICES BEST COMMERCIAL OFFICE IN SCOTLAND AWARD 2012 At a lunch in Glasgow last week, Director Bill Black collected this prestigious Award on behalf of the practice. The British Council for Offices (BCO) judged the office to be the best in its class for "economic efficiency, sustainable construction, architectural flair and effectiveness and performance as a workplace”.The project will now go forward to the UK finals. The office development represents about half of the total £44m project (the other half being the Park Inn Hotel). This is the practice’s first completed office building and it has achieved the highest commercial rent ever recorded in Scotland, and coincidentally, the Park Inn Hotel has the highest occupancy rate of their hotels in Europe. Richard Murphy said “We are delighted to receive this Award, especially as it is for our very first completed office. I know our client, Hazledene Properties Limited, are equally as delighted and we are continuing our relationship with them currently on the development of another similar sized project” and Hazledene Chief Executive, Mark Shaw, who is originally from Aberdeen said “We set the design team a goal of building something that would establish new standards, provide a world-class working environment befitting Europe’s oil capital and was simple, flexible and efficient. I think this award is proof they achieved that goal".The award featured as the lead story in The Herald Commercial page on May 10^th …..although the architect didn’t get a mention! (sic). NEWS OF PROJECTS ON SITE We have four buildings on site. Coatbridge College is two months away from being completed. Meanwhile our social housing project at Quartermile (the ex Royal Infirmary site) is progressing apace. The topping out ceremony took place in March this year and the project is now moving into its fit-out phase and should be completed by June 2013. Residences for Queen's University Belfast Designed in conjunction with RPP is to be completed this summer. And finally, our new house at Strathaven Airfield, being filmed by the Grand Designs programme, is now wind and watertight and is due for completion early Autumn. IVYBANK HOUSE AT DIRLETON This second extension to the house (we completed the first in 1996) has now also been completed and new photographs have been placed on the webpage. Once again Inscape Joinery were the contractors. NEW STARTS ON SITE Our project, in conjunction with RPP Architects for Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, at Old See House in Belfast, starts on site in July and completion is due in November 2013. The contractor appointment is currently being finalised. This is a building with an unprecedented brief bringing together mental health consultancy, day therapy and short stay residential care into one building. More locally, Richard Murphy starts his own house in Hart Street next month and this is also due for completion in Autumn in 2013. TWO MAJOR PROJECTS DUE FOR PLANNING SUBMISSION


In 2006 we won an invited competition for the design of Dunfermline Museum and Arts Centre. In the intervening period, Fife Council has purchased an adjacent car-park allowing us to modify the design and in particular the entrance. The revised design will be submitted for planning permission and Heritage Lottery Funding and if both are successful we anticipate recommencing design work on the detailed drawing in January 2013 with an eventual completion date of 2016. Our project for Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge is shortly to be submitted to Cambridge City Council. A major element of this project is the conversion of a disused primary school on the site, known as the Ragged School, into a Music Therapy Centre. This part of the new campus already has planning permission and is likely to open in the Autumn of 2013 with the remainder of the buildings opening in December 2013. NEW PROJECTS We are delighted to be appointed by Cardonald College in Glasgow for various works to their building. Tyneside Building Preservation Trust has appointed us to conserve and reuse historic bottle kilns outside Corbridge, Northumberland. Cambridge University has also shortlisted the practice acting in conjunction with Cambridge practice NRAP, Sir Richard MacCormac, service engineers Maxfordham and landscape designers Craft Pegg for an £18 m predominantly student housing project in their North-West Cambridge master-plan. LECTURES ETC. On a trip to the Far East, Richard gave lectures about the work of the practice at South China University of Technology, Singapore University and in Brisbane, Australia. He also gave lectures at Barcelona University School of Architecture in February. On 17th August Richard will be part of a panel of speakers at the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Festival of Politics discussion about humanising the workplace. The practice is hosting an RIBA Higher Education Design Quality Forum (HEDQF) reception and debate which is part of the Scottish Association of University Directors of Estates (SAUDE) Autumn Conference at Aberdeen University at the end of August. Richard has also been invited to speak by Architects for Health at the the Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management (IHEEM) Health Estates Annual Conference 2012 taking place in Manchester on 9th and 10th October. The practice now has a FACEBOOK SITE. This link will take you there www.facebook.com/RichardMurphyArchitects Progress on the new book – “OF ITS TIME AND OF ITS PLACE; Richard Murphy Architects" published by Blackdog is almost complete and is due at the printers so that the book can be launched during the Edinburgh Book Festival. It will also form the catalogue to a forthcoming solo exhibition in October/November at the RIBA, which will move to the Royal Scottish Academy in the Edinburgh Festival 2013. Advance copies can be purchased through the Blackdog website: http://blackdogonline.com/all-books/of-its-time-and-of-its-place.html AND FINALLY…. A very great friend and inspiration to our office, Isi Metstein died earlier this year. Richard contributed to a number of tributes including an article in the magazine of the Architectural Heritage Society and also spoke as one of the contributors at the “Toast to Isi” held in the Bute Hall, University of Glasgow. His speech was anonymously recorded and can be seen here: http://www.urbanrealm.com/news/3307/Video%3A_Richard_Murphy_delivers_his_Toast_to_Isi.html Isi was a frequent visitor to the office, a welcome critic of our work and a lively companion on some of our trips abroad. The first picture shows him on our trip to Eichstatt in Bavaria and the second playing Santa at our Christmas dinner! Our new book will be dedicated to him. He is sorely missed.

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