Welcome to the Autumn 2013 Newsletter of Richard Murphy Architects

FOUR PROJECTS COMPLETED

The Mctavish Wing at the Junior school campus of Edinburgh Academy was officially opened by Lady Hope on Friday 13th of September. Director in charge, Matt Bremner, joined over eighty guests to see the classroom building officially launched. The practice is currently completing a master-plan for the Academy’s Senior School campus and we have also been asked to take to tender our designs for new sports pavilions.

“Wharton Square, ” the £23M social housing project (formerly known as Q10) has been completed for Hillcrest Housing Association on the former Edinburgh Royal Infirmary Site and all tenants we believe have taken up residence. Our design for a  nursery school  at the ground floor is currently on site and a potential café space is still to be confirmed. The building featured prominently in  the July/August edition of Architecture Today in an 8 page article by Robin Webster alongside three London housing projects. He concluded that “it was a wonderful contribution to Edinburgh’s housing heritage.” The official opening is scheduled for the morning of November 14^th.

Our project for a Music Therapy Centre at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge is now complete and occupied. The  £1.1M project converted a derelict primary school (the “Ragged School”) on the University’s Young street Campus. An official opening is anticipated this Autumn. A new webpage has been posted for the project: Click here.

A private residential renovation in Elie in Fife, converting a bungalow from the late 1960’s to exploit views across the golf course and beyond to the Forth, has now been completed.

4 PROJECTS IN IRELAND

A New Project for the National University of Ireland in Galway

In conjunction with our friends Taylor Architects of Castlebar Co. Mayo we have been selected to convert an existing building into a studio theatre on the University’s Galway campus. We collaborated with Taylor architects on housing in Westport and have already built a house in Co Galway, both projects recipients of awards by the RIAI.

Planning permission has been granted for a €1m house in Dalkey outside Dublin. Technical drawings have now commenced with a view to starting on site in late Spring 2014

With RPP Architects, we are also on site with Old See House a £5m community mental health facility. The picture shows the planting of a new semi-mature oak tree in the courtyard garden.

And finally, another very recent competition-winning design, also with RPP, for a £4.2M 64 bed dementia care home for the Methodist Church at Ballycopeland Co Down has also been commissioned up to the planning submission. Drawings and images will be posted later this year after submission.

NEW PROJECT

NEWS OF BUILDINGS ON SITE

Our £5m project for Anglia Ruskin University Faculty of Health and Social Care is now effectively wind and water tight with a Christmas handover. Phases 2 and 3 of the project on the same campus are now out to tender. Meanwhile through Gardner and Theobald we have been appointed to design a £18m Science building on the University’s East Rd campus.

Work on Holyrood South postgraduate residencies for Edinburgh University is progressing well. Concrete has now been poured up to fourth floor level with the south wing just started. Completion is expected exactly a year from now. 

Richard Murphy’s house will shortly be wind and water tight. The picture shows some of the new stonework to the main elevation. 

Work has now begun on this major extension to an Edwardian house in the City’s Ravelston Dykes.

ROYAL SCOTTISH ACADEMY EXHIBITION

Over 18,000 visitors visited the office's exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy. The show ran for six weeks and its unusual format of models combined with a 55 minute wall of images attracted much praise. Many of the visitors, once ensconced into the deck chairs provided spent the whole 55 minutes in the show. A healthy number of books were also sold.

And finally….

 GRAND DESIGNS FEATURES OUR HOUSE AT STRATHAVEN AIRFIELD

Our design for a house at Strathaven airfield is racing to a completion. The project is being managed by the clients Colin MacKinnon and Marta Briongos and although not totally complete, Channel Four’s “Grand Designs” are devoting an hour’s programme to it on Wednesday evening the 2^nd October at 09:00PM (repeated Saturday October 9th at 8.00PM) with Richard and Peter Hunt, the project architect, interviewed by Kevin McLeod both on site and in the office. The office dog “Hiccup” will no doubt steal the show. Richard makes a particularly grand entrance, flying in to the site by microlight.