Summer 2024

WELCOME TO THE SUMMER 2024 NEWSLETTER OF
RICHARD MURPHY ARCHITECTS

Leith Custom House
revised proposals revealed

Our revised proposals for Leith Custom House were revealed at a Private View on the 22nd August in Custom House itself, as part of the Leith Custom House Festival, which runs from 8th August – 7th September. The proposals will be available for public view in the Gallery of Leith Custom House until 7th September. The project describes a transformation of the building to a fully accessible interior. The ground floor will be available from all four elevations and will house a variety of public functions. In the centre the William Burn stair will be revealed in a radical new space created from front to back. Upstairs will be a digital museum. The lane between the Custom House and the Cruiser store will be available to a number of cafes and restaurants. A new project webpage has been created which includes a movie of the proposals.

NEWS OF PROJECTS ON SITE

National Centre for Music
revised planning permission

The City of Edinburgh Council Planning Committee has given planning permission for the revised proposals for the former Royal High School on Calton Hill. This design is a modified version of the project granted planning and listed building consent in 2022. The main difference between the two is the removal of the proposed music school which had been proposed to be in a largely new build construction to the east of the historic building.

There is now to be a publicly accessible garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith.

Other changes involve the relocation of catering from the west pavilion to the main building, the redesign of the foyer to use existing vaulted spaces and the simplification of landscape adjacent to Regent Road.

Public access to appreciate the complex composition of Hamilton’s southern terraces and staircases, used for a ceremonial exit from the main assembly hall to Regent Road, will be possible from renewed access out onto the central portico terrace and incorporation of newly designed railings as well as the separate reopening of the street level porches.
The previous proposals can be seen here and the current proposals here. Construction work is expected to start on site in mid-2025.

Portal, Trinity College Dublin's Innovation Hub

The building is progressing well on site with most of the external envelope nearing completion. Internal spaces are starting to come together with detailed elements like balustrades and partitions being installed.

Papple Steading, East Lothian

The external fabric of the main buildings in the original phase 2.1 are nearing completion making the doocot, side galleries and apartment wind and watertight to allow the internal fitouts to start in these areas. Work to room 15, gallery 02 has now started with the defected existing roof structure being replaced. Completion is expected in late Autumn. The images show an exhibition window protruding from an existing doorway and the first half of the staircase to the dovecot interior.

In addition, we were delighted to see that our client has invited digital content creator students from Queen Margaret University to collaborate with him to tell the history of the Steading, the Balfour family and that of farming in East Lothian. The Papple Media Prize was founded by our client George Mackintosh three years ago. The full story as reported in Project Scotland is here.

Macmillan Hub

The first phase of the building has now been handed over to the client – children are already using the nursery, and the library is being filled with books and will open its doors in the coming weeks. The first residents are expected to move into the flats early in the Autumn.

LECTURES AND TALKS

Richard will be talking to the Tweedale Society on Tuesday 3rd September on the subject of the 20th anniversary of the opening of Eastgate Theatre in Peebles. Tickets for 'Eastgate Theatre 20th Anniversary Lecture' can be found here and the event begins at 7.30pm.

He will also be in conversation with Dr Sam Gallacher in the first of a series of evening events in Custom House titled 'Challenging Conservation' on 15th October. Further details and tickets will be available in due course from here.

DOORS OPEN DAY
2B Hart Street takes part

Over the years a number of our projects have been open to the public in the annual Doors Open Day Festival. This year, Richard’s own house at 2B Hart Street is open on Saturday 28^th September from 9.30am to 5.30pm (note NOT open on Sunday 29^th). Visitors will be admitted in groups of six at a time and, as this is the first occasion it has featured in Doors Open Day it may be a popular venue with a queue! The link to the Edinburgh section of the Festival can be found here.

DUNFERMLINE CARNEGIE LIBRARY & GALLERIES Architectural Walk

A similar event, 'Outwith: Dunfermline City Architectural Walk'. includes our Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries, isarranged for Thursday September 5th. Tickets are available here.

PRESS

The Herald reported at length on the launch of the 'digital museum' proposal for the Custom House on 23^rd August. Dr Sam Gallacher (pictured with Richard) noted “This concept promises a world-leading approach to providing a venue suitable for telling the stories of long ago, empowering people to tell their own stories today, as well as showcasing Leith and Scotland’s outstanding digital creative sector.”

We were pleased to see that Elle Decoration magazine chose the Edinburgh Maggie’s Centre (1996 with further extensions in 2014, 2020 and 2024) as one of their choice of 35 buildings to represent '35 years of British design'.

The revised planning permission for the National Centre for Music also received extensive coverage in the press

And finally...

Our annual office Fringe outing took us to the production of 'The Importance of Being….Earnest?', the famous Oscar Wilde play which in this instance (spoiler alert) starts going wrong within two minutes of the opening and develops with randomly chosen members of the audience ending up playing all the main parts. Out of an audience of about 300 our very own Angus Bolland was first to be called up on stage and played Earnest throughout the play with great aplomb! Here’s the curtain call with Angus (in black) centre stage. A new career beckons…?