Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Architect: wHY with GRAS.
Edinburgh’s Ross Pavilion and West Princes Street Gardens are set to be transformed into an outdoor performance space, visitor’s centre, café and landscape experience that honours the history of the site and vibrant cultural life in Scotland’s ancient capital. The project will replace the existing Ross Bandstand, a 1935 structure which acts as a barrier to public movement through the gardens and is virtually unused out with the few major events hosted there. The gardens will be planted to have a long season of botanical interest, whilst avoiding the cliched ‘green cement’ look that is common in much of public Scottish planting. The scheme preferences biodiversity and will meet the Biodiversity Strategy: 2020 Challenge.
The Butterfly Pavilion, designed for indoor and outdoor performances, is integrated within the landscape via a green roof and organic lines, blending the structure within the whole park. The Pavilion also acts as a bridge that encourages flow across the rail cut from the north, with the pavilion’s green roof extending naturally across the rail tracks that lead to Edinburgh’s Waverly Station. An oculus in the pavilion roof brings natural light into the stage, enhancing the performers experience while movable walls and a flexible performance area can accommodate events that range in scale from intimate to grand, with the integrated amphitheatre seating between 200 and 5000 spectators comfortably. The new visitor’s centre, embedded into the steep embankment along West Princes Street and programmatically broken into multiple layers, is integrated into the ramp network. At West Princes Street, the sidewalk pushes into the park, creating a new viewing platform and promenade that maximizes views across the grounds to the Castle. A series of ramps flow down the embankment while defining the roof contours of the Visitor Centre. Throughout, visitors can engage in one of four experiences, with the gardens presenting commemorative, botanical, cultural and civic ‘loops’ – pathways that highlight certain programmatic themes. These are layers one on top of the other, utilising integrated wayfinding elements to activate each option.
