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Audrey Fitzgerald - Architecture
Architecture student Audrey Fitzgerald's desire to make her discipline and future profession more accessible to the Scottish public provided the motivation for her degree show project.
The fourth year student has designed a Centre for Architecture in Leith to replace the Royal Institute of Architects in Scotland present headquarters in Rutland Square in Edinburgh.
Audrey's scheme incorporates meeting and conference facilities, an exhibition space, a members' area, administration offices, archive storage space and a library as well as council chambers for the RIAS which is the profession's governing body in Scotland.
Although the building would, if completed, represent the public face of architecture in Scotland the 27-year-old from Co Clare in Ireland said she felt it was by no means the most important aspect.
"I wasn't looking to create an iconic building," she said. "Instead I focussed on the brief and tried to come up with something that works within the context of Leith. I also wanted to design a building that isn't a statement of one time but could represent the RIAS for years to come."
"They are quite limited for space in their current location and in what they can do to engage with the public so it was important to create something which makes architecture more accessible and opens it up to a wider audience."
"The exhibition spaces are designed to display all sorts of art and that reflects the way I feel about architecture. It is not just about architecture. It's about art."
Ruari Gardiner - Architecture
One of the major ongoing projects at the University of Dundee is the digitisation of thousands of images held in the archive of Richard Demarco, one of Scotland's finest art collections.
For his degree show project, fourth-year architecture student Ruari Gardiner took on the challenge of creating a building fit to house such a prominent archive.
"I kind of stumbled on Richard Demarco and his work but he turned out to be a real inspiration," said Ruari (23), who is from Aberdeen. "I went and met him and spoke about his work and that helped give me a real feel for the kind of building that would be suitable for housing his collection."
Ruari's design is for a building in the Port Dundas area of Glasgow, which would not only act as a home for the Demarco archive but also aid the regeneration of the area.
"Port Dundas is quite a fragmented community, even in the physical sense as there are a lot of canals dividing it. A building like this would help draw it together and offer something special at the heart of the community."
Ruari's design is for a building on a similar scale to that of Dundee Contemporary Arts and hopefully of a similar impact to that of a centre which changed the artistic and physical landscape in Dundee.
Ruari now hopes to attract some high-level support for his design - he has invited Richard Demarco to return to the University which awarded him an honorary doctorate and come and view the model at Degree Show 2006.
The School addresses many complex issues: organisation, spatial, formal and material expression, technology and the balance between internal and external environments. Only an architect is trained to have this holistic understanding of building design and its study involves a combination of analysis, understanding and problem solving. All year 5 students' work is based on unit specialisms: urban, technology, social architecture and building regeneration. Thesis projects are this year based in Dundee, Paisley, Leith and Port Dundas, Glasgow.
Head of School: Graeme Hutton
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