CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh

Sandstone, limestone or? (St. James Quarter)

(20 posts)

No tags yet.


  1. chdot
    Admin

    "

    there are four alternatives: build it with high quality yellow limestone from one source; use some sandstone at the bottom and finish off with limestone at the top where it’s more difficult to see; use sandstone from different suppliers; if sandstone doesn’t work forget stone altogether.

    The most crazy of all is the last one, but that is actually the council report’s recommendation. “A more radical approach would be to use materials that are wholly different to natural stone,” it says. “for example the sections along Leith Street that are finished in metal. “

    "

    http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/opinion/john-mclellan-st-james-row-can-t-derail-project-1-3806876

    Brick maybe...

    Posted 8 years ago #

  2. Snowy
    Member

    I get the feeling this isn't about the availability of sandstone or limestone or any stone; my cynical antennae are twitching and I suspect the developers have realised that either
    1) a big load of sandstone in one consistent colour will probably be costly and reduce their profits,
    or 2) they've been offered a load of limestone at a knock-down price and sense the opportunity for a higher profit margin.

    I was trying to think of a recent example of a similar size - RBS Gogarburn used an enormous amount of Liestadter sandstone from Germany, in 50mm thick panels. Apparently this won it the Natural Stone Award from the Stone Federation Great Britain.

    Plenty of other large building projects appear not to have this issue. Would be nice if the St James Quarter could be a little more aspirational.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  3. Morningsider
    Member

    Yeah - asking those poor developers to shell out for that costly sandstone. You would think they were building in the middle of a World Heritage Site or something!

    Posted 8 years ago #

  4. chdot
    Admin

    http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/life-style/will-st-james-plans-ever-be-set-in-stone-1-3816680

    Posted 8 years ago #

  5. neddie
    Member

    Not a single cyclist to be seen in the 'artists impression'

    Posted 8 years ago #

  6. steveo
    Member

    I'm reminded of an architect who commented he'd never risk standing still in Edinburgh in case he were clad in sandstone...

    Posted 8 years ago #

  7. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Heck why not just sheath it in grey plastic (which seems de-riguer for the top storeys of current "apartment" builds) or even better, keep with the spirit of the last 40 years and do it in a mixture of wood-formed and pebble-dashed raw concrete.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  8. cc
    Member

    Would be nice if the St James Quarter could be a little more aspirational.

    It's already going to include the world's biggest pile of golden poo. That's what I call aspirational.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  9. kaputnik
    Moderator

    It's already going to include the world's biggest pile of golden poo.

    Haven't you heard? It's now a stainless steel poo.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  10. chdot
    Admin

    "

    Councillors will also hear from critics, including the New Town and Broughton Community Council, cycling group Spokes, Edinburgh World Heritage and the Cockburn Association, whose director Marion Williams says limestone belongs in south England.

    “Why do we need to start importing materials that will make a humdrum shopping centre ‘stand-out’,” she said. “Shouldn’t this building, a whole quarter of Edinburgh and smack in the middle of a World Heritage Site, be ‘fitting in’?”

    In the debate over what material modern Edinburgh should be built with, it is the council that has cast one of the first stones. Its headquarters at Waverley Court was built with limestone cladding, after council leaders opted for the more affordable material.

    "

    So it's going to be stone - should look better than what's been there for the last 50 years.

    So it's a different colour from nearby buildings - which would be what colour IF they were all cleaned??

    How's the plan for a direct cycle route from Leith Walk to St. Andrew Sq. going??.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  11. kaputnik
    Moderator

    So it's a different colour from nearby buildings - which would be what colour IF they were all cleaned??

    Warm peachy-yellow tones (e.g. RBS at Gogarburn, National Museum of Scotland) fading to greys due to weathering and atmospheric pollution e.g. most of the New Town that was cleaned up of coal-soot pollution in the nineties and has weathered since in our ambient atmosphere of unacceptable levels of atmospheric pollutants.

    Buckingham Palace is constructed in part from Craigleith sandstone (the back / internal face I should think, which is more yellowy than the dirty grey-white Portland stone facade)

    Posted 8 years ago #

  12. SRD
    Moderator

    from the cockburn:

    Sandstone from the UK not Limestone from Bavaria
    One of the great and defining characteristics of Scottish cities is their building stones. Aberdeen has its granite, Glasgow its red Locharbriggs stone and Edinburgh its exceptional Craigleith sandstone. Each gave these cities an identifiable homogeneity that is lacking in the mixed brick, stone and half-timbered townscapes of South East England. By nature stone was a heavy material that couldn’t easily be transported, so where the local bedrock changed hue so did the buildings, like the red stone buildings no more than a mile or two from Dunbar.
    Perhaps the greatest of all Scottish building stones was Craigleith sandstone. With its tightly grained grey-buff beds it was notoriously hard to work, but the resulting carved stone was highly durable. First quarried four hundred years ago, it supplied stone for Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace, Dean Bridge, Old College, the Royal Scottish Academy, Charlotte Square, the Royal High School on Calton Hill and pretty much all of the New Town. And when the St James’ area was demolished in the 1960s to make way for a new shopping centre, it was Craigleith sandstone tenements that were pulled down.
    Craigleith Quarry has not been worked since the 1930s, but very good matching sandstones from Fife, Northumberland and Derbyshire have allowed Edinburgh to continue its stone tradition into the 21st Century. Why now, then, do we need to start questioning all of this history and precedent and begin debating what kind of building material should define modern Edinburgh? The architects for the new St James Quarter, whilst on the one hand telling us they want to repair the blight of the brutalist concrete St James Centre, on the other tell us that they propose using a limestone cladding to set their building apart.
    Why?
    Sandstone was perfectly good for a palace or a bothy in the past. Why do we need to start importing materials that will make a hum-drum shopping centre “stand-out”. Shouldn’t this building, a whole quarter of Edinburgh and smack in the middle of a World Heritage Site, be “fitting in”?
    Limestone is the material of Bath and the Cotswolds, of Purbeck and Portland stones, of Christopher Wren and Inigo Jones ...... and that is where it belongs, in London and the South. It looks very fine there, but it doesn’t look like our grey-buff sandstone. If we want to swap our identity, let us debate why before we do it.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  13. chdot
    Admin

    Well yes but -

    IF 'Edinburgh' had all been built with stone from Craigleith that might be a good argument.

    If there is so much (potential) demand for 'local' sandstone perhaps there c/should be a new quarry somewhere?

    Preferable close to an existing rail line and unload from the Powderhall line around Shrub Hill??

    If you want to see the names of some local quarries - and how well the stone survived in Edinburgh air, check the pillars at the end of Melville Drive.

    http://canmore.org.uk/collection/805798

    Posted 8 years ago #

  14. wingpig
    Member

    Perhaps the Cockburn would like to add wheels to the nearby portrait gallery and trundle it away to Dunbar WHERE IT BELONGS, the horrid red interloper.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  15. kaputnik
    Moderator

    check the pillars at the end of Melville Drive.

    From that diagram, the most weathered stones appear to be inferior quality Gatelawbridge red sandstones. No Craigleith sandstone in them?

    I think one of Cockburn's points, which they should make more of, is that St. James Square and the surrounding tenements were all of Craigleith Sandstone and pulled down and were replaced by the concrete behemoth of the St. James Centre, St. James Thistle Hotel and New St. Andrews House which stuck out like an ugly sore thumb. Portrait gallery aside, most of the buildings around there are sandstone. If you stick a spanking big new limestone and glass, or metal and glass, shopping centre in there it's going to be every bit as conspicuous as the wrong the developers are claiming they are trying to right, and given time will look every bit as out of place and ugly. The council should be in a position to demand top-quality and fitting cladding for such a huge, prestigious development surrounded by the (Craigleith Sandstone) world heritage site.

    Maybe they should just build it out of Lego?

    Perhaps the Cockburn would like to add wheels to the nearby portrait gallery and trundle it away to Dunbar WHERE IT BELONGS, the horrid red interloper.

    I believe it belongs with its redstone kin in Dumfriesshire (it was built in the time of railways, unlike the New Town, so they had the luxury of shipping in such fancy "foreign" stones.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  16. chdot
    Admin

    "If you stick a spanking big new limestone and glass, or metal and glass, shopping centre in there it's going to be every bit as conspicuous as the wrong the developers are claiming they are trying to right"

    Yeah but that's more to do with the design/scale than the colour of the facade.

    Not sure it even matters if the veneer is 'real' or reconstituted. Must be 'easy' to manufacture.

    It's all image, not built with stone.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  17. SRD
    Moderator

    I'm with kaputnik "The council should be in a position to demand top-quality and fitting cladding for such a huge, prestigious development surrounded by the (Craigleith Sandstone) world heritage site."

    Posted 8 years ago #

  18. kaputnik
    Moderator

    They've recently pulled the hoarding off the new student ghetto at Abbeyhill / Croft-an-Righ if anyone wants to see some reconstituded limestone cladding in the cold, stony flesh. It's not pretty.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  19. wingpig
    Member

    Do the Cockburners have a cut-off year beyond which they eschew heritage? Just that there are several igneous plugs dotted around the city which are probably hating all these modern sedimentary constructions, back to and including the sticks-and-mud-and-animal-hide hovels people lived in whilst learning how to use stone tools.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  20. kaputnik
    Moderator

    The planning committee have decided (against advice of Historic Scotland and their own planners, amongst others) that Limestone is fine.

    According to the Cockburn Association representative, Cllr Mowat (Tory, city centre ward) thinks people are too stupid* to tell the difference anyway.

    *my word, their probable sentiments

    Posted 8 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin