S i m u l a t i o n o f T e m p e r a t u r e a n d W i n d F i e l d
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Phase 1 of The Glasgow School of Art re-development. The re-development project will
take place at the Renfrew Street on the opposite side to the original Glasgow School of
Art. This evaluation could help us understand the local dynamics of these variables and
look for ways to take advantage of situations where ventilation is blocked or quasi-
stagnant due to urban morphology.
Founded originally as “Glasgow Government School of Design”, in 1845, it was renamed
to “Glasgow School of Art”, in 1853, - it was still located in the Ingram Street 12 -. Later,
it moved to a new address in the "MacLellan Galleries". In 1897, after a contest made by
Francis Newbery - director of the school -, and attended by 11 architecture firms,
construction of the new building of the Glasgow School of Art started at the new address
in Renfrew Street. The new building was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a
relatively unknown architect of Honeyman & Keppie, winner of the competition. It seems
that, after a lot of insistence of Francis Newbery - his former teacher - Mackintosh’s
project was accepted. The first half of the building was completed in 1889 and the
second in 1909.
The new project (Steven Holl Architects 2009), presented by the group associate
architects JM Architects / Arup, started from the idea of a building that at the same time
contrasted and complemented the school designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh,
creating a relationship that could enhance the qualities of each building. In the new
building it is possible to observe a thin and translucent materiality that at the same time
contrasts and complements the masonry of the Mackintosh’s building. In Figure 1 the
two buildings come face to face in these views of Renfrew Street and Dalhousie Street.
Both images are the property of Steven Holl Architects.
a b
Figure 1: Two views showing the Mackintosh building and the Glasgow School of Art re-
development: (a) Renfrew Street view and (b) Dalhousie Street view. Both images are the property of
Steven Holl Architects.
The computational simulations were carried out in order to observe changes in the
local/micro-climate and were created by the ENVI-met software (Bruse 2010), developed
for climate simulations in urban areas. Data input includes weather, urban morphology
such as building density, size, height, shape and road linkage as well as soil covertures
such as vegetation, sand and water-bodies.
