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Museum of Dundee Life

Part 1 Project 2010
Georgios Tsorman
Edinburgh College of Art | UK
Aiming to reconnect the south facing waterfront with Dundee city centre the traffic is diverted around the city centre and the city itself. Integrated roads create a shared space for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers. The proposal is mostly residential building with ground floor commercial uses and a new train station along with the Museum of Dundee life.

The reformation of the waterfront, mainly use the old materials from the region as components of construction. Recycled aggregate paving, natural gravels and stones selected from local sources, contemporary recycled street furniture and manufactured soil used as resources. The coloured rock surfaces in the waterfront along with the red surface around the museum use recycled terracotta, rusted metal and other coloured materials.

Wild green roofs, living walls and use of native planting are supporting the wildlife in the region, increasing the biodiversity. Every residence can use the green roofs for vegetable planting and general fruit harvesting is adopted in the whole site. Permeable and geothermal paving allow water to be stored in a sub base and generate sufficient energy to allow transference of heat in and out of a building and the Museum of Dundee Life as well. Heat pumps using the earth's ground temperature and extract energy to cool the buildings and support the heat in the winter.

The waterfront is shaped along the walls of the old harbour formations, and the Museum follows that pattern as well. The main museum building was built around those old stone walls, containing a south west viewing restaurant and library.

The Exhibition galleries building resembles an oil rig in the middle of the water, rusted, integrating with the tide. The middle floor which nearly floats above water level, on a high tide, relates with the Dundee strong water related history. Three cones naturally lit the underwater floor and transfer the sound of the tide waves to the upper levels.


Georgios Tsorman


Dundee has experienced a rollercoaster history of wealth and prestige mixed with decline and famine . During the 19th century wet docks lined the banks of the Tay at the heart of the city but during the 20th century the docks declined. In the 1960’s and 70’s much of the city centre was rebuilt and the central docks filled to become a tangled mess of isolated and unused pockets of land between road systems dealing with a new Tay road bridge spearing the city centre. This project examined the wasted area at an infrastructure scale proposing an alternative vision of habitation again connected with the water: a city quarter of home, work and leisure immersed in both tidal fluctuation and particular biodiversity. A Museum of Dundee Life was created at an edge of land and water and itself worked with memory, enigma, materialities and biodiversity to discover a potent mix.

Tutor(s)
Mr Mark Walker
2010
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