Galvanizers Association GAGA Awards – Place Category (Shortlisted)
Edinburgh Architectural Association Small Buildings Award (Shortlisted)
This is the first new glasshouse to be built in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for over thirty years and the only one in Britain dedicated to growing alpine plants in a tufa rockscape. The naturalistic display complements the traditional sand-bed alpine displays in the adjacent glasshouses.
The key design drivers were to respond to the exacting living conditions of these plants and to provide a landmark structure in the garden.
Alpine plants naturally grow in cold, windy and dry conditions with an abundance of daylight. The glass umbrella modifies the microclimate by providing shelter from excessive rain and increasing wind speed at ground level while transmitting maximum light. Its shape evokes flowers opening to the sun and the angular mountain tops of alpine settings.
The plants are grown in tufa, a type of porous rock. It projects beyond the edges of the glass roof to provide new planting beds and appears to form a base to the new structure.
This small but striking project provides the Garden with a dramatic 21st-century addition.