Evolution House for Edinburgh College of Art

Edinburgh College of Art purchased our award-winning Westport, Evolution House and we successfully won the commission to space plan and fit-out our building as part of their Lauriston Place city centre campus in a 2 phase contract completing within a 6 month timescale. The £1.5m project accommodates new studios for graphics, illustration, interior design, furniture product design departments and the ASNSE (Art Science and Nature Space Edinburgh) post-graduate course.

A new open-learning library and learning zone, administrative & executive offices, board room suite and cafe make this a flagship project for the College.

Our brief was to provide open-plan, flexible studio spaces to suit contemporary art practice. We composed the studios from a neutral pallette and gave a more vibrant expression for the communal assembly spaces such as the cafe and open-plan library & resource base. The Arper Catifa 80 chairs made their UK debut in the project and in the library we pulled reflective black, back painted glass cabinetry into the heart of the open-plan space.

The cafe has a shuttered, enclosed kitchen allowing scope to host in-house and private function 24/7 use. The whole building use also upgraded from its previous commercial specification to public building use. Services, stairs, access and emergency lighting all required alteration.