Creative Scotland Headquarters, Edinburgh

In 2010, Creative Scotland was formed to bring together both Scottish Screen and Scottish Arts Council under one roof. The Board therefore replaced its town house accommodation in Edinburgh with the first floor of the Waverly Gate building, intending to re-fit it with better accommodation for staff, visitors and artists.

Date

2011

Client

Creative Scotland

Value

£440,000

When Creative Scotland was formed in 2010, they chose to demonstrate openness to the public and make better use of their internal resources by relocating their head office. Following a competitive tender exercise, jmarchitects was awarded the contract to fit out their new accommodation at Waverley Gate.

Because the windows are misaligned with the floor plates, visibility both in and out of the venue a key challenge to overcome. To address this, our materials were kept light and bright with all working accommodation as close to the perimeter as possible to ensure maxim use of natural light and ability to capture the views.

The spaces created are extremely flexible and multi-functioning, getting best use from a limited floor plate without compromising their functions or daily activities. This has allowed Creative Scotland to transform how the business funds its activities by increasing productivity of the staff while creating a new venue for the whole of Scottish arts.

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The Challenge

In 2010, Creative Scotland was formed to bring together both Scottish Screen and Scottish Arts Council under one roof. The Board therefore replaced its town house accommodation in Edinburgh with the first floor of the Waverley Gate building, intending to re-fit it with better accommodation for staff, visitors and artists.

The Solution

Working closely with Creative Scotland, we developed a brief that sought to combine open plan office space, meeting rooms, breakout spaces, informal meeting spaces, cafe and kitchens, all with the publicly accessible event space / gallery, Board room, sound room and hot-desking lounges.

The Outcome

The spaces formed allows Creative Scotland to diversify their business by accommodating exhibitions, short films, sound installations and meeting and working environments for both visitors and artists, while still enabling their core staff to hot-desk in an open plan, flexible environment.