Glasgow based student of Architecture, Maisie Tudge, graduated from the Mackintosh School of Architecture in 2021 after having received a 1st Class BArch(hons) from Oxford Brookes University in 2017. Tudge received the Charlie Cochran Medal, GIA Award Commendation and RIBA Silver Medal Nomination for the project The Atlas of the North. The works exhibited represent her core values of sensitive and sentimental design. Believing that the exploration of sustainable practices, Conservation and Circular Economy, inherently echo a sense of nostalgia. Sparking the interest between the dichotomy of both looking towards the future while conserving the past.
The project exhibited explores the concepts of ephemerality in architecture; its permanent transitory state. Through anthropomorphising architecture, buildings have been given life. They have bones, and a skin that breathes, they hold memory and have senses, have a circulation system and at the centre, they have a heart. Considering this sentiment, a building as a living entity, this thesis also adheres to Jane Jacob’s adage that ‘buildings must die’. Sparked by the mass demolition Glasgow has faced since the 1960’s, this means-to-a-building’s-end must be questioned.
This thesis will act as a memento mori for the built fabric of our environment. Immortalising the lost and forgotten histories of Glasgow’s former industrial centres through a memorial; acting as both monument and museum. In a bid to promote the salvation of these ruins this project will culminate in the restoration of the Springburn Winter Gardens; where the historic entity becomes the epicentre for hope for the future, and its proposed antonym neighbour will reflect on the loss of the past - doing so through the collation of salvaged materials from local demolition sites. As the project takes on the ethos of circular economy, the living metaphor is extended, prolonging the material lifecycle from cradle to grave – to cradle to cradle.
