New Town Quarter

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

New Town Quarter, a unique design concept for one of the largest redevelopment projects in Edinburgh’s city center, will transform the former Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) site on Dundas Street into a first-rate mixed-use development. Creating a new urban center, the proposed mixed-use development will provide a significant addition to the public realm, including office, hotel, retail, and residential components — with new buildings to Fettes Row designed to respond sensitively to the adjacent listed buildings, whilst retaining and strengthening the existing ‘green edge’ boundary of the site.

Client

Ediston
Orion Capital Managers

Project Type

Mixed-Use

Honorable Reconnection

The development will replace the existing car park and ex RBS office with a new integrated development that respects its unique location bordering the World Heritage Area in a respectful but contemporary design that will reconnect the King George V Park with both the New Town and the wider urban context.

The site has offered a unique opportunity to reconnect the park to the north and west of the city. Respecting both the sensitivity of its location with the New Town and the complexities of the physical restrictions of the site has proved challenging, while the quality and diversity of the development uses and the new public realm will create a focal point and positive amenity for both the local and wider community.

The proposed project considers a series of landscape and amenity terraces to maintain scenic views while creating new pedestrian and cycle routes, greatly improving permeability in this part of the city. A key route will connect Dundas Street through the heart of the site to King George V Park with a variety of interconnected landscape terraces that absorb the steep level changes of the site creating a new East-West narrative, transitioning from the greener environment of the park to the more urban setting of Dundas Street. This route will create a new public plaza accommodating retail, food & beverage (F&B) where community events can take place. Combined with structured planting design to create both an activated landscape link to the park while providing new entry points for the key components of the development maintaining a car-free pedestrian environment across the site.

Robust, low-maintenance natural materials, with high-performance and energy-efficient building envelopes along a series of green decks and elevated landscaped spaces, and the addition of health and wellbeing components (such as a new gym) will create new amenities for both the local and wider community to add quality of life and sense of place. All this, in combination with balconies, terraces, and green roofs, will help to create a sustainable and economic development.

The form and character of the proposed development will create a new urban hub while being sensitive to the surrounding area. It is anticipated to have a population density in line, or lower than 165 people per hectare, which is the average existing population density of the locality (based on current census data).

Collaborators:

Lead Design Architect – 10 Design

Project Manager – Gardiner & Theobald LLP

Health and Safety Specialist – Quantity Surveyor

Fire Engineer – Jensen Hughes / JGA

Landscape Architect – Optimised Environments Ltd (OPEN)

Building Service Engineer – RSP Consulting Engineers Ltd

Planning Consultant – Turley

Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineer – Waterman Group