St Johns church has an existing unfinished tower. Our task was to restate the tower and create a landmark within Dundee. We felt this landmark had to attract people not only during the day but at night. We took advantage of the surrounding scenery by creating a viewing platform that looks out over the waterfront of Dundee.

Aims: -

• create a landmark

• to have function

• create a quiet reflective space

• contrast with the existing context

• to create a relationship between the proposed tower and the main space in the church

Design Moves: -

• Scrap existing tower

• to create a new building footprint

• to create an external space

• to blend external materials internally in the form of light fixtures

• to make the front door of the church accessible via ramped garden

• to create a lit walkway that has strong relationship with the spire design

• to use sustainable materials such as reclaimed charred timber.

By creating our new tower within the volume that would have been the existing tower. Our second key move was to twist the geometry of the tower to create different axes that would intersect the church. Where these intersections occurred would become important to the third move which was to create a view deck that rested atop of the roof of the existing church. This created a panoramic space for people to look out over the the Tay and Rail Bridge a view that you can only catch glimpses of from the ground of the site. This would bring people to the church and create a second node mirroring that of the Hawkhill/Perth road intersection. In creating this space it was felt that the site wasn't fully accessible from the node for everyone so to incorporate a disabled ramp into our design would allow for complete access to all surrounding residents.

Our first move was to keep the existing volume and footprint of the existing tower. Our second key move was to twist the geometry of the tower to create different axes that would intersect the existing church building. Where these intersections occurred become important in leading us to our third key move, which was to create a viewing platform that rested on the existing church. This created a panoramic space that people could look out over the River Tay and Dundee.