Landing and Analysis
Glasgow flourishes on the river Clyde catchment, in the so called Central Belt of Scotland, a region between the Lothians and Strathclyde
The city is surrounded by the agricultural land of the Lothian and Strachclyde regions, which connects the East and West coast of the Bentral Belt of Scotland.
The increased human infrastructure has fragmented the ecological connectivity of the land.
The Central Belt is cut through by the Forth and Clyde Canal and by the imposing M8 motorway.
Deep time exploration of the Clydeplan
Glasgow recent history
To better understand the historical origin of derelict land in Glasgow, I pinpointed five main triggers related to (de)industrialisation that likely initiated the process.
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Early 1800s urbanization and the slum clearings which followed. These events put the population of the city under great stress and social changes and misplacements.
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Slums life standards improvement plan, which brought to the creation of a Municipal Housing Department in 1919. The Department created new housing developments in areas poorly connected to the city centre and far away from the neighbourhoods of origin. This development likely created alienation and social fragmentation for the families and individuals involved, and a decreased feeling of connection and belonging to the city.
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Decline in ship construction and maintenance at the Graving Docks and Prince’s Docks brought growing social, health and mental issues
as thousands of people started to experience worklessness.
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Transformation of Glasgow from the 1950s to the 1990s. During these decades, the city worked on policies and projects to clean up the city’s buildings, battled pollution, tackled social and health issues and pushed towards a more equal, cultural, connected future for the city. At the same time the Government went through a process of offshoring many businesses and trades, changing dramatically the industrial fabric of the city. In my opinion, this development generated a specific type of “waste-based” urban scape fuelled by the de-industrialisation and capitalism: derelict land in the heart of town.
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The new development of the city, which changed areas of town once rich and populated. Since the 1980s, the Prince’s Docks had been filled to allow the development of the Glasgow Garden Festival site. Between 1985 and the 2007, the banks of the river Clyde saw the building of the SEC Centre, of the Glasgow Garden Festival, of the SEC Armadillo, of the Glasgow Science Tower, and finally of the BBC Pacific Quay. The strong industrial heritage of this specific area of Glasgow was pushed aside and fragments of it lay now abandoned and in a state of ruination, often unused, sometimes polluted, rarely safe.
‘But in losing the ships, Glasgow has lost more than the jobs they created. Glasgow has also lost its heart, its main artery for two centuries. Glasgow was ill-prepared to face up to the challenges which the dramatic changes caused. As each berth was closed, each dock abandoned, each shipyard cleared, no plan emerged to manage and exploit the change. Sites were simply sold off to the highest bidder irrespective of the proposed end use. Those that could not be sold were allowed to become derelict, overgrown ruins of the past. The riverbanks themselves, for so long tended with care, every loose stone replaced, were allowed to collapse and erode.’
Riddell, J.F. (2000) The Clyde - The Making of a River. Edinburgh: Birlinn Ltd.
Derelict Land
I interpret derelict land as the end waste of a capitalistic process based on linear economy where the value of land is defined by what we can do with it and what we can make out of it in monetary terms. Derelict land carries a post-industrial legacy as polluted land, polluted groundwater, demolished buildings, and brownfield (some with ecological significance)
11km2
Glasgow is home to over 1100 hectares of vacant and derelict land embedded in the fabric of the city.
This equals to 11km2.
If we were to merge all the plots together, we would have a block of land in ruin measuring 3.31km per side.
Derelict land is an indicator of neglect. There is spatial correspondence between areas of poor health, multiple deprivation, and proximity to derelict land. In Glasgow, 60% of the population lives within the threshold of 500m from derelict land, which is a the distance accepted to assess the potential negative impact of exposure to pollutants and contaminant.
Derelict land in Glasgow lays at the city limits even when enclosed by modern development. Some sites are fenced or vandalised. Occasionally this type of land holds visible traces of Glasgow deindustrialization period.
11km2
Brownfiled sites are among the most diverse and valuable urban habitats. Where feasible and beneficial, Glasgow Roots aims at tackilng the crirical issue of habitat loss and declining biodiversity by preserving any natural regeneration happening on site, and enhance it by defending and nurturing the area.
The goal is to reverse the negative perception and impact of liminal urban spaces in ruin, and turn their transformative quality into something positive.
Derelict land has the potential of a white canvas.
Glasgow Roots aims at transforming the scattered land into a network of regenerated and regenerative permeable urban commons. This proposal will help mitigating the impact of global warming, habitats and biodiversity loss, and human disengagement from the natural world
Glasgow Roots vision for the future
Biophilic urbanisms comes through principles, patterns and outcomes that can be applied to different scale of design - buildings, streets, blocks, neighbourhoods, communities and regions. All these scales have the potential to contribute towards the restoration of the natural world. Moreover, the possibility of nested outcomes suggests ways that biophilic design at one scale can be transformative at larger scales.
“Buildings contribuiting to larger biophilic neighbourhoods, neighbourhoods fitting together to form biophilic communities” (Tabb, 2021) and so on.
We need to value nature in our local environment but also place it in the larger global ecosystem. The COVID-19 pandemic taught us more than anything else that our relationship with the natural world has to change.