Chris Pirrie

About Common Space

Common Space is a proposed community building providing ancillary spaces for the residents of adjacent residential tower, Cables Wynd House, and nearby community croft, Earth in Common. The design of Common Space aims to provide new civic space on a currently unloved car park site which will improve the day to day lives of the people of Leith. The programme comprises of a day care centre and nursery with bookable office spaces for parents to work, as well as two large halls, one primarily for Earth in Common, and the other for mixed use activities by the residents of Cables Wynd House.

Environmental Considerations

In accordance with the programme’s aim to benefit the lives of the local people, Common Space is designed to be a flexible building, utilising low embodied carbon materials which are designed for ease of future disassembly / reassembly, or design alteration to suit changing future needs. Proposing a key civic place maker in a dense urban site, Common Space utilises a unique faience ceramic facade, inspired by the purple hues of the existing site’s boundary brick walls, to give prominence to the public building on the street currently lined by residential and commercial units.