EXCITING new plans to transform the derelict areas surrounding Glasgow Science Centre into attractive destinations while bring communities together have been released.

Connect: Outer Space, created by developer Austin-Smith: Lord aims is looking to engage people with science and promote health and wellbeing. The proposals have been submitted to Glasgow City Council’s planning department for approval.

The Science Centre is looking to reinforce connections within communities across the city region and beyond by empowering people, individually and collectively while making positive changes in their lives and their communities, through science.

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The project, which is jointly funded by the Welcome Trust’s, £30million Inspiring Science Fund and Sustrans Places for Everyone, is looking to stimulate the activity on the Science Centre quayside and promote both sides of the Clyde as an attractive destination.

It aims to encourage more walking, cycling and better access to science for all.

Glasgow Times:

Austin-Smith:Lord were appointed as lead consultant to lead a design team in the delivery of public realm improvements as the result of a tender process through Public Contracts Scotland.

They were asked by Glasgow Science Centre in February 2019 to undertake a Stage 1 feasibility study and engagement exercise funded by Sustrans.

The purpose of the study was to codevelop a design brief for the external public realm works with staff, visitors and the local community. It sought to gauge stakeholder’s appetite for the potential public realm project, feedback was unanimously positive and numerous potential projects were developed through the process.

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The current idea also aims to create an attractive, botanical, biodiverse, human scaled environments while showcasing climate change adaptation design / techniques and history of the site.

The Science Centre campus forms part of the Victorian-era Prince’s Dock located on the south bank of the River Clyde in the Govan area of Glasgow.

Glasgow Times:

The entry channel, to the north-west corner of the dock, opens to a large Canting Basin. The basin is under tidal influence and was built to enable ships to turn around while also providing access to docking berths that served a number of two-storey warehouses which once surrounded the basin.

Originally known as Cessnock Dock during construction, it was renamed at its formal opening by the Duchess of York on September 10, 1897. Prince’s Dock was designed by James Deas, an engineer of the Clyde Navigation Trust.

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The dock ceased commercial operations in the 1970’s and the Canting Basin is all that now remains; the warehouse buildings and associated infrastructure having been demolished and some areas of the basin filled during the 1980’s to allow development of the Garden Festival site of 1988.

Following the Garden Festival, the intention was for the site to be sold off for housing development but due to a housing slump in the late eighties, the majority of the site remained derelict for many years.

The Glasgow Science Centre, comprising the Science Mall, the IMAX cinema and the Glasgow Tower, was the first major development on the Prince’s Dock site and was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 5th July 2001. It is one of only a handful of visitor attractions in Glasgow to have received a coveted Visit Scotland five-star rating.

The new plans will be addressed by the council’s planning committee and a decision will be made in due course.