Architects teamed up with an award-winning children’s illustrator to create a colourful ceramic tile which could be used to clad Dumbarton’s oldest building.
Councillors were updated on the £8.5million renovation plans for Glencairn House at a meeting last week.
The historic building on High Street, which was built in 1623, is set to be turned into a state-of-the art library and museum housing some of the town’s treasures.
Items on display are set to include a Roman Medallion found in the town, a logbook from the Cutty Sark and 15th and 16th century Royal Charters.
The building, which it is hoped will open in 2024, will also offer panoramic views onto the River Leven and Levengrove Park and a cafe.
West Dunbartonshire Council instructed Page Park architects to formulate design ideas, with architect Suzy Brown telling councillors how the town’s history and landscape had inspired much of their plans.
Explaining the proposals, she told how Glencairn House would be set out as a public lending library and a local history museum, across three floors, with a children’s library located in a separate building at the site of a large ‘storytelling’ maple tree.
She said the firm had worked with Glasgow-based children’s author Helen Kellock to design a unique turquoise glazed ceramic tile which would, if agreed, clad the rear of Glencairn House’s new extension and new-build children’s library.
However, councillors were unsure and some questioned whether there would be “too much colour”.
Suzy said: “We’ve carried out extensive briefing work. A couple of key themes kept emerging and one was that the building should create opportunities for storytelling and have wow factor from the rear side.
“Our original plans was about being inspired by the tall conical forms of Dumbarton’s glassworks and creating two new-build structures at the back of Glencairn House.
“The first is a three-storey extension which would replace the existing extension and the second would be a single storey children’s library on the greenfield site.
“The children’s library is really centred around the existing tree which we are calling our storytelling tree.
“There will be a small garden where various activities would take place, Bookbug and Rhymetime, and so on.”
Explaining the cladding proposals, she said: “We’re proposing cladding both new build elements in glazed ceramic tiles.
“Our intention is to clad both the external walls and the roofs in this glazed ceramic tile so these two buildings feel like beautiful glass objects in homage to the incredible history of glassworks and it’s also a really contemporary and striking building facing the river.
“It was really important to us that we didn’t just pick a colour.
“We wanted it to be of Dumbarton. Even though it’s strikingly contemporary we wanted it to feel rooted in Dumbarton so we worked with Helen Kellock.
“She produces these beautiful watercolour paintings which to me feel inspired by the landscape of the west of Scotland.
“Helen went to Dumbarton, she walked around the rock and went around the river to look at the building.
“She went down to the museum archive and looked at the glass objects and started to pull together a colour palette that felt very much borne out of Dumbarton.
“The key colour is a turquoise colour that comes from the glass objects made in the glassworks but we see this repeated in the Roman coin and also from the ropes in the river itself and Dumbarton Rock.
“You also start to get undertones of yellow, lime green, as well as a brown red colour.
“The other theme which emerged was the texture of the glass objects which seemed to reflect the waters of the Leven and we wanted to integrate that into the ceramic tile.”
SNP councillor Diane Docherty said: “I love the colour. I think there’s maybe just too much colour in it. Is it slightly too much?”
Meanwhile, Councillor David McBride said: “That was very interesting. The design looks very, very good.
“I need some time to think about the colour. I think I would need to look at that again but it is innovative and interesting.”
