Hannah Penwarden
The Granton Bikeworks
The Granton Bikeworks, a mixed-use urban block for cyclists and workers that proposes a new housing model for Granton and considers the role of 'productivity' in the contemporary city.
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The Granton Bikeworks was developed as part of the fourth year ESALA studio titled ‘The Productive City – Living and working in Edinburgh’. The studio proposed a series of projects in Granton that speculated on what living in the contemporary city means. In the project, we were asked to experiment with unconventional distributions of programme and to envisage forms of life that proposed original spatial distributions and arrangements. The projects merged a ‘productive activity’ with living units in one architectural complex, aiming to challenge conventional architectural typologies and socio-economic patterns.
The Granton Bikeworks proposes a mixed-use urban block combining bicycle workshops, open access workspaces and 3 different dwelling types. The integrated ramp acts as the primary circulation device and allows residents to cycle to their homes from the ground floor. The form of the building was developed in response to the transport networks that were already present on the site, specifically the cycle path that links the centre of Granton to the Firth of Forth estuary. The proposal aimed to enhance the experience of the pedestrian, the cyclist and to consider a vibrant housing proposal for Granton, an area of Edinburgh that has historically been overlooked.