PLANNING APPLICATION GRANTED FOR BANNER OF TRUTH
Aitken Turnbull has recently received planning approval for a new headquarters and warehousing proposal for The Banner of Truth, an Evangelical and Reformed non-profit publishing house.
With existing offices and warehousing currently occupying different sites across Edinburgh, The Banner of Truth has appointed Aitken Turnbull to propose a modern and efficient design combining their offices and warehouses with state of the art library functions in one unified building near the outskirts of Edinburgh.
Architecturally, the challenging brief is to combine two distinct functional requirements, an office and large warehouse elements, into a single unified building. One requires light, views and connections to outside and the other needs solid walls, large blank volumes and strictly controlled views and access. The intention of our proposal is to visually, functionally and conceptually unify these characteristics.
The repetitive design proposes a visual framework that allows the unification of the architectural characteristics through the use of solid or glazed elements, with the large vertical grid controlling the overall appearance of scale of the building. The grid structure extending above the solid external walls with vertical fins is intended to draw the eye upwards to the point where the structure meets the skyline and lightens suggesting a vertical dimension to the compositions.
Our vision for the project is a container of knowledge, the two distinct functions of the plan are focused around books and their storage, in the warehouse shelving and the library elements. The repetitive form suggests modularity, referencing books in a shelving or library system.
Our Senior Architect and project lead Sebastian commented:
‘We are very pleased to see that The Banner of Truth HQ planning application has now been approved. We are excited to be taking this project to the next stage with our client, developing our vision and bringing this building to life.’