Location: Edinburgh
Status: Complete 2007
Work completed at 3DReids, the Edinburgh tower won commercial building of the year award and the civic trust award. The landside compact site was crucial in the towers design. The compact nature of the site lead to an equally compact design including reduced more efficient services and overall footprint. The requirement for ATC towers to have a duplication in services meant this achieved a considerable cost saving to the project budget. The welcome prominent landside site demanded a design solution which promoted Edinburgh Airport to the public. The key was to design a simple single form which combined the three different functions of an ATC tower that are traditional built and expressed separately. How that form met the ground, and indeed how the ground became part of that form, further enhanced the strong legibility of the tower in its context.
The design solutions developed for the cladding of the Farnborough ATC tower were employed. In this case zinc diamond shingles were chosen. Contrasting pre-patinated zinc double helix drainage channels were introduced to minimize the staining of the cladding in the hostile airport environment. Shingles were shaped to produce a ‘ruffled feather’ appearance to provide the necessary ventilation to the plant room services. A sliding mechanical service tray which forms part of the buildings geometry will telescope out to facilitate the replacement of the large heavy generators if required.
