No place in the world will stay special by accident” – Ed McMahon, Urban Land Institute

Better places and particularly better high streets and town centres are a complex balance of knowledge on Communities, Economic Viability, Design, Heritage, Funding, Ownership and Stewardship. The importance of a shared knowledge and collaborative approach was very effectively captured at the excellent Heritage Transforming Neighbourhoods Conference (www.heritagetrustnetwork.org.uk) in Derry this week. SSM’s recent masterplan for Lady Victoria, Newtowngrange and our involvement in regenerating town centres confirms our belief that historic buildings and strong local communities are essential to successful place making.

 There were particularly thought provoking contributions from Patrice Frey and Ed McMahon from Main Street America, a movement for preservation-based economic development and community revitalisation across America (www.mainstreet.org). With discussion on the integrity of place, ensuring sustainable tourism and keeping our high street Diverse, Durable and Local. This was very effectively balanced by Maeve Monaghan, of NOW Group, presentation on Creating Sustainable Buildings (www.nowgroup.org) a social enterprise based in Belfast supporting people with learning difficulties and autism into jobs with a future.

We need to engage and collaborate in this complex mix of elements to create enhance and protect our special places.

Smith Scott Mullan Associates once again welcomed clients, consultants and colleagues to their annual golf event on Tuesday 24th September. Duddingston Golf Course provided again a beautiful backdrop and a great afternoon of golf was had by all with a mixture of business, pleasure and a sprinkling of good chat along the way. The weather did pose a challenge but some delightful shots played all the way around the course.
Congratulations to Mike, Gus, Mike and Graham for winning the team trophy and to all the individual prize winners.

We look forward to next year’s event with fingers crossed for a little less rain!

Planning Permission and Listed Building Consent has been granted for Edinburgh Biomes, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s ambitious project to protect its unique and globally important plant collection. The £50m project involves seven new buildings and three refurbishments across two sites.

Designed by us and Nicoll Russell Studios, the project focuses on both the public and research glasshouses at the Garden. On the public side, we will conserve and refurbish the magnificent Victorian Palm Houses and the unique 1967 glasshouses with their steel lattice exo-skeleton. This succession of A-Listed nineteenth and twentieth century glasshouses will be complemented by a new, twenty-first century public glasshouse by NRS. A revised visitor route through the glasshouses will enhance the display of the plant collection to promote public understanding of plant biodiversity, conservation and research.

We have redesigned the support areas to provide a substantial new glasshouse to safeguard the research collections, an Education Centre and a Horticultural Building. We will add two further buildings on the Garden’s nearby Nursery site. The Plant Health Suite will provide a new national asset in the field of plant health and bio-security. It will receive and monitor new plant specimens collected from across the world and will contain world-class plant pathology and micro-propagation laboratories. The Sustainable Energy Centre will serve both sites and, in conjunction with the improved efficiency of the new buildings, will substantially reduce the Garden’s carbon footprint by producing both heat and electricity through a combination of ground-source heat pumps, combined heat and power engines and gas boilers.

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is one of the top four botanic gardens in the world. It is an internationally renowned centre of excellence in plant biodiversity research and conservation, an education provider and a major tourist attraction. We are delighted to have helped the Garden reach this major milestone in delivering potentially the most significant project in its history.

On 08 September 2019 fifteen SSM colleagues will be taking part in this year’s Pedal For Scotland event, cycling a whopping 45 miles from Glasgow to Edinburgh! 

As a Cycle-Friendly Employer we want to encourage cycling wherever possible, and as we cycle we will be raising money for The Citadel Youth Centre in Leith.  We have started our training with some office group cycles around Edinburgh and we will be ramping up the training sessions as we build up to the big cycle in September.

The Citadel Youth Centre in Leith provides a safe place for local kids to meet friends, do fun activities and learn new skills. Their youth workers are on hand to offer advice and support to anyone who needs it. The Citadel stands up for young people, and helps them to have a say in their community.

Please have a look at our JustGiving page https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/smith-scott-mullan-associates, we will be posting regular updates as our training progresses.