Scottish Power HQ, Glasgow

Gateway to Glasgow City Centre

As part of a competitive tender process, Keppie were approached by Abstract to design a Glasgow Headquarters building for Scottish Power. The selected site is adjacent to the new St Vincent Plaza building, designed and delivered by Keppie/Abstract which, together with the new HQ, would form a new gateway entrance to the city when approached from the West.

Our approach was to design a simple, highly efficient, extremely flexible workplace, formed over a variety of floor plate depths. Designed around a central core, the building also contained a modest atrium space, ensuring all floors and business divisions were extremely well connected both visually and physically. A double height colonnade, reception and cafe space announces the buildings entrance at street level.

Generous cycle storage, staff changing and electric car charging ensured that the building was at the forefront of sustainable travel at the time of design. High quality public realm spaces around the building provide further urban connectivity between Charing Cross and Anderston Stations, building on the success of the new terraced link formed at St Vincent Plaza.

The space planning grid is based on Iberdrola exemplars, resulting in a grid that offers seamless integration of cellular and open plan desk typologies, arranged in a variety of layouts throughout the floor plates. On the main elevations, the primary structure is integrated within a deep reveal to the outside of the building façade resulting in an uninterrupted inner edge to the floor plates, providing infinite flexibility in terms of space planning.

The central position of the core and atrium offer flexibility for future subdivision in three office suites on each floor level with minimum loss of floor area. The north/south offset position of the core also offers varying depth floor plates to allow for different desk configurations and densities. The building is equally capable of accommodating single, deep plan floor plates.

The top floor is dedicated to an Executive Management Suite containing a generous boardroom and executive dining area, supported by a dedicated professional kitchen. The double height lounge space, offering spectacular views across the south and west of the city, opens directly onto a landscaped roof terrace.

The building façade is constructed of robust and durable materials. A fully glazed aluminium curtain walling and window system is surrounded by a series of double height, cast stone fins which provide solar shading to east, south and west elevations. This robust skin references the traditional, heavy, durable sandstone buildings of Glasgow and has an inherent longevity that requires minimum maintenance. This skin provides protection from excessive solar gain and provides a protective jacket from the outside world. Inspired by the principle of a faraday cage, it deflects interference from the outside environment and provides a tranquil, pleasant, internal workspace.