The Development of a Policy on Architecture for Scotland

INTRODUCTION

There is a fundamental inter-dependence between buildings and the lives of people. Almost all of our activities, whether collective or as individuals, are only made possible by the buildings we inhabit. So fundamental are buildings to our lives that we often take them for granted and regard them as simply the given backdrop to our day to day existence. But buildings are not given, they are consciously made and how they are made profoundly affects the quality of all our lives. How buildings are made, the quality of their design and of the built environments they help shape should, then, be a matter of concern for us all.

Buildings serve us, and we relate to them, in many and complex ways. Their fundamental purpose, of course, is to provide shelter, to protect us from and modify the effects of climate. Buildings keep us dry, warm in winter and cool in summer. They provide the space necessary to house our activities and our belongings. They deliver the services, heat, light and water, that are necessary to sustain our lives. Yet buildings are more than simply utilitarian products. What we seek from buildings is not solely practical. Whilst we expect, as a matter of course, our buildings to be stable, durable and efficient, they must also respond to and sustain our social and cultural needs and aspirations. These needs and aspirations may be private and intimate such as our desire for a sense of security and well-being in our homes or they may be public and symbolic such as the need to express a sense of cultural and national identity in our civic buildings. When buildings respond to these human needs and aspirations, when they provide more than mere utility, they become memor-able places which enrich our lives.

But buildings are important not only because of the benefits they individually can bring to our lives. By their very nature, buildings both enclose and occupy space and are concerned with what is both interior and exterior, with what is both private and public. Whereas individually buildings house our activities, collectively they define and shape our towns and cities and irrevocably alter the character of our landscapes. Just as buildings can bring order, meaning and value to our activities as individuals, so our collective existence is made more or less humane by the physical quality of our urban and rural environments. And this physical quality of our towns and cities and countryside is important not only for our own well-being but also because of what it tells of us to others.

A nation and its culture are largely defined in the imagination of others by its towns and cities and landscapes. Scotland benefits from having townscapes and natural landscapes of world renown and the highest quality. All our buildings, however modest, in the way they relate to their context, in the way they extend and define public spaces, in the way they respond to the natural landscape, have a critical role to play in maintaining and enhancing the quality of Scotland's varied urban and rural traditions.

01 Craiglogan Pharmacy, Edinburgh Dignan Read Dewar Architects
02 Garthdee Halls of Residence, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen Jeremy Dixon + Edward Jones	03 White Top Centre, Dundee Nicol Russell Studios