Tumbling shipping container building proposed for Edinburgh Park

Designed as a marketing suite for a new quarter in Edinburgh by artist Mach with Dixon Jones architects, the space is intended to double up as an arts venue.

Around 30 shipping containers will be stacked irregularly to form the building, which is named Mach 1 in reference to it being the first piece of architecture created by the Turner Prize-nominated sculptor and installation artist Mach, in conjunction with Dixon Jones.

It’s designed as the marketing suite for the final segment of the Edinburgh Park masterplan, which was originally drawn up by Richard Meier in the 1990s, but left partially incomplete. Dixon Jones, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands and Sutherland Hussey Harris are appointed architects on the remaining 43-acre plot, which is being developed by Parabola, and will encompass 1,800 new homes, alongside offices, bars and cafes, sports facilities and a renewable energy centre.

The containers will be painted the same muted red as the Forth Bridge, the city’s iconic 1.5-mile suspension bridge that cantilevers across the Firth of Forth estuary, and host presentation spaces for the development it sits on, as well as an arts programme.

“There is quite a dramatic shape to the building, not a regular piece of architecture. It will be something that you really notice,” says Mach. “It is a building with a promise of a life in other ways – as a Fringe venue, a great place for comedy, for music, for talks. The look of the building is the important thing to me as a sculptor and now as an ‘accidental architect’.”

The project has been submitted for planning approval.

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