Coming of Age

Garthdee housing, Aberdeen

Architect: Dixon Jones

This is student accommodation, but not as we know it. In the postmodern Garthadee project, part of Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University, Jeremy Dixon and Ed Jones managed to channel both Aldo Rossi and Scottish baronial architecture. Costing twice as much as conventional student housing (thanks to an anonymous benefactor), yet half as much as that an Oxbridge college might spend, these imposing towers were rendered in the rough red-ochre colouring of traditional Highlands dwellings and used traditional building materials where possible. Located at the top of a tree-lined embankment overlooking the River Dee, they’re built in a romantic and pictorial manner, in what is a particularly sensitive site.

Coming of Age

Browse the pins on this map to see all the buildings.

Show map