Wilson Paul Award-Winning Chartered Architects In Dundee

Project  / Eagle Mill, Dundee. Adaptive reuse of former Jute Mill.

Client  / Private Developer

Description

The Eagle Mills were, and still are, an important part of Dundee’s history and cultural heritage. When we were initially approached by a long standing client of ours to look at the site, we were already aware of the mill’s significance, being at the heart of Dundee’s jute heritage for a century and a half.

Further research showed that the structure was built in 1864 to house the pattern shop for Baxter Brothers Foundry where Baxters’ own machinery and structural work was manufactured. The building also has a Category B Listing, which includes a number of internal features as well as the primary Victoria Street façade. 

At its height the Baxter family business employed 5,000 people in Dundee. Sir David Baxter, who steered the company through its heyday, built tenements to house employees and, with his sisters, gifted 36 acres of “pleasure ground”, now Baxter Park, to the city.Unfortunately after the decline of the Jute industry in the 1970’s the building had lain vacant for decades, with the fabric beginning to fall into serious disrepair.

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From the outset of this project we were keen to take the lightest touch as possible, to retain as much of existing buildings heritage and character as physically feasible whilst meeting current Building Standards regulations.The scheme comprises a mixed use adaptive-reuse of 34 residential apartments, a nursery school, bakery and coffee shop and a new fabrication unit to house a long-term industrial tenant. After looking through design options for residential accommodation we found that the existing structural grid and bay divisions, combined with the high ceilings and large windows could provide excellent characterful and high-quality homes, without the need for excessively extensive structural or remodelling works to the historic structure.

 

Other key moves included the formation of a new link vennel from Brown Constable Street to a new garden following the demolition of the northern section of the site, while restoring key elements such as the Victoria Street façade.The light touch approach was continued with the primary frontage remaining largely unaltered with the addition only of conservation windows to replace original roof lights in line with photovoltaic panels – analogous to horizontal strip rooflights traditionally used in mill architecture. We were able to design innovative mezzanine type ‘loft’ style apartments on the top floor level, each with its own distinctive character and original mill features retained.