The building appeared at the entrance to the Edinburgh Botanical Garden, from the side of Inverleigh Park, on the axis of one of the main routes - from west to east. However, it has little in common with the classical gate: instead of the usual entrance arch, Callinan designed a full-fledged building with four facades with a total area of 2,750 m2. The gate occupies only a small part of it, the rest is the visitor center. It includes an exhibition hall, a cafe, a shop, a lecture hall: passing into the garden, visitors had the opportunity to get acquainted with the events taking place in it, the scientific activities of its employees, etc.
A clear formal distinction between the entrance arch and the premises was laid down by Callinan as the basis for the composition. The gate is presented in the form of a completely glass box, like a greenhouse, through which you can see the botanical garden from the park, and vice versa. The adjoining visitor center, on the other hand, is made as a monolithic volume: from the side of the park, it is emphatically geometric and massive due to solid wood cladding. But next to the garden, its lines become more whimsical and picturesque, the facade bends in an arc and becomes absolutely transparent.
The gate and the premises are separated by a wall lined with gray slate: it accentuates the direction of movement through the gate and looks like a kind of entrance tower from the side of the park. The two parts of the building are connected by a “floating roof” supported by crisscrossing beams made of glued wood with ornamental inserts and thin metal columns. The original structure of the ceilings with large glazed openings and the windows of a kind of "cleristory" allow daylight to freely penetrate into the interior. When viewed from the park, this roof is only partially visible, directly above the gate; much better the effect of its soaring can be estimated from the reverse side, where the roof literally lies on the "glass aquarium" of the main room.
All facades of this building are different: from the north side it is read as just a garden wall, and from the south it looks much more massive - with an extensive gallery on the ground floor under a cantilever roof, technical rooms and a service entrance, as well as wooden steps to an open lecture hall. When approaching it from the east, the building seems long and low, connected to the ground by its reflection in the ponds of the garden.
The project includes several possible directions for the movement of visitors, taking into account the fact that it is not John Hope's Gate that is most popular, but the eastern entrance to the garden. Getting from the park into the "glass box" of the gate, the visitor will have to turn 90 degrees: to the left - the toilets, located in the characteristic "drum" of Callinan's architecture, lined with slate and covered with a smaller drum, is a reservoir for the accumulation of rainwater. To the right is the entrance to the garden through the visitor center. Following this second route, we find ourselves in the gallery hall on two floors, from where you can clearly see how the roof is arranged from the inside. Inside the diamond-shaped grid of picturesque wood beams, green panels adorned with leopard print are inserted to hide the spotlights. At the far end of the hall is a wooden spiral staircase to the main floor. It is unique in its design, made, like the sheathing, of glued spruce. Climbing it, visitors find themselves in a cafe, from where you can go to a large terrace overlooking the botanical garden.
The building, as always with Callinan, a pioneer of green building, complies with all the principles of ecological architecture and is equipped with a green roof, wind turbine, solar panels, biomass boiler, rainwater reservoir, etc. But more importantly, the project uses materials that are appropriate for its location, especially wood in various forms - both for construction and decoration.
By the way, in 2010, according to the project of Edward Callinan, another similar "green" building was opened - the Herbarium and Library Wing in the Kew Botanical Garden; Callinan used similar techniques in his composition, in which the brick building of the storehouse and the light, bright room of the research center are contrasted.
N. K.
