Sympathetic design

Plans for the Katrine Water Project are both ambitious and striking, with key environmental considerations at the forefront of Scottish Water’s plans. The organisation’s revised proposals for the replacement of the Victorian water treatment works at Milngavie have been reproduced on an impressive new 6x5ft model which has gone on view to the public.

Gus Watt, manager of the Katrine Water Project, said the modifications

incorporated into the new planning application have gone a long way to addressing those planning issues which were of major

concern to local people and environmentalists.

According to Watt the architectural and landscaping design of the works has been developed alongside the process design in an integrated manner to

achieve an aesthetic and efficient solution. The main treatment works will be constructed over several levels to fit into the eastward

facing hillside and take advantage of gravity flow.

“More than half of the interior depth of the building will be buried into the hillside and the highest point of the roof will be below the summit of the hill to the west and the top of the tree line which surrounds most of the site,” says Watt.

Aware of the impact that a conventional works would have on this scenic setting, the building was curved in shape to follow the sweep of the hillside. The walls of the new plant will be constructed in natural stone intended to match the sandstone used for the Victorian works.

The replica took three model-makers four weeks of painstaking work to construct, individually ‘planting’ more than 1,840 trees. The team walked the entire site to become thoroughly familiar with the terrain. A series of photographs were taken for reference purposes and notes provided by the architects involved were added to the construction plan