Written by Page \ Park
The Titan Enterprise Centre is a 2,250sqm three and a half storey new-build office building constructed on one section the Queens Quays site of the former John Brown shipyards in Clydebank for the urban regeneration company Clydebank Rebuilt Ltd.
The building provides 31 individual ‘turn-key’ office suites for letting as business start-up units, with common reception, lounge, service and meeting room functions.
The project (sitting in the recently completed public realm and landscaping infrastructure on a 16 acre site) is the first realisation of the Page\Park master plan (commissioned by Clydebank Rebuilt in 2003) for the wider re-development and regeneration of the vacant 80 acre brown-field shipyard site stretching along the river Clyde.
The building form and materials seek to respond aesthetically to the rich ship-building legacy of the site.
The northern 3 1/2 storey section of the building fronting the public road is clad in mill finish copper vertical panels. The panels utilise a patented ventilated standing seam system by W.B.Watson Ltd – the manufacturers and installers of the cladding.
Cantilevered and flaring steps in the floor slabs at each level, create an envelope that adopts a twisting form reminiscent of a ships hull. This imagery is accentuated by the roofline rising along the length of the elevation to the cantilevered ‘prow’ at the easternmost end. Punch windows in this elevation with enclosing frames also clad in copper, create an articulated but simple façade.
The copper ‘hull’ is apparently ‘propped’ on timber columns at ground floor along its length (part of the glazing support system) in the same manner that ships being constructed on the site would have been supported prior to their launch.
