The elegant Honeyman & Keppie neo-classical museum and art gallery buildings in Paisley, built in various stages from 1860 through to 1950, are in a poor state of repair. Recent attempts to improve the buildings have involved unsuccessful additions to the upper galleries and creation of storage space. Poor decision-making regarding reinvestment has led to the deterioration of the buildings. Our designs propose to improve the existing building fabric by consolidating the best parts and extend the museum to the west with a new entrance that provides level access and better servicing. The new entrance is inspired by the original proposal to build a third portico but is set back from the elevation in response to the buildings opposite, rather than projecting as planned. The portico is implied with four cantilevered beams that hover over the entrance square. The extension runs back into the hillside connecting the many levels of the museum and to the 1864 Honeyman + Keppie observatory at the back on Oakshaw hill. The whole complex can be connected with better access, servicing and in harmony with the original design intentions to revitalise the heart of Paisley’s cultural quarter.

The adjacent Coats Memorial Church and opposite main University buildings are all connected together with grand squares, monuments and carefully inserted new buildings that help to define edges. The three new squares all relate to and improve the key existing buildings to provide a new gateway from the west into Paisley. This gateway is of a quality to equal the superb entrance into the town from the east past the medieval Abbey.