The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
The former council-owned public toilets are positioned on a prominent intersection in Edinburgh, connecting the New Town and Bellevue with Warriston and Trinity beyond. The building sits on the footprint of the historic Toll House, which used to steward the approach in and out of Edinburgh.
Fraser/Livingstone has retained the existing lower floor and walls and replaced the roof with a trapezoidal pavilion perched over the water – its form and composition taking inspiration from the surrounding conditions.
Expansive openings in the new restaurant pavilion connect the interior to a single mature corner tree, Canonmills Clock, a mature bank of trees and the bridge and water.
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A new stair builds out over the zone of the former entry steps, leading to a new lantern entrance lobby giving access to the upper pavilion. The inner entrance door here aligns with the top of the new internal stair with the circulation route carefully positioned to give views out to the Norwegian maple tree, animating the street corner.
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With the existing building so close to the river’s retaining wall, it was essential the new pavilion was a lightweight structure, minimising additional loadings on to the original structure. A timber and steel structure is clad in black vertical standing seam steel, the materiality of this dark upper pavilion counterposed by the white painted horizontal masonry of the lower enclosure, highlighting the contrast between old and new.
The upper pavilion’s form has also been inspired by the roofscape of neighbouring tenements, considered as a ‘fifth elevation’. The trapezoidal form is topped with a rooflight, bringing light over the new internal staircase.
Architect’s view
The project had three main design approaches. The primary approach was to seek to retain and reuse as much of what already existed as possible. The secondary approach related to the exceptionally constrained nature of the site: bound to the north by an existing retaining wall to the Water of Leith; to the east by an existing stone wall to the public realm with tree and police box; to the south by the existing adopted pavement, toucan crossing and city street junction; and to the west by the bank of mature trees lining the water’s edge. The third approach related to the tight development budget constraints, with the benefit of retention meaning that costs relating to new groundworks for foundations, substructure and ground floor constructions and external envelope were minimised.
Accumulatively, these reasons drove the adaptive reimagining of the existing building. Beyond the removal of the sanitaryware, associated fit out and internal dividing walls, the only removals were the sections of external wall where new window openings were incorporated and the existing roof slates and timber trusses, with the slates being reused on another of the client’s projects.
The climate emergency threatening us all is being caused in no small part to the resource depletion in the way we build. The adapted and reimagined Toll House building seeks –in some small way – to address this crisis through the careful reuse of the inherited resources of our shared built environment.
Robin Livingstone, director, Fraser/Livingstone Architects
Client's view
I purchased the former public toilet block building from the council primarily because of its unique location, knowing that something interesting and commercially successful could be created in what is one of the most sought-after parts of the city. With a clear idea of a brief, we worked closely with Fraser/Livingstone Architects to explore options. Given the sensitive context at the foot of Edinburgh’s New Town Conservation Area and immediately on to the Water of Leith, ideas were tested against what would realistically achieve planning approval. We felt that a single additional storey-high pavilion was a justifiable proposition and with an awareness of the surrounding commercial offerings, we felt a new restaurant would be a great fit.
Another key consideration for me was to try to retain and reuse as much of what existed as possible, both for environmental reasons as well as practical issues in constructing a building constrained on all sides by the water, existing trees and the surrounding streets. It was a challenging process that took longer than we originally envisaged as we commenced construction just prior to the onset of Covid-19, but we’re delighted with the end result. We’ve made a unique building in the city that’s proving to be a success for Dine, the end-user restauranteur.
Daniel Multon
Project data
Start on site Early June 2020
Completion date Late June 2022
Gross internal floor area 120m²
Form of contract or procurement route Construction management
Construction cost £220,000
Architect Fraser/Livingstone Architects
Executive architect Robin Livingstone
Client Edinburgh MI
Structural engineer McGregor McMahon Consulting Engineers
M&E consultant Design Me Consultants
Quantity surveyor David Adamson & Group
Restaurant fit-out, external lighting and signage Dine
Main contractor Edinburgh MI
CAD software used Vectorworks
Environmental performance data
Overall area-weighted U-value Existing brick walls: 0.30 W/m²K (enhancement from existing condition), new-build brick walls: 0.18 W/m²K, new build steel-clad walls: 0.24 W/m²K, new ground floor slab: 0.20 W/m²K, existing ground floor slab: 0.25 W/m²K (new insulation added below existing slab within existing column space), new cantilevering steel-clad floors: 0.16 W/m²K, new steel-clad roof: 0.16 W/m²K, new windows and doors: 1.2 W/m²K, new rooflight: 1.6 W/m²K
Design life 50 years
Embodied / whole-life carbon Not supplied (the project was a rebuild of an existing public toilet and retained the structure and embodied carbon of the foundations, lower floor and walls. Further calculations were not carried out)
Annual CO2 emissions Existing (notional building in IES/ Brukl Doc): 29 kgCO2eq/m2, Predicted post retrofit (BER in IES/Brukl D0c): 9.7 kgCO2eq/m2
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