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Tayside Buildings Preservation Trust and Dundee City Council were recognised in the Royal Town Planning Institute's (RTPI) Planning Awards, scooping the UK heritage category for their work at Gardyne's Land.
The complex of five historic buildings situated within an outstanding conservation area in the centre of Dundee, includes a merchant’s house built around 1560 and is the only complete domestic building surviving from the time when Dundee was Scotland’s second city.
All of the buildings in the complex are listed Category A by Historic Scotland, but by the early 1990s, they were in a poor condition. Their layout and position meant there was limited the scope for commercial investment.
In 1991 the council became concerned about the buildings and in 1995 Tayside Building Preservation Trust, with financial support from the Architectural Heritage Fund and Scottish Enterprise Tayside, undertook a feasibility study into the scope for preservation and re-use.
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The Trust bought the complex in 1999 and urgent works were carried out three years later. The project was handed over to Dundee City Council who, with the Trust acting as advisors, managed the project through to successful completion in 2008.
The significance of the buildings had to be retained and enhanced in the end use but also embrace economic regeneration, community involvement, education and public access, and conversion to a youth hostel was the best use that met all the criteria.
A 90-bed Hoppo back-packers' hostel opened in May 2008, the first facility of its kind in the city.
Neil Grieve lecturer at University of Dundee and chief executive of Tayside Building Preservation Trust said: "The trust would not have been able to put a project like Gardyne's Land together without the help of students. It has been a classic example of town and gown co-operating to the benefit of the city and its built heritage.
"The trust is a voluntary body and the efforts of all of the people involved have helped us to win this hugely important award."
Convener of Dundee City Council's city development committee, Will Dawson added: "Not only has the project preserved a complex of buildings with historical and architectural interest but we have brought them back into use to provide a facility that Dundee did not have before.
"Recognition of that from a highly respected professional body such as the RTPI is a big vote of confidence in the actions the council and its partners took to safeguard this complex of buildings."
Making the award the judges praised a number of planning achievements including the underlying philosophy behind the restoration, the involvement of students from Dundee University’s postgraduate programme on European Urban Conservation, the interest it generated in the local community and the support of Dundee City Council and its close partnership with the trust.
(GK/BMcC)
