Parklea Community Hub

Parklea Branching Out (PBO), is a voluntary organisation and registered Scottish Charity in Port Glasgow, who use horticulture as a vehicle to provide a variety of different training and employment opportunities, as well as recreational and social facilities for clients including adults and children with learning and/or physical disabilities, those with mental health problems, young and long term unemployed, and community groups. PBO recognise the therapeutic value of a horticulture environment which has the beneficial impact of improving mental and physical health.

The brief was to rationalise the organisation of the site, through a new community hub that is designed to meet the needs and aspirations of the organisation. After outgrowing their temporary structure, PBO were looking for a building to expand upon their current service offer to their clients and the local community whilst reflecting their outward community focussed organisation.

Within Inverclyde, INCH have been supporting 3 communities since 2012, as indicated on the adjacent image top right. Inverclyde hosts communities that are living with multiple disadvantages (in income, employment, health, education and crime). INCH led PBO through securing funding, land asset transfer, design and construction processes, working collaboratively with them and their community.

PBO’s new hub provides a public space supporting their objectives, overlooking the Clyde Estuary and the adjacent historic timber drying ponds. It hosts a café, a community meeting space and other volunteer and training facilities. The building comprises a column and canopy (dendriform) grid which creates a sculptural soffit internally and covered space externally. Glazed curtain walling and brickwork enclose the structure acknowledging the garden pavilions on site.

Critically, the challenge was the site being within a flood risk area, and the building floor level needed to be raised above peak tidal level, based on a predicted 1 in 200-year flood event plus climate change. Alongside this, flood resilient construction measures have been employed to mitigate excessive damage or waste in the event of flooding.

The building directly confronts the challenges of the site exacerbated by climate change rather than ignoring them, allowing the creation of a new community hub that is deeply rooted to its site whilst embracing the human relationship with blue space.

Ultimately, the completion of the hub building has been a catalyst for delivering a wider strategic plan for the site as a whole. So far, this has included the delivery of a Changing Places Toilet and All Ability Cycle Shelter, increasing the accessible facilities available to both service users and the public.

The project creates a public space as a front door to the existing mix of community, training and technical spaces, providing a public interface with the community and learning work that happens behind and delivers a new public frontage for Parklea Branching Out.