Arts & Culture \ Housing Project and New Mosque, Annadale Street, Edinburgh (Speculative)

Housing Project and New Mosque, Annadale Street, Edinburgh (speculative)

This proposal arose initially from a search for a site for the Interfaith Association but grew to incorporate the entire frontage of the corner of London Street and Annadale st. Eventually it progressed without the Interfaith but with a new mosque, housing and corner café. The site fronts a very busy Lothian Regional Bus Depot behind it.

The eastern fringe of the New Town and nearby Leith walk have seen rapid growth in new residential accommodation, usually about six storeys. Our site however consisted of a variety of row rise commercial uses and a mosque on the corner. The latter is the conversion of a former two storey factory. Neither the exterior nor interior are of any architectural interest and the building is already too small for the congregation. The corner site is owned by the mosque along with the adjacent carpet warehouse. The remainder is owned by Lothian Regional Buses.

Our proposition is to build seven storeys of residential on London street. The top floor is deck-access upside-down maisonettes with spectacular views of Calton hill and the castle. On Annadale st the same housing would be built except for the lowest two floors which remain as bus parking. The mosque is placed at the top of the building on the corner and has a complex geometrical form for its roof. Ironically the original inspiration came from the synagogues found near the roofs of the Jewish Ghetto in Venice. The mosque demands separation of men from women so a new entrance on Annadale st shows two entrances and a “Jacobs ladder” staircase with one stair wrapped inside the other. This takes worshippers up to the mosque level with men to the south and women to the north. A roof garden is also provided and in the basement is a small mosque car park and the Islamic funeral centre.

On the corner it was the intention of the mosque to run a community café and in the floors between to have flats for Islamic students.

Even though they own the land they would have been building on, the proposal was deemed too ambitious by the mosque and Lothian Regional Transport were sceptical as to the profitability of the overall idea considering the per centage of social housing that would be required (a problem common to many potential housing developments in Edinburgh).