Autumn 2026

WELCOME TO THE AUTUMN 2026 NEWSLETTER OF
RICHARD MURPHY ARCHITECTS

An Architect's House by Richard Murphy

A 64 page large format book on 2B Hart St was published on 15th September to coincide with the tenth anniversary of its “RIBA/Channel 4 UK House of the Year Award” and doors open day on 26^th September. “An architect’s house” has a preface by Professor Kenneth Frampton retired professor from Columbia University in New York. He writes “by any standards unique and beautiful, Murphy’s Hart St. house deserves to be acknowledged as the masterpiece it is.” Richard has written the book as a tour of the house preceded by themes, influences, history of the site, precursors, and an analysis of the development of the design. Packed with drawings sketches and photographs it is available here Breakfast Mission Publishing at £25.00 including postage and packaging within the UK and Ireland. The book will also be on sale at both UK Doors Open Day at Hart St on the 26^th and in Gullane on the 27^th September.

Laidlaw Library, Trinity College Dublin
Contractor Identified

A contractor has been identified to build the Laidlaw Centre at Grand Canal Quay for Trinity College Dublin. Work is due to start this Autumn. The Laidlaw library has been created by the generosity of Lord Laidlaw. It consists of 372 computer stations around a three storey space within the historic warehouse. Trinity is one of six legal “deposit libraries” in the UK and Ireland.

As a harbinger of good things to come on 28^th May the same design team and the contractor Flynns were awarded the “Excellence in Irish Construction Award” in the education category.

Four buildings open on Doors Open Days
Two in Scotland and two in Ireland.

The Edinburgh and East Lothian doors open weekend (25^th and 26^th September) will feature two of our buildings.

On Saturday September 25th, 2B Hart St, Richard Murphy’s own home in the New Town of Edinburgh, will be open from 9.30-5.30pm. This is the third consecutive time the house has been open and considering the almost half million views of the recent “Nostalgia” YouTube we are expecting considerable interest.

On Sunday September 26^th, Langskail, Broadgait in Gullane will be open 10.00am -5.00pm.This house was completed in 2023 and is also the subject of a Nostalgia YouTube film and various magazine articles. This is the first time the house and its garden has been open to the public.

Meanwhile in Dublin two of our buildings are featuring in the Dublin “Open House Day” organised by the Irish Architecture Foundation on Saturday October 17^th “Ard na Mara” in Ardbrugh Road, Dalkey will be open. Finished in 2019, this is a large house on a spectacular site with a beautiful garden and has never been open to the public before.

And also Trinity College Dublin have organised for our recently completed Portal Innovation Hub in Grand Canal Quay to be open. The building was completed earlier this year.

West Princes Street... Latest news

Richard was invited to speak by the City Council planning department at a “workshop” they organized on the 8^th June. He explained the logic behind our proposals for the future of West Princes Street. A number of the Council’s political groups asked him to speak to them separately. At a widely reported meeting on September 9th, Councillors voted for small changes to the street and not our fundamental rethink although the LibDems supported our vision. Of course we wish them well but the adopted proposals we think will have very little effect on the economic decline of the street. Maybe in a year or two's time when this becomes apparent they might dust off our drawings?

A second “Nostalgia” film about a Richard Murphy Architects house design.

Following on from the phenomenal reaction to the ten minute film made by “Nostalgia” in March this year (450,000 Youtube views and rising) they have now completed a second movie about our recently completed house in Gullane for Graeme and Kim Ritchie. The film was launched last month. The film can be seen here

On Sunday September 26^th, Langskail, Broadgait in Gullane will be open 10.00am -5.00pm.

New projects on the website

We have been involved in several speculative projects over the last couple of years and for various reasons we haven’t published these. However, we are now showing them as they might otherwise never be seen. They are:

A speculative project for a photographic gallery for the National Galleries of Scotland as an extension to the Portrait Gallery on Queen Street

A speculative project for an extension to the National Gallery of Scotland Scottish collection gallery on The Mound

A centre for the Interfaith Association called the House of Peace on the edge of the Edinburgh New Town

And a speculative project for the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust to convert and extend the Tron Kirk in the heart of the Edinburgh Old Town into an Old Town information and interpretation centre.

A housing development and new mosque on Annadale St / East London St in Edinburgh

Highland House Plans

We were recently asked to make two substantial 5-bedroom house designs for a development in the Highlands which is now not going ahead. They were both designed for sloping sites facing south and were both about 300 sq m in area. One was an “upside down” two storey long house with most bedrooms on the ground floor; the other was a tower house of 4.5 levels organised on the half-levels of the circulation and approached across a small bridge. .

HRH Queen Camilla at the Royal Scottish Academy

In its 200^th anniversary the RSA was delighted to welcome HRH Queen Camilla who toured the building and met members of the current RSA Council including Richard. Their brief conversation revolved around the Maggie’s Centres of which she is the President and where she last met Richard on a visit to celebrate the Edinburgh Centre’s 25^th anniversary in 2021. Having visited many of the centres she confided in Richard that our design is her personal favourite!

Future Talks

Richard has accepted invitations for three talks this Autumn.

On 6^th October he will be talking to the Dundee University Architecture Students’ Society in the Architecture School.

On 22nd October he is lecturing to students at Edinburgh University on flexibility and transformability in planning.

And on 28^th November he is speaking in our own Dunfermline Carnegie Gallery and Museum about the origins of the design and its development and expanding the talk into the broader issues of placing contemporary architecture in historic places. Colin Greenslade, Director of the RSA and local resident, will be chairing the discussion

He is looking forward to welcoming the “London Architecture Club to Hart St in late October, and French architects who will be looking at the Edinburgh Maggie's Centre.

And in February 2027 he has accepted an invitation to lecture and teach at the Polytechnic in Milan.

And Finally...

The Breakfast Mission has a new member of the family: in May we welcomed the management team of the nearby St Giles Cathedral. The full title of our building is “The Edinburgh Sabbath Free Breakfast Mission” and the dedication stone outside dates the construction to 1888. It was built and run by the Church of Scotland so the wheel has now come full circle with the church taking up residency here again.