This project investigates how architecture can mediate between memory, social interaction, and creativity by reframing the fractured identity of the Gorbals in Glasgow. The chosen site—once the location of Bridge Street Station, now an underused void beneath a railway viaduct—sits at a symbolic threshold between deprivation and visibility. Here, the project positions architecture not as a monument, but as a vertical artefact that transforms absence into presence.

The design takes the form of a tower composed of three programmatic layers: the Archive & Camera Obscura (Preserve), the Chamber/Hall (Revitalize), and the Studios & Workshops (Recreate). Together, these spaces simulate a journey through past, present, and future, reflecting Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra and Popper’s Three Worlds epistemology. Photography serves as both method and metaphor, capturing the subjective impressions of the city while shaping spatial sequences.

Aligned with the Urban Building Pathway, the project explores how architectural form can integrate cultural narrative, social performance, and technical resolution. The anticipated scope is to demonstrate how design can act as a cultural lens—simulating memory, staging interaction, and speculating futures—while re-establishing the Gorbals as a place of civic and imaginative significance.