Graham Hills Building

The Graham Hills Building is part of Strathclyde University's John Anderson Campus, located in Glasgow, Scotland. The structure was first opened to the public in 1959 under the name of "Marland House", and at the time it was owned by the General Post Office. It was acquired by the University in 1987 from British Telecom by the organization of the University. In 1991 it was renamed for the outgoing principal Sir Graham Hills. It is built between George Street and Richmond Street, and serves as one of the main lecture hall buildings in the campus (and will keep on doing so until 2018, when Strathclyde will go through with its vacating plans). Graham Hills is also one of the primary connections between the lower side buildings of the campus and the ones on the top of the hill.

Front view of Graham Hills, as seen from George Street.

History of Graham Hills

The building of Graham Hills was first opened in 1959 by Post Office Telephones under the name of Marland House after two years of construction. The name Marland House was derived from a pub known as Marland Bar, which used to stand on the site prior to the slum clearances of the 1950s. The building was mainly occupied and used by the engineering teams of the organisation, however, people could still pop up to pay their bills at any given time for a few years.

After BT came into being, it started disposing itself of all the old buildings it had inherited from GPO; the plan included Graham Hills. It was then that Strathclyde University pressed forward and acquired the building from BT in order to turn it into an academic building.[1] Reconstruction took almost ten years to complete, and the structure was henceforth renamed as Graham Hills, after the (then) Principal Sir Graham Hills who made the plan possible.

Since then it has been hosting hundreds of students every day across its multiple labs and lecture halls, although it has been revealed that the University has considered vacating it by 2018.

General Characteristics

The building itself is divided into four independent, unconnected wings which forces students to leave and re-enter the building from another side in order to access one of the other wings.[2] The primary use of the building is for use in tutorials due to the large number of small rooms which are ideal for small groups of students. The small rooms are able to seat around 10 - 15 students which encourages learning in group and allows for more individual attention from tutors. That being said, several lectures of moderate student sizes are being held in The Graham Hills building, most notably ones organized by the faculty of Business and Administration. The designated lecture halls in Graham Hills can hold up to three hundred students each. The building also contains several computer labs in which many online tests are held and provides facilities for students to complete assignments which require the use of computers. The labs are often used by the business school to hold its first year tests.

The building itself contains four separate lifts for access to all nine floors. The building is not for any department in particular, instead it is used by a variety of academic service departments with labs for electrical engineers as well as computer labs for computer science students. Psychology students have their own floor as well for use in tutorials and lectures.

In addition to the above listed, most department-organized events take place within the building of Graham Hills.

Strathclyde Wonderwall

Strath Wonderwall

On the exterior of the building are various murals spray-painted (in the form of graffiti) by the popular local artists Rogue One and Ejek. These contain an artwork of a lecture hall on the building by the corner of George street and North Portland Street. The mural has a mixture of colour and black and white imagery; as if to convey the combination of older class and modern studying.[3] Along with the murals there is also the famous Strath wonder wall which sports its own hashtag #Strathwonderwall to encourage students and other people to post their photos on social media sites. The wall contains paintings of figures such as Scottish engineer - John Logie Baird, the T.A.R.D.I.S from the popular British television series Doctor Who and even an illustration Frankenstein’s Monster. The wall serves as a pleasant reminder for Glasgow’s colourful and artistic culture. In recent times a mural was painted depicting the land-ship which was once situated on the roof of what was at the time, The School of Navigation.[4] It is expected that this new mural was created to show of part of the universities history in time for the vast number of tourists that would be visiting Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games. On another side of the building is a mural of a Dansken equatorial telescope[5] which is a tribute to the nautical telescope that used to be on the top floor in what was the Royal Technical College [5].

Several plans have been made to expand the collection of artworks on the other sides of the building as well, since for the time being the only walls that are decorated are the ones facing the main area of George Street and the entrance to the building.

Facilities, services, offices

There are several facilities, services and offices occupying the halls of Graham Hills, concerning (among others) various fields of studies and research. A considerable number of Departments also host their Department Offices within the walls of this building. If one was to categorize this array of facilities, it can be said they're divided in groups of Study Centers (or Teaching Rooms), Service information offices and Department offices.

A brief mapping of what is available in Graham Hills follows:

Level 1: Information Technology Services.

Level 2: Centre for Academic Practice, West of Scotland KTP Centre, 3Ls Student Common Room, Capella Nova, Centre for Lifelong Learning, Security Office, restrooms.

Level 3: Research and Innovation rooms, Senior Studies Institute, Learning in Later Life Students Association Office, restrooms.

Level 4: Policy Unit, Car Park, Disability Service, International and Graduate Office, Schools & Colleges Liaison Service, Student Counselling, restrooms.

Level 5: Geography & Sociology (Department Office), Teaching Rooms, Psychology (Department Office), restrooms.

Level 6: David Livingstone Centre for Sustainability, Computer Rooms for Central Teaching, Human Resources Teaching Room, Learning Services Teaching Room, Psychology (Department Office), several other teaching rooms, restrooms.

Level 7: Electronic and Electrical Engineering faculties, Law teaching rooms, restrooms, Center for Lifelong Learning (Department Office), Languages for Business Office, Scottish Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, restrooms.

Level 8: Faculty of S.B.S, Human Resource Management (Department Office), Internal Audit, Management Science, Safety Services, teaching rooms, Unison, restrooms.

Level 9: Strathclyde Science and Technology Forum, Human Resource Management, European Policies Research Centre.

The building of Graham Hills hosts the largest number of offices in terms of departmental variety throughout the entire campus.

Future of Graham Hills

It has been said the University is planning on vacating the building by 2018,[6] but no official confirmation has been given yet. It is possible that the university has decided against vacating the building by 2018 due to the introduction of new lifts as well as a new front entrance.

Reception

Contrary to popular belief, and despite the University's plans to abandon the building, students of the University of Strathclyde find Graham Hills among the most favorable buildings to have in their curriculum and their daily schedules. However some have argued that the building is rather confusing to navigate and often quite dark. A big percentage of them agree that Graham Hills is a building worth keeping as part of the campus, and that its location and small classrooms offer a more personalized style of learning. Students have however, indicated that they would welcome refurbishment.

What is also worth mentioning is that due to Graham Hill's positioning in the campus, it is the students' route of convenience on rainy days, when walking uphill to the rest of the buildings can be a tedious process. Instead, a good number of students opt to use the general entrance of the building at George Street, and proceed to take the lift to the 4th floor exit (Richmond Street), before they follow into Colville Building, Architecture Building, or proceed to the building of John Anderson.

References

  1. ↑ "Glasgow, George Street, Marland House". Canmore.org.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
  2. ↑ "Graham Hills Building (Glasgow)". Wikimapia.org. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
  3. ↑ "Graham Hills Building". West Coast Walls. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
  4. ↑ Peters, Victoria. "A ship on the roof of the Royal College building?". Strath.ac.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
  5. ↑ "TheGlasgowStory: Telescope and Observatory". theglasgowstory.com/. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
  6. ↑ "Wikimapia: Graham Hills to be vacated by 2018". http://wikimapia.org. Retrieved 26 November 2015. External link in |website= (help)
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