The Glasgow City Mission is located in the City’s emerging financial district between the Broomielaw and Argyle Street. Located on the site of a former chapel, the building’s two primary elevations face north and west onto Crimea Street and Brown Street. It is surrounded by buildings of varying architectural character, scale and massing constructed over a number of years.
Glasgow City Mission is a resource centre for the city’s homeless community. The primary function centres around the serving of an evening meal in the male and female refuges on the ground and first floors respectively. At these occasions the volunteers will encourage people to return during the daytime to attend courses designed to provide the users with the skills required to succeed in wider society. The middle three floors provide designated spaces for these functions along with the Mission’s administrative headquarters.
The design is framed by the enhanced volume colonnaded ground and top floors, with a staggered and recessed window detail to the intermediate three floors which give a depth and weight to the elevations. The relatively simple and modest design rests on the crisp edges and clean lines of the two street elevations which is achieved using a blue brindled brick and a double soldier course at the floor zones. At the top floor the building envelope steps back from the street line, forming a terrace for the Mission’s gardening club.
