RETOOL ARCHITECTURE

A practice focused on Environmental sensitivity and the careful placement of gentle things in landscape.

The practice encompasses the work of Blast Architects established in 1999.
Work undertaken in collaboration with some wonderful people is included.
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Some of the work undertaken personally under the momentary banner of Edo architecture is also sited.

Mission statement

ADAPT
MAKE WELL DWELL

Range of Project work since 2000

Andrew James Alexander McAvoy RIAS

The practice began with and continues to embrace  a strong Environmental ethos. We work with climate, form and material to produce robust and future proof buildings.

Designing components and buildings that respond to the specifics of place and human requirements.
Always working slowly and carefully with our Clients to achieve their goals.
We enliven process through careful engagement with sustainable materials and craftspeople.
Creating Architecture that is more than the sum of its parts by synthesising  - Earth Stone Wood Glass + Considered Concrete
Specialising in  Passive Solar Buildings + thermal mass Construction
Toward
Low  maintenance and Low Carbon Footprint
Low Running costs + Energy efficient Design
Local Craft and localised material based approaches to construction.

ADAPT

ADAPT

REPURPOSE

RECYCLE

RECONSIDER

REVISIT

DRAW

REDRAW

INTERPRET

REINTERPRET

DESIGN

IMAGINE

REIMAGINE

BUILD WELL

BUILD WELL

DWELL

DWELL

DWELL

Vitruvian values in Architecture - Utlitas, Firmitas + Venustas = Utility, Firmness + Delight.

Architecture is changing and collaboration is necessary to rethink how we relate to our Environment .
Broadly speaking our work evolves in 3 principal Categories :- Architecture, Craftsmanship, + Community

Retool architecture is an Architects practice
We consider, we design and we monitor construction.

We can move any project or idea from the assessment of feasibility, through all the stages of the work to completion of the Building on its Site.

We believe that :

Architecture is for People and should be people centric.
Architecture is Landscape and should respect Landscape.
Architecture should be carefully considered.
Architecture should be well made and delivered through careful process.
In the end Architecture should be robust. and future proof.

The practice has completed many fine buildings and for some wonderful people.

Nothing is too small or too large.

The stages In a project that we undertake are clearly defined.

In time order :-

Feasibility study.
Survey and assess.
Outline proposals
Planning Applications
Building Warrants
Tendering
Site Supervision
Completion + Certification.

The practice is registered with and guided by the Royal Institute of Architects in Scotland.- RIAS

The practice uses standard appointment documents updated regularly by RIAS to structure a project.

We work slowly and carefully at a pace to suit our clients.

the practice has Experience in the following :-

Adaptive Reuse
Arts + Heritage
Event planning.
Furniture + fit out.
Community engagement
Barn raising
Building Surveys ,
Extensions
Energy Efficient Houses
Health Centers
Education + schools.
Listed Buildings
Village Halls
Industrial heritage + saving old buildings
Sports Pavilions + Club houses.
Maritime Buildings and landscaping
RNLI Boat houses.
Pods
Hard and soft Landscaping,
Master planning .

CONSTITUTION

We work in a bespoke way and will tailor our services to your requirements

We will at all times be thorough and aim for the highest standard of Architecture and construction possible within your budget.

We will not be wasteful and will engage with long term value and performance agendas.

We will work carefully with materials and tradespeople.

We will work ecologically and avoid waste.

We will not use toxic materials

We will minimise embodied energy

We will reduce the running cost of buildings to a minimum.

We will consider the environment and the climate and the implications of the project at all times.

We will exceed your expectations and delight and surprise you at each stage in your project.

Please use the Form on the Contact page of this site to contact us and begin process.

Modelling for adaptive reuse

Modelling for adaptive reuse

Modelling for adaptive reuse

Adaptive reuse of former Milking Byre

Out of teh ground and in to the light via - Retaining walls + Framing

Stainless steel components

Working with Masonry

Earth Sheltering

Oak to Stainless steel + Glass

Warming Old walls with south light.

Little Mill of Clinterty - Kings Wells Corten Dwelling

Craftsmanship  

Recognising the wealth of the Scottish traditions of Craftsmanship and making

Grand Designs - Channel 4 - Frames our Vikingesque - Long House -2003

Green Oak Framing
In any project we will try our very best to design buildings that make the best of traditional Trades and materials. We will let each trade speak for itself and encourage good making + making good .

There is a wealth of knowledge in every apprentice it only requires unlocking.

Promoting Hand skills in Construction

Hand work and the refinement of traditional Craft.

Old walls are precious and tell many tales. We work with them and unlock their narrative for a considered future.

Site specific Architecture created from natural materials .

Joy in how things are put together.

Shop Class as Soul Craft - 2 Framing up your Building in the workshop

Working with Good makers - Like French Carpenter Gaetan Goubet

Reducing Cost through careful material selection ordering and making

Promoting joy in Everyday things . A new Shed in Aberdeenshire.

Architecture in Landscape - Mill o Braco - Garioch

Considering the legacy of our Built Environment

Understanding the nature of materials and their production.

Embracing Green agendas and keeping up to speed with COP 21

Facilitating new landscaping, permaculture and growing space around Buildings.

Work with the best of Scottish makers.

Textile light + aspect

Angelique Robb plants a bespoke garden around her new house

Happy and healthy Clients.

Community

The Tea Caddy in position on Albert Drive as " Everybody's House

Communities are commonly in crisis.
Architecture can provide Tools to help them.

The community Empowerment Act will come into place in May 2016 allowing many disempowered communities to take a hold of buildings and landscape ,where they presently sit in a state of decay.

We endorse the increases in "bottom up" process and offer the following:

- Ability to facilitate communities in structuring their thoughts and requirements toward embracing their own assets.

- Advice on planning and process of events and basic infrastructure..


We can assess buildings and landscapes and the feasbility in communities taking these on as their own infrastructure assets.

Through practical advice and the structuring of aspirations we can help reduce sometimes overwhelming complexity.

We can design and organise the making of complementary process small temporary and mobile Buildings that allow for engagement process.

We have made bespoke manageable objects for use by various types of formative organisation.

The practice has a foundation since its beginning in 1999, in the setting up and dismantling of infrastructure.

We have designed built Objects that can be moved when their requirement lies elsewhere. These small buildings as engagement tools by their nature allow for careful deployment and commonly enhance - presence and discussion.
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You might say they unlock narrative.,

We come with a willingness to listen and help you plan.

We have worked over the last 5 years with Historians, Artists, Archaeologists Teachers, School Kids and vulnerable blighted Post Industrial communities as they claw their way out of multi deprivation.

We have been commended by Arts and Business Scotland for Community focused work.

We have delivered 3 successful HLF funded community projects recently and these have been applauded.

Locating the Past The old Horse Ferry and the Ferry Inn - Govan

First Fag packet Sketch of the Ghost Of Water Row - Drawing by A McAvoy

Native Scottish Spruce Wood framing creates a pale skeletal Frame into which functions would slot.

Playing with light and Dark Scottish Winter

Reengaging with a lost time Continuum Photograph by Tom Manley

Playing with the time continuum in a Heritage Environment Image by Julia Bauer

Ghost of Water Row wins RIAS award in 2013

Ghost of Water Row - Govan + Show People's Gate by Tam McGarvy

Fair Glasgow - "Swing boat" props

The show Float underway as part of the HLF Fair Glasgow Project.

Showman JJR Stringfellow and volunteers on Fair Glasgow

Future Dwellings - To be well made.... We are developing new house prototypes for single or multiple use, including the latest generation of micro Pods for sustainable - "off Grid " dwelling. Use the contact section of the site to enquire. Our most recent innovations are not yet shown here.

WE will soon be "Future Proofing" - Dalgarven Mill - Ayrshire With an addition to the listed Building grouping.

Working sensitively amidst a heriatge Environment - Dalgarven Mill 2

NEW Dutch Barn in the mix of the Utilitarian setting - Dalgarven Mill 3

Elevation of NEW Dutch Barn in the mix of the Utilitarian setting - Dalgarven Mill

GOVAN + GDANSK Exchange
Northern European Waterfront Heritage Zones Network.

The practice is part of this network and contributes to an exemplary cross border and multi disciplinary  knowledge exchange . The aim of the network is to enable the 2 cities to "compare notes" on authentic Industrial narratives being missed by top down process.
The exchange seeks to share and offer exemplary emerging heritage related practice that pushes boundaries .
In summer 2016 there will be a series of events in Gdansk and we hope to visit to Gdansk and take something  y way of exchange with us. Watch this space.

Gdansk; with its daily skyline ballet of working cranes, is under threat and currently providing counterpoint .in its efforts to protect its Heritage. 

Gdansk Shipyard is presently helping Retool its architecture, by awakening  appreciation of Industry, products, real landscape and people.

Published in Homes and Interiors in 2015 - see link to press section where you will find the full article.

'Whilst in Gdansk on the exchange in August 2015 ; we had the pleasure of being shown first hand , the buildings infrastructure and intangible heritage that our exchange partners have been battling on for 7 years now.
Critical Heritage Dialogue is underway and will culminate in conference, to which we will contribute.

20-21 January 2017, Riverside Museum, Glasgow
 
Top down meets bottom up in post-industrial regeneration: Good practice and challenges in participatory approaches to community engagement in city planning.

As seen above one of the Shipbuilding sheds of the Tool makers street show the attenuation to detail in these working buildings of brick and Iron.

LEARNING FROM GDANSK - Our Polish partners have fought and achieved protection for the remaining 50% of 270 hectares of Shipyard. They have pushed this via creativity and determination at national government level .
The 50% that has evaded the wrecking ball, is under their considered gaze All the usual suspects are around seeking to demolish and invade the public / Industrial realm with the private waterside interest !!! However Architect - Jacek Dominicak is busy with his "dia logic" space tool illustrating the importance of public over private .

Gdansk is reengaging its medieval city with the very thing that generated it - a trading port and ship building facility.

The debate is live and Dr Roman Sebastyanski is busy rewriting the narrative of Shipyard ... as a living breathing entity , "The very idea of Shipyard , is becoming of value in itself. " ShipYard is hotter than rivet ! "
Conservator of Industrial apparatus Valdemar Affelt is busy commodifying every last rivet and pushing the human association and culture of riveter through into the realm of ICH.

Govan and Glasgow have much to learn from Gdansk .
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STOP PRESS - Gdansk - Cutting edge Solidarity Centre wins European Prize.
See link below for the latest news from Gdansk.
http://bit.ly/1N9H6N5

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After 250 years the Sheeps Heid as Ancient symbol had lost some of its strength. Drawing by - Andrew McAvoy

Drawing then rendered for graphical punch by Liam O Sheah

Recently accepted by and deposited in The National Library of Scotland as an accomplished Local History Document. 2015 Govan Fair Programme 'Long before 1756" The third in a triptych of related Industrial Heritage publications for The Govan Fair Association. Edited by A McAvoy Produced by ... A McAvoy + Liam O Sheah as volunteers for The Govan Fair Association.