The Scottish Centre for Conservation Studies is a multi-disciplinary architectural conservation research and teaching unit, based at Edinburgh College of Art, and drawing on the expertise of specialists from across the Edinburgh School of Architecture. Its aim is to expand the scope of conservation research beyond the traditional doctrinaire limits of the subject into a wider exploration of issues of place identity in both a Scottish and international context.

Established in 1990 (with predecessor programmes stretching back to 1968), the SCCS focuses upon both practical and theoretical aspects of conservation research. Much is externally funded - for example, by Historic Scotland, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the British Geological Survey – and there are extensive national and international research links.

The SCCS Director, Dr Miles Glendinning, brings the skills of a historian and architectural critic to bear on the challenge of integrating conservation into the wider architectural and cultural landscape: he is currently researching and writing a new international history of conservation in the modern world, emphasising its pervasive interconnections with the broader currents of society.  His overview role is complemented by the work of a wide variety of technical specialists, allowing the development of areas of particular expertise in areas such as traditional stone sourcing or engineering analysis of medieval building construction.  

Current research initiatives focus especially on the topical and often controversial issues surrounding the relationship between conservation and ‘modern architecture’, past and present: several staff members are actively engaged in the international research organization DOCOMOMO, and PhD research students are currently researching Modernist subjects such as the design of the new town of Cumbernauld; the SCCS also provides advice to the UNESCO World Heritage Site international panel for proposed modernist sites (including Paimio Sanatorium, Sydney Opera House).

The SCCS’s own longstanding, integrated teaching activity, including a specialised MSc programme in Architectural Conservation and CPD courses (the Edinburgh Masterclasses), is constantly informed and invigorated by this research: a new, innovative joint MSc in Conservation Technology will shortly be established in collaboration with Heriot-Watt University, and SCCS research will also help shape a new University of Edinburgh multi-disciplinary MSc on heritage landscapes.

Major current SCCS research projects include the following: 

• A major AHRC-funded research project with Warwick University and RCAHMS to study the life and work of the Modernist architect Sir Basil Spence (culminating in a major published source-book).
• Ongoing RCAHMS-funded collaborations, including a survey and monograph on Scottish farm buildings, a series of architecture maps of Scottish cities (co-funded by Scottish Government and The Lighthouse), and research seminars on modern architecture.
• A Historic Scotland-funded project to extend the online Dictionary of (pre-1940) Scottish Architects into the period 1940-1980, and beyond.
• Collaboration with the architectural practice, Page & Park, on the researching and writing of a critical book on contemporary architecture in Scotland.
• Collaboration with English Heritage on the establishment of a UK-wide, GIS-integrated database and on-line archive relating to postwar mass housing and tower blocks.
• A series of DOCOMOMO-International events organized by Miles (as chair of DOCOMOMO International Urbanism Committee) and Diane Watters, including an August 2007 conference on stigmatized mass housing.
• Collaboration with the ‘Buildings of Scotland’ (Pevsner) programme to research and publish the forthcoming county volume on Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire.
• A 12-year research programme by Miles Glendinning into the life of the leading Scottish Modernist architect, Sir Robert Matthew (major monograph to be published by RIBA in mid-2008)
• Collaboration with Glasgow School of Art, Middlesex University and The Lighthouse to research and publish a monograph on representations of C20 Scottish architecture in books and films.
• Collaboration with the Institute of Fine Arts, Tallinn, and Finnish institutions, on the MARC programme of research and knowledge-transfer on modernist suburbs.

For further information email Dr Miles Glendinning