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Black Law Visitor Centre, Lanarkshire

Brief

Gaia were commissioned by Scottish Power to carry out a feasibility study for the provision of a Visitor Centre and associated infrastructure, within a nature reserve to be managed by Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Scotland. The Visitor Centre would explain the creation of the nature reserve from an abandoned opencast mine and the provision of a 70 wind turbines on the site to be developed by ScottishPower

Proposals

Sketch designs for the centre were based on a series of linked buildings that would provide education and interpretation facilities, for use by the general public, specialist visitors and children from primary and secondary schools in Central Scotland.

The buildings would be constructed from sustainable materials chosen for their environmental credentials detailed to allow the building elements to be recycled and sourced from the local region. The feasibility study also identified the potential number of visitors to the proposed visitor centre, its likely spend profile and the associated running and maintenance costs.