RCAHMS - Sir Basil Spence Archive Project
We were commissioned by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) to complete an interactive website for them as part of their Sir Basil Spence Archive Project. Other partners included the National Galleries of Scotland and The Lighthouse, Scotland's Centre for Architecture, Design and the City. Funding for the project was provided by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Scottish Executive Architecture Policy Unit.
Our remit was to design and develop a site that would act as an interactive companion to the major exhibition, Back to the Future: Sir Basil Spence (1907 – 1976), Celebration of a Modern Architect and to complement the touring exhibition which travelled throughout the UK in 2007. The site needed to act primarily as a portal to the Canmore database at RCAHMS which holds all the Spence archives, but also very importantly as a online repository of images, quotes, audio and video files relating to Spence's lifetime and work. There was also a requirement to encourage site and exhibition visitors to have a means of sharing their own memories of living, working, learning or worshipping in Spence’s buildings.
Site design was inspired by Spence's own angular, modernist, aesthetic basing key areas on a colour palette drawn from his original sketches. Site build was completed in a MODx content management framework to enable RCAHMS and Lighthouse staff to update it regularly. The site was coded to the highest standard to meet current accessibility requirements requisite to a national organisation. Within a week the site had received over 2000 visitors and was listed in several top global CSS and architectural site galleries.
Launch: Sir Basil Spence Archive Project
