Amy Wallace

Out of the Clyde is the final film that follows our main character through her exploration into Gourock’s history, present and potential future. We witness trust and care being built throughout the town’s community. Through memory, interview and future provocation we see insights into intimate histories, civic failures and urban desolation. 

With thanks to Ian Wallace, Jonah Kidd and Hannah Palframan.

The Civic Worker's office plays a central role within the film - partitioning her research into three main areas and enclosing a central site model. Whilst the language of models, reports and sketches are architecturally familiar, there is a subversion and infiltration that hints at a new embedded way of working within a community.

The Model is a central character, represented both digitally and physically. The model grounds our understanding of the interventions integrating within the town as time passes. The out of scale, colourful infiltration reiterates the ideas of non-conventional, community influenced design. The fusion of film, animation and models provide a critical commentary of our common practice as architects to dictate urban relationships in a detached top-down view.

The Flood is witnessed in the final scenes of the film. This environmental intervention – caused by an influx of rain and the Clyde’s rising water level – examples an alternative urban regeneration approach. The flood rejects high-density, economically driven notions, in favour of a ritualistic environmental approach and the building of trust and interpersonal relationships.

The Lido represents the failure of past regeneration schemes undertaken in the town, that have been economically centred and dismissive of current and past communities. Gourock’s open air pool is one of Scotland’s oldest Lidos and has remained a central anchor within the town. The Lido within the film is an exaggerated and fictional illustration portraying the potential downfalls of fragmented rejuvenation projects. 

The Yellow Kettle is a symbol of pride and celebration. The original Yellow Kettle was gifted by the Glasgow Garden Festival as a commemoration of resident James Watt and his steam innovation. The Kettle was reused as a tourist information kiosk where my grandmother worked in 1994. This kettle holds mysticism, lore and nostalgia for a past life in Gourock. Within the film it is fictionalised as an over-scaled, mysterious new presence that residents compare to their own memory.