About the Tun

"Holyrood plan hits the mark - offices, shops, pubs and restaurants in award-winning architect's grand design"
The Scotsman

The Tun comprises the comprehensive re-development of the former East Tun brewery building and adjoining plot, part of the historic William Younger brewery site lying between Cannongate and Holyrood Road in Edinburgh's Old Town (The Holyrood Project North Site).

Formerly housing mash tuns used in the fermentation process, the hundred year old East Tun masonry building has been internally demolished and excavated, with the later 1960's metal-clad extension removed, to make way for a new reinforced concrete framed, multi-tenanted, mixed-use building.

• Developed by Whiteburn, designed by Allan Murray Architects and engineered by Ove Arup & Partners, the new building has been carefully conceived and detailed in accordance with guidelines laid down by the North Site Masterplanner, John C. Hope. These called for a crisp, contemporary approach to the re-cycling of the former East Tun brewery building and the creation of a bold new façade on to Holyrood Road, but stressed that the industrial aesthetic of the original building should be retained.

  The brickwork of the East Tun building has been cleaned and repaired where necessary and the original inward opening astragalled casement windows have been replaced (but now double glazed). Where interventions have been made (e.g. retail shop front slappings and removal of former high level walkways and pipe bridges), these are uncompromisingly modern and every effort has been made to avoid mock historicism.

  The pre-patinated copper, zinc and glass clad southern extension, set on an exposed structural frame, has been designed for maximum impact and to contrast with the more traditional materials used in the original industrial building and the adjacent castellated Clock Tower building.

• The Tun has been engineered as an energy efficient building, employing natural ventilation, via opening windows throughout, and utilising the reinforced concrete slab soffits, downstands and columns as heat sinks. These, if left exposed, are designed to absorb heat build up during the day and utilise night ventilation (or low levels of mechanical ventilation, where installed by Tenants), to purge this heat reservoir in an energy efficient manner.

"Those few, like me, who knew the East Tun Room when it was full of fermenting wort, were amazed at the transformation into sparkling new offices which yet retained a flavour of its industrial past."
Rosemary Mann, Convener, Edinburgh Old Town Association

Development Team

• Developers Whiteburn
  
• Architects Allan Murray Architects
  
• Engineers Ove Arup Scotland
  
• Quantity Surveyors CBA
  
• Letting Agents McGregors Chartered Surveyors
  
• Lighting Specialists Jonathan Speirs Associates
  
• Funders The Royal Bank of Scotland plc
  
• Lawyers Davidson Chalmers WS