User:Ibling/Malcolm Fraser (architect)

Malcolm Fraser (architect) was born in 1959 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the founder of Malcolm Fraser Architects, a firm of architects who are based in the Old Town of Edinburgh.

Biography
Malcolm Fraser was born in Edinburgh and educated at the University of Edinburgh. Following University he worked as a community architect in Wester Hailes in Edinburgh; with architect and theorist Christopher Alexander in Berkeley, California; conservation practices in Edinburgh; and poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay at his garden, Little Sparta, near Edinburgh.

He formed his architectural practice in 1993. The practice first made its name with bars and restaurants for clients like Pizza Express, and with lottery-funded arts projects. The practice’s work encompasses conservation and new build, often in historic contexts such as Edinburgh’s World Heritage Site, based on respect for the historic built context and the need to build within it in a rooted, confident, contemporary way. It has also completed masterplanning and construction work for volume housebuilders that has won for them, for the first time in Scotland, major awards - for The Drum, Bo'ness, West Lothian and Princess Gate, Fairmilehead, Edinburgh.

Edinburgh
The practice has, between 1999 and 2009, won the Edinburgh Architectural Association (EAA) Building of the Year/Silver Medal five times, the Conservation award twice plus other EAA Awards and Commendations. Using this as a platform Fraser has campaigned about built environment issues in Edinburgh, including initiatives for Princes Street, the Grassmarket and the redevelopment of Boroughmuir High School , each of which has been adopted by Edinburgh City Council as policy.

Public life
In 2002, Fraser was appointed as the inaugural Deputy-Chair of Architecture and Design Scotland – a non-departmental public body (or quango) which acts as the Scottish Government‘s advisor on the built environment. He resigned in 2004 over the organisation’s unwillingness to examine whether the UK Government’s use of Public-Private Partnerships for public buildings such as schools represented value-for-money.

Fraser was appointed Visiting Professor at the University of the West of England in 2003 and Geddes Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, part of the University of Edinburgh, in 2009. He has also lectured in Europe, China and North America

VAT
During his time as a columnist for the weekly architectural journal Building Design, in 2003, Fraser initiated a Flat VAT campaign to standardise Value Added Tax across new build (currently 0%) and repair (then 17.5%) that was taken up by Richard Rodgers and Debra Shipley MP but rejected by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown MP.

Banks
Fraser acted as spokesman for the [Merger Action Group] of Scottish businessmen who took Her Majesty's Government to the Competition Appeal Tribunal over the Government's alleged “ripping-up” of legislation and failure to heed anti-competition warnings when it enabled the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2008.

Main completed work and awards
Projects (with year of completion), major awards and citations:


 * Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh: 1999
 * Royal Scottish Academy Gold Medal for Architecture: 1997
 * Prospect 100 best modern Scottish buildings: no.9
 * DanceBase, Edinburgh: 2001
 * Finalist, Stirling Prize: 2002
 * Winner, RIAS Andrew Doolan Award for Architecture: 2002
 * The Drum, Bo’ness: 2003
 * Saltire Society Housing Award: 2004
 * Dance City, Newcastle upon Tyne: 2005
 * Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh: 2006
 * Finalist, RIAS Andrew Doolan Award for Architecture: 2006
 * HBOS Headquarters, The Mound, Edinburgh: 2006
 * Princess Gate housing, Edinburgh: 2007
 * Finalist, RIAS Andrew Doolan Award for Architecture: 2007
 * Berwick Workspace, Berwick-upon-Tweed: 2007
 * Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh: 2009
 * Finalist, RIAS Andrew Doolan Award for Architecture: 2009
 * Scottish Ballet headquarters at The Tramway, Glasgow: 2009