COMPETITION 01

PORTOBELLO PROMENADE

FIRST PRIZE
Rob Miller, brown+company

JUDGES COMMENTS

A quietly confident, realistic choice, combining flexibility and simple charm to create an attractive community anchor. brown + company’s Porty Cooperative Café convinced the jury with its unassuming clarity. A modest café, social hub, and practical toilet block, it embraces the brief’s call for communitydriven simplicity. Its buildable design, with scope for kayak storage or boat club admin, fits the promenade’s gentle curve without crowding its salty openness. The herb garden felt like a misstep - unlikely to survive a pragmatic client - but the believable visuals and grounded approach won over the jury. Judges recommend rooftop access to capture views across the sea.

SECOND PRIZE
Studio Sutton

JUDGES COMMENTS
This scheme impressed with its compelling diagram: a clear, thoughtful site strategy with potential for a sea-facing café, storage, and flexible amenities such as showers. Its joyful intent was evident, yet the design fell short as a cohesive architectural response. Some elements - such as the children’s pool - stretched credibility, while unresolved spaces suggested it hadn’t quite moved from diagram to design. Still, it offered valuable guidance for future site development, filling out the entire plot with a realistic, deliverable plan.

THIRD PRIZE
Bricolage

JUDGES COMMENTS
This entry proposed a civic function rooted in community exchange - a library of things. Its exuberant full-page section drawing lifted the whole jury: a scene of energy, activity, and togetherness. We valued the ambition to create a place of learning and sharing and admired how the design wove the toilet block into the new build, with an outdoor shower and sauna space in between. Yet the project felt closer to illustration than architecture: the plan lacked clarity and didn’t read as easy to build.

DRAWING PRIZE
Pawel Pietkun

JUDGES COMMENTS
Many entries came with strong drawings, but clarity and impact proved decisive. Some obscured the architecture; others were lovely illustrations with little architectural substance. This drawing, however, stood out for its bold architectural and landscape ideas. The café may be undersized and the footprint slight, but the sheltered grove is delightful, and the new square by the toilet block anticipates future development nearby. Most of all, we admired its restraint: telling the whole story with a single, compelling, text-free image.

COMMUNITY VOTE
Sonia Browse Architects

JUDGES COMMENTS
This proposal set out an infrastructure-first strategy, favouring a network of small, distributed interventions - public toilets, kiosks, pavilions, and seating - delivered in partnership with local groups and businesses. Its phased, collaborative model aimed to build dignity, accessibility, and civic life through incremental change, with temporary facilities tested before permanent investment. The jury noted that, while they shared its ambitious big-picture vision, the competition brief focused specifically on the toilet block site, which this entry addressed only lightly.

PORTOBELLO PROMENADE

Portobello Promenade in Edinburgh stretches for nearly two miles along the beachfront of the Firth of Forth, offering panoramic views and a much-loved recreational space.

The promenade is a vibrant, accessible, and well-used civic realm. Used year-round by walkers, swimmers, cyclists, families, dog owners, paddleboarders, volleyballers and visitors from across the city and beyond.

As visitor numbers continue to rise, the quality of the existing public infrastructure has not kept pace. This is particularly acute in terms of social amenities, inclusive facilities and public toilets.

A public toilet block currently exists on the promenade, but it has short opening hours and is regularly closed due to maintenance and running costs.

A community led proposal has arisen to create a sustainable enterprise such as a café, social space, or recreational hub that can generate income to support the ongoing management of these essential public facilities. The aim is to make the toilets reliably available from early morning until late evening, while also activating and enriching a key location along the promenade.

The ambition is to deliver a welcoming, sustainable and accessible civic asset that serves both the local community and the wider public—supporting wellbeing, social connection, and everyday enjoyment.

This competition invites design proposals for a new building or buildings, integrated landscape enhancements, and improved amenity provision for all users. Alongside a broader vision that could include a small civic hub that includes outdoor event infrastructure,

Proposals should aim to be low-cost, low-carbon, and deliver maximum community benefit through simple but generous design thinking.

Designers should respond thoughtfully to the unique coastal site, with fun at its heart but with particular attention to material durability, sustainability. The Promenade is a place to be enjoyed and we encourage a creative, forward-thinking and exciting approach to the brief. This is the first step in a wider strategy for the whole Promenade.

JUDGING

This is a concept ideas competition, and entries will be
judged primarily on strength of vision, community potential, and clarity, rather than on technical or detailed resolution

We will offer judging comments / feedback to all submissions

Entries will be reviewed by a panel of 5 judges

Esther Clayton

Community representative and branding expert, design enthusiast & local Portobello resident. Creative Director Vipond & Co. & Extra Teeth Magazine

Malcolm Fraser

Malcolm is an award-winning Edinburgh architect known for culturally rooted, sustainable design. He’s also a prominent policy advisor, campaigner for town centres, community empowerment, and architectural reform in Scotland.

Rory Olcayto

Writer and critic at PTE Architects London, former editor of the Architects Journal and director of #OpenCityLondon and #OpenhouseLondon. Longstanding advocate for architecture and architects.

Frazer McNaughton

Community representative and Landscape architect at NatureScot with extensive experience with local authorities, developers and stakeholders developing projects and ensuring best practice for infrastructure design and implementation.

Craig McIntyre

Community representative and Director of Four– by–Two, a leading multi-disciplinary design agency, Portobello born and bred and former community council chair leading the thinking on the site since 2022.