SI ramIK

CERAMIC ASHTARY

During January 2004 the Scottish Executive published a tobacco control action plan, which set out a range of measures to strengthen tobacco control. The plan looked at the possibility of imposing greater controls on smoking in public places in the face of a growing body of evidence that more restrictions would result in a significant improvement in the nation’s health.

Research shows that more than 13,000 people in Scotland die every year from the effects of smoking and within that number around 1,000 deaths could be attributed to passive smoking.

A consultation on possible changes in the law that followed attracted more than 53,000 responses. The findings showed that a large majority, 82%, thought that further action needed to be taken to reduce exposure to second-hand smoke. 80% of respondents said they would support a law creating smoke-free enclosed public places, with few exemptions.

The Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Bill was introduced to Parliament on December 17, 2004, formally proposing that smoking should be banned in enclosed public places such as workplaces, pubs and restaurants.

The Bill was approved by MSPs on June 30, 2005, by a majority of 97 to 17 with one abstention and received Royal Assent on August 5, 2005. The new Act came into force on March 26, 2006.

Overnight, his enforceable Scottish Executive legislation suddenly released the introverted world of the public house to be pushed out onto city streets across the country. A new kind of public activity and street culture has emerged. People were now seen to forming clusters in spaces once unoccupied; entrances to office blocks, side alleys of pubs, restaurants and shopping centre peripheries.

Against this backdrop NORD have taken the ceramic ashtray, a ubiquitous element of interior architecture, and ven it a new form specific to it’s new habitat and urban scale; the building facade.