“You need to be bolshy and there are pockets of bolshiness in Scotland – we almost had the October Revolution here in 1919,” Alan Anthony tells me with a look of mischief. He is referring to Red Clydeside, a period of political radicalism in Glasgow which saw soldiers deployed to the streets of the city after a crowd of 90,000 raised the red flag in George Square.  

The architect, managing director of Threesixty Architecture, is not here to give Building Design a history lesson, however. Rather, he is trying to illustrate the spirit of rebellion and stridency necessary to achieve the much more modest revolution that has become his chosen cause – the remaking of Britain’s town and city centres.