THE devastating fire which ripped through Glasgow School of Art last year will result in its rebirth according to a leading architect.

Glasgow based Page and Park beat off competition from top practices around the world to win the contract to restore the badly damaged Mackintosh Building.

Brian Park was one of a number of architects, planners and conservation experts who gathered in the art school's Reid Building for a seminar on the future of the world famous building.

He revealed the blaze in May last year resulted in almost 17% of the city centre structure being completely destroyed, 35% suffering some damage but 48.5% escaping virtually Scot free.

The bulk of the damage affected the Mackintosh library with the loss of hundreds of historic books.

Two weeks ago, Mr Park and his team began studying and documenting every detail of the 259 rooms which make up the building.

He said: "We are literally down to looking at the nails as we are looking at how the library was put together.

"We have learned a huge amount over these past 12 months and we are documenting it and that will continue through the library and every area of the building. We will cover every single room.

"We know we need to ensure what we do to the Mackintosh building has as much integrity as possible, not just for the architects but for the public."

Paul Sutton, Page and Park's head of design support, told the conference: "We are learning day by day, hour by hour and we are now under its skin.

"It is putting together the information of a building that id deeply loved and a deeply treasured masterpiece."

Art school bosses have decided they want to re-instate the building as faithfully as possible rather than replaced the badly damaged areas with modern alternatives.

But the fire has revealed there have been alterations and additions to the original Mackintosh design over the years.

Mr Park said: "The art school has stated its intention to reinstate the library.

"We think if it is to be reinstated we feel it should be remade exactly the same way."

It is hoped work on restoring the damaged building will begin in spring next year, that there will be access to some parts of the building by 2018 and that the work will be finished before the 175th anniversary of the foundation of the art school in 2020.

However an art school insider said: "Restoring the Mackintosh library will take as long as it takes."