The arches were designed by landscape artist Andy Goldsworthy. Each arch, located at the Byre, Locharbriggs Quarry and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, was built from red sandstone sourced from Dumfries. The structures consisted of 31 blocks weighing 27 tons, standing at 4 meters high and spanning across seven meters.
Andy has also had these structures built in other corners of the world, including Canada, the United States and New Zealand. This was to represent Scots emigrating to these parts of the world over the last 200 years.