St Hilda’s College, Oxford has been shortlisted as a regional finalist in the Civic Trust Awards 2023.

The Civic Trust Awards scheme has been recognising outstanding architecture, planning and design in the built environment since 1959.

The awards are particularly interested in projects that exhibit strong sustainability credentials, a high level of accessible and universal design, and also provide a positive civic contribution.

The transformative St Hilda’s development has given the Oxford college a dynamic and recognisable street presence and has bridged the north and south sides of the college for the first time.

We are honoured that St Hilda’s has been chosen as one of 127 regional finalists that will now be reviewed by the Civic Trust Awards and AABC National Judging Panels.

Winners to be announced on Monday 9th January.

Last week we were able to celebrate the completion of Gateway West which takes its place amongst the new White City Place business campus in West London.

Gort Scott director Jay Gort, project associate Jonathan Mann, and project architect Dominic Dudley attended Stanhope’s completion ceremony for Gateway West and Gateway Central which brought together collaborators to celebrate the opening of this important section of Allies and Morrison’s White City Place masterplan.

Working with Stanhope, Sweco, AKT II, Sir Robert McAlpine and Allies and Morrison, Gort Scott have completed a new purpose built office space in the growing business campus at White City which sits alongside Allies and Morrison’s Gateway Central building.

Collaborators: Allies and Morrison (masterplan architect), AKT II (structural engineer and facade), SWECO (services, sustainability and ecology, fire), HED (landscape), Sandy Brown (acoustics), IM2 (CDM), Socotec (approved inspector), Grain (model), Deloitte (quantity surveyor), AVR (visual impact), GIA (daylight/sunlight), Vectos (traffic), Gerald Eve (planning), LBHF (local planning authority)

As part of the Property X-Change programme of events, on Wed 7th Dec Gort Scott are hosting a breakfast forum at their self-built Bermondsey office exploring the question ‘Does housing benefit the high street ecosystem?’.

As many new developments in town centres become residentially led, we want to bring together a variety of experts to discuss the challenges and opportunities of delivering housing on the high street.

Led by Fiona Scott, co-founder of Gort Scott and Mayor’s Advisory Board member for High Streets, and joined by Neil Murphy from TOWN, Esther Everett from the LLDC and Julian Lewis from East, we will discuss:

• Does housing benefits the high street ecosystem?
• What does it mean to live ‘on the High Street’?
• How can we innovate to create fair and equitable places to live at density, and live comfortably alongside other uses?

Join the discussion! We welcome those interested in delivering high street and town centre housing to join in sharing knowledge and thoughts on what design and commercial innovations might be required to better knit housing into the wider town centre ecosystem, while safeguarding the quality of living for all old, new, and future high street residents.

Join via the Property X-change website https://propertyxchange.london/discover/housing-the-high-street/ or send an expression of interest to our team.

Gort Scott’s bespoke home project The Rock has been featured in art and design historian Agata Toromanoff’s Living on the Edge. In this book Toromanoff compiles cliff-edge buildings from around the world and takes a closer look at the architectural thought behind them.

The Rock is a family home perched upon a distinctive rocky outcrop in Whistler, Canada. Considering how to approach this challenging topography, we recalled a passage from the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1932 autobiography: ‘No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together, each the happier for the other.’ This would become the founding principle of the design.

Find Living on the Edge here.