The mixed-use and residential scheme designed for Hadley Property Group in Merton has been granted planning permission. Station Road development will deliver a total of 116 new homes, of which 44% are affordable, flexible commercial space and a riverside public realm.

At its heart, the development will create a new public riverside park that enjoys South and West sunlight and isanimated by the activity from a café, innovative workspace units, and residential entrances. It will be connected to the chain of riverside routes and spaces with a new pedestrian bridge.

Hadley has pledged its commitment to building a quality scheme, providing greater access to the river, new connections, and ground floor uses which will serve the wider community and local businesses ensuring a lively addition to Colliers Wood.

The concrete frame of our new workspace project, Gateway West, has been completed. Topping out was celebrated in enjoyable fashion on the roof of Allies and Morrison’s adjacent Gateway Central building. The joint ceremony was led by construction manager Sir Robert McAlpine with developer Stanhope and investors Mitsui Fudosan and AIMCo.

The frame supports our shared sustainable agenda for the project. It will be exposed internally to maximise space and light and to moderate internal temperature, while embodied carbon is lowered by a healthy proportion of Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag (GGBS) in the mix: up to 50% in the superstructure and 70% in the substructure.

Commencing in September 2020, the works are expected to complete in summer 2022.

As our own response to COP26, Gort Scott’s Environmental Action Group hosted the first in a new series of seminars, to reinforce our practice-wide strategy to address the climate and biodiversity emergency. Our first talk focused on clear understanding of complex and evolving environmental policies, measures and targets – and how we expect to achieve them with our new tools, resources and review processes.

Later in the month we will be collaborating with SWECO to take a more in depth look at the assessment and reduction of embodied carbon in our buildings. This will be followed by a seminar on bio-based materials led by ARUP who will be presenting their research on ‘Circular Based Construction in the North of England.’

The series will conclude with a seminar on sustainable design, led by Certified Passivhaus Designers Jonathan Mann and Paul Wild. As part of an ongoing push to share knowledge within the practice, this will aim to outline practical solutions to design and build very low energy buildings that minimise our impact on global heating.

Constantly reviewing our sustainability goals and increasing technical knowledge internally, with clients and the profession is a key focus for Gort Scot and critical on our journey to reducing the carbon impact of the industry as well as becoming a net zero carbon business.

Following the feature in Architecture Today, the podcast about The Rock is now online. The Rock is a private residence designed by Gort Scott on a rocky outcrop in Whistler, Canada.

Jay Gort discussed the project with Matthew Barac, architect and academic and Isabel Allen, Editor of Architecture Today.

“The whole idea of movement through the building was very carefully choreographed – how you could make that journey to the top and capture some of the essence of climbing up the rock. But we were very conscious of it not becoming just about the journey but about dwelling and stopping. The series of interconnected spaces is like a collage. Where you’re in one of those spaces, you feel grounded by the relationship to the landscape.”