As we reach the end of Mental Health Awareness week we want to show our support by sharing some initiatives we have applied as part of our ongoing holistic approach to wellbeing & EDI in our studio culture.

In response to employee feedback, this year we introduced mentoring to ensure everyone has someone to support and guide them in their day-to-day work and long-term career aspirations, as well as oversee their general wellbeing

To guarantee a successful mentor/mentee partnership all our mentors underwent training with Built By Us.

All employees have a mental health first aider assigned to them and we continually review our learning & development opportunities to nurture individual purpose and support career development.

We also are lucky to have our in-house social team, GS Life, who keep us connected through bike rides, pub quizzes, and the occasional rounders game.

Join Haptic Architects, Gort Scott, Morris+Company, Turner Works, Elliott Wood, Urban Systems Design and Vill for a presentation of our winning proposal for the regeneration of Bergen’s historic ship building district.

We will illustrate our collaborative design process, inclusive approach to public space and the necessity for adaptive reuse.

Zoom event | Date: Thursday 12 May 2022 | Time: 13:00-14:00pm (BST)

Register here for free.

St Hilda’s College, Oxford has been included in the shortlist for the RICS Awards 2022 which recognises inspiring and considered developments across real estate, construction and infrastructure.

St Hilda’s is a transformative development which provides residential accommodation and flexible workspaces for the college. The boundary defining Anniversary Building presents a prominent street frontage and identity, enclosing the tranquil gardens and new Pavilion which sits beside the River Cherwell.

Winners of the RICS Award will be announced on 18th May.

Following on from its shortlist for the Housing Design Awards 2022, Unity Place will be playing host to an Architecture Foundation walking tour led by Alison Brooks Architects, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios and Gort Scott on 25th May.

Gort Scott Associate Andrew Tam will be bringing his specialist knowledge in socially engaged placemaking to the tour, alongside Feilden Clegg Bradley’s George Wilson, as well as Alison Brooks and Nelson Carvalho of Alison Brooks Architects.

Click here to book tickets and read more about the upcoming Unity Place tour.

With our friends and collaborators Londonon, we have won the Architectural Review’s Future Projects Award 2022 as well as the Regeneration & Masterplanning Award - with LAX Laksevåg project.

The masterplan proposal for Bergen’s waterfront was designed in conjunction with Londonon Collective; led by Haptic Architects, the team consists of Gort Scott, Morris+Company and Turner.Works, with Elliott Wood Partnership Ltd, Urban Systems Design and Vill.

The LAX Laksevåg plan proposes a full restoration and redevelopment of the historic shipbuilding area, with a focus on forming a creative and bustling centre for maritime industry in Bergen.

This year’s Future Projects judging panel consisted of Waltham Forest’s head of strategic planning and design, Alpa Depani; the city of Los Angele’s chief design officer, Christopher Hawthorne; and architectural writer and critic Catherine Slessor.

LondonOn Collective has been shortlisted for a major waterfront regeneration project in Grønlikaia, Oslo.

Gort Scott, in collaboration with Haptic Architects, Mæ and Morris+Company will represent LondonOn and work alongside Useful Projects, Elliott Wood Partnership Ltd, Periscope, Neighbourhood and Tin Phan to propose a new town centre for Oslo in Grønlikaia’s container port.

This mixed-use waterfront neighbourhood is anticipated to provide employment for 3000+ people, as well as 1500 homes across the 208,000 m² site. Social and ecological sustainability is paramount in this project which will be carving out a new cityscape alongside an existing marine eco-system.

Image: Jon Ivar Søhus

Gort Scott’s James Powell, along with Feral Partnerships, will be bringing BIRDSEYEVIEW to San Mei Gallery from 8th April to 21st May.

Feral Partnerships embodies a research-based practice through archive and speculative design. BIRDSEYEVIEW explores the entwined relationships of humans, birds and the city. Referencing historic buildings and traditional practices which have been lost to industrialisation, the exhibition presents the city from the vantage of bird; proposing what multi-species care and cohabitation might look like in an increasingly volatile environment.

James is a Part II Architectural Assistant and is a committed member of Gort Scott’s Environmental Action Group and Architects Climate Action Network. He has been integral to our road to Net Zero environmental seminars.

Join us all for the private view on 7th April at 6pm. RSVP for your space.

Construction is underway on Kerasia House, Corfu. Inspired by surrounding traditional hilltop villages, the brief was to build a house using local materials and construction techniques whilst creating a welcoming and contemporary family space.

The house, set amongst an olive grove on a steep hillside site, has been arranged as a family of smaller buildings embedded in the topography and carefully positioned to preserve the ancient trees.

Kerasia House’s stonework walls, board-marked and concrete pergola structures are currently under construction by local tradespeople who have been employed to work with traditional techniques.

100% social housing project Unity Place has been shortlisted for the Housing Design Awards 2022. Gort Scott were commissioned by Brent Council, with Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios and Alison Brooks Architects, to design the residential-led masterplan as part of the South Kilburn Estate Regeneration Programme.

Commissioned in 2013, Unity Place provides 235 homes, community facilities and publicly accessible play space framed by human-scaled buildings. Extensive consultations were held to develop homes specific to the place.

The Housing Design Awards celebrate the best in house design - for social housing and private housing. We are proud to have been shortlisted alongside such varied and innovative projects.

Planning has been submitted by Landsec for the O2 Masterplan Site on Finchley Road. AHMM are leading the design team for the proposed town centre mixed-use development and Gort Scott have delivered a placemaking and interim uses strategy for the site.

This strategy sets out the process and possible placemaking projects over the phased construction of the development, showing how they could evolve over time. This will play an important role in building the identity of the new neighbourhood from day-one; establishing it as a local destination through the provision of community infrastructure such as recreational, cultural and educational activities, events and built interventions. This supports the overarching masterplan vision for the scheme, to create an inclusive place that connects the communities of Finchley Road and West Hampstead. Delivering these uses to the site at an early stage will also support the health and vibrancy of the Finchley Road and West Hampstead town centres as part of the COVID recovery.

For the second year running Fiona will be on the judging panel fo the 2022 Architects’ Journal Small Projects Award, alongside Pedro Gil, Eleanor Fawcett and previous winner Rashid Ali. The AJ Small Projects Award celebrates completed projects with a contract value of £299,000 and under.

Since its launch in 1996, the intention of the Award is to highlight innovative and thoughtful designs on modest budgets. The winner will be announced at an awards evening on Tuesday 6th April at Apt office in Clerkenwell.

We are proud to announce that Gort Scott has received accreditation as a Good Work Standard employer at Excellence level.

The Good Work Standard panel recognised our commitment to the professional development and long-term progression of our team through comprehensive training, opportunities to upskill, and performance reviews. Our flexibility in engaging employees and ensuring representation at all levels in group meetings was also noted.

We are happy to have achieved this recognition from the Mayor’s Good Work Standard initiative alongside our existing status as a Living Wage Employer.

After gaining planning in 2020, Nine Elms has been taken under the wing of London Square Living for the crucial final stages of its development. Consisting of both build-to-rent and affordable apartments, Nine Elms Park will also offer above ground-floor retails units and community spaces in the riverside Battersea location.

Working alongside architects Allies and Morrison and Morris + Company, Gort Scott are designing two buildings, providing 207 homes within larger urban blocks. Under this redevelopment of the Royal Mail site we intend to create structures that comprise a family of buildings framing the Linear Park – a unique urban parkland stretching from Vauxhall in the east to Battersea in the west. As a green lung, the park will provide flood resilience, breathing space for recreation and a key route through the heart of Nine Elms.

Gort Scott’s Gainsford Road development with Pocket Living has been featured in the Mayor of London’s Delivering Quality Homes Handbook pilot scheme as an exemplar for cost-effective, high-quality design.

The Handbook, written by Claire Bennie, aims to manage quality in new builds for Councils and Housing Associations under the categories: Culture and People, Briefs and Standards, Procurement and Stewardship.

This pilot has been adopted by four housing providers and will run over the next two years. Pending the success of this trial, the Delivering Quality Homes Handbook will become a contractual obligation within the Mayor’s future new build homes funding programmes.

We are thrilled to announce that Gort Scott with Abdullah Elias have been commissioned by the Greater London Authority to deliver Tomorrow’s Market 2.0, a research and advisory programme developed to address the key challenges faced by markets in London. The project will run until summer 2022.

Tomorrow’s Market 2.0 is offering advice for Local Authorities and other market operators through 1:1 workshops, seminars and a ‘How-To’ guide on best-practice in market regeneration. We will be collaborating with the London Markets Board and the wider markets network and promoting shared learning across London’s markets.

Join us online for the launch event on 23rd Feb 2022, sign up here.

If you’re a market operator you can take the survey to join our 1:1 workshops here.