News

Unity Place Shortlisted for the Housing Design Awards

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 Submitted for O2 Masterplan on Finchley Road

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.

AJ Small Projects Judging Panel

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.

Gort Scott Achieves Excellence in the Mayor’s Good Work Standard Initiative

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.

Construction to Start on Nine Elms

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.

Nine Elms Park, Facade Study

Gainsford Road Featured in ‘Delivering Quality Homes Handbook’

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.

Tomorrow’s Market 2.0 Launch Event

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.

Go ahead for high quality housing for social rent near Old Kent Road

Planning permission has been granted for Credon House a new social rent housing in south London, designed for Pocket Living. The nine-storey development will provide 22 new high quality one-, two- and three-bedroom homes for local people who are in housing need in the Old Kent Road area, and also includes an 82 sqm affordable workspace unit. The project follows the success of Gort Scott’s Pocket Living schemes at Gainsford Road and Forest Road in Waltham Forest.

For this key site near Old Kent Road, we have brought our experience in housing as well as town centre and high street regeneration, producing a scheme that addresses local housing needs, creates an active street presence, and provides much-needed affordable workspace for local businesses.

Making Epic Iran

We recently received our very own copies of the V&A’s Epic Iran exhibition book. Featuring an in-depth interview on the exhibition design and construction between the V&A’s Director of Design, Estate & Public Programmes, Philippa Simpson and Jay Gort.

We formed the structure of this exhibition around the ages and history of Iran. There was such complexity to this project and we worked closely with the artifacts to ensure their story was told and shown to its fullest.

We are honoured to have been a part of bringing Epic Iran together alongside such a visionary curation team. The layering and unfolding of knowledge within exhibition design is captivating and we valued the opportunity to explore new ways of interacting with the public and creating space.

Ark Globe Academy Networking Event

Gort Scott architects Sarah Cook and Hattie Haseler were delighted to join Ark Globe Academy’s Architecture 1 networking event where students met professionals to gain an insight into different career paths. Over 200 students joined the event.

We previously hosted an enrichment day with Ark Globe students on the architectural profession and we explored urban design principles together using an example of one of our live projects.

We hope to collaborate more with Ark Globe Academy and other local schools. Do get in touch if you’re from a local school or youth group and are interested.

Unity Place in AJ

January’s issue of Architects Journal features our collaborative project Unity Place in which Gort Scott has designed a 100% Social Housing block.

With masterplanning by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios and block designs by Gort Scott, Alison Brooks Architects, and Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, the project “demonstrates how high-quality, high-density housing can be achieved without building tall” - Laura Mark, journalist.

Gort Scott has designed the buildings on the south of the site, including a significant six-storey residential block with fifty units. The elevations have an ordered rhythm and the concrete vertical elements on the upper two levels of the building reflect the stone detailing on St Augustine’s Church.

To read more visit Architect’s Journal.

Mayor’s Fund for London

The Mayor’s Fund for London is an independent pan-London charity championing opportunities for young Londoners from low income backgrounds.
We will be adding to the support that we already provide for London’s young people by introducing Built Environment-based workshops in local schools.
Working with the Mayor’s Fund for London enable us to reach and motivate more young people through our work experience, mentoring, workshops and talks.

Begbroke Science Park, Oxford University, Masterplan shortlist

Gort Scott, in collaboration with Allies and Morrison, Mecanoo, DK-CM, Hargreaves Jones, BuroHappold, Systematica and HR&A, is one of five teams shortlisted in the competition to devise a masterplan for Oxford’s Begbroke Science Park - organised by Colander on behalf of Oxford University Development.

The competition aims to find an innovative master-planning team to develop 2,000 future-safe homes and community facilities which will transform the 190ha site and provide a solid foundation for a diverse population to take root and evolve.

The winner will be announced at the end of February.

St Hilda’s College video out on Dezeen

Jim Stephenson’s video exploration of our riverside addition to St Hilda’s College in Oxford has been published on Dezeen. This significant and transformative development has created an intuitive spatial coherence with its existing landscape.

The Anniversary Building defines the college boundary, connecting the north and south sides for the first time in St Hilda’s 129-year history. The accompanying Riverside Pavilion provides a versatile space for events and lectures.

Dr. Georgina Paul, Acting Principal, St Hilda’s College says, “As a project, it’s given us enormous confidence as an institution, we suddenly feel we are living in architecture which accords with our vision of ourselves”.

Watch the video here.

Wallpaper* Design Awards 2022

To start the year, we are pleased to announce that The Rock has won Best Private House in the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2022.

The Rock is an exemplary new-build family home perched upon a distinctive rocky outcrop at the foothills of Whistler Mountain and at the edge of Alta Lake.

The Wallpaper* Design Awards celebrate innovative and thought-provoking design, and this year was judged by renowned names such as Simone Rocha, Sou Fujimoto and Doug Aitken.

Designer Simone Rocha said of the nominees that she “loved that everything nominated felt very unexpected” and “the things I enjoyed were all set within nature and the landscape”.