Gort Scott have been shortlisted for Higher Education Architect of the Year and Refurbishment Architect of the Year in the AYA Awards. We are proud to have been shortlisted alongside so many friends and aspirational practices.

Acknowledgment of our work in refurbishment and retrofit seems particularly pertinent during this time of climate emergency as we take steps to reduce our embodied carbon impact.

Winners to be announced 18th October, London.

15 years into our venture as Gort Scott we want to thank our team as they grow with us and embody our values to be conscious of impact, to engage with the context of environment, to value relationships, to cultivate curiosity, and to bring joy.

“The project really is Gort Scott, that’s all the people and all the collaborators … and it’s an ongoing thing, about the processes more than it is the answer, it’s about the line of enquiry and collaborations and keeping that spirit alive within us all here.” - Jay Gort

“It’s more and more apparent to us that it’s not just about the relationships we have with clients and collaborators but also about the friendships that we have with you all as well, and that’s what makes it worthwhile for us” - Fiona Scott

Gort Scott, Feilden Clegg Bradley, and Alison Brooks Architects’ social housing scheme Unity Place has been shortlisted for both WAF Awards 2022 as Best Housing of the Year and British Home Awards 2022 in the category Best Housing Partnership.

The development forms part of the second stage of South Kilburn’s Regeneration Programme which aims to deliver 2400 new homes. The low to mid-rise scheme provides high-density housing in buildings that positively engage with their surroundings and residents. Thorough consultations held with residents of the existing site we ensured the provision of homes which would serve the families living in them. The interactive workshops created a tailored approach to the delivery of culturally appropriate homes.

British Home Awards 2022 will be announced on 30th September and WAF Awards 2022 ceremony will take place in Lisbon on the 30th of November.

Fiona Scott, together with a remarkable panel of speakers, took part in Metropolis Conference London-Berlin which addressed an urban planning topic which is significant to both cities: rapid change of High Streets and outer Town Centres.

“In the public sector, we have seen and witnessed a lot of care, collaborative working, weaving together priorities to create equitable outcomes, despite significant funding challenges. In the private sector, we are seeing rapid progress in thinking within certain strands and organizations, but there are still very big projects moving ahead quickly with this real political and commercial pressure to build more housing in Town Centres and High Streets closer to the community, services, and transports. We are seeing emerging the scale of building and intensity of living in High Streets and Town Centres, and consequently, urban forms and typologies that are quite new to London and not fully tested yet”.

You can now watch Fiona’s speech on Vimeo.

Gort Scott’s transformative development for St Hilda’s College in Oxford has been shortlisted for the Education Estates Awards 2022 Inclusive Learning Spaces for All category.

Inclusion has been central to St Hilda’s ethos; however, its campus had developed with a fragmented layout impeding accessibility, wayfinding, and connections. By transforming the College’s relationship with its setting, Gort Scott’s design supports communal life with a sense of identity and a strong focus on well-being and inclusion.

Winners will be announced on 18th October 2022 in Manchester during Education Estates®, the annual event organised in partnership with the Department for Education.

The refurbishment and renovation of the historic listed buildings 3 Mills Studios, in East London, is rapidly progressing on site. Gort Scott was commissioned by London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) to head a renovation of the historic buildings.

The works will create new lettable spaces to support businesses from creative industries, specifically TV and film production, to make greater use of the busy screen production campus and will help deliver a world-class cultural and creative production hub throughout the Thames Estuary Production Corridor.

The works have been made possible by funding from the Government’s Getting Building Fund via a £3m grant allocated by the Mayor of London, and a further £1.9m funding has been provided through the LLDC’s Community Infrastructure Fund.

Gort Scott have worked closely with a strong team which includes Freehaus, OR Consulting and Momentum.

Gort Scott welcomed an audience of 75 to its Bermondsey studio for LFA panel discussion How Do You Solve a Problem Like New High Streets.

Directors Jay Gort and Fiona Scott were joined by an accomplished panel who were posed questions surrounding strategic approach; working at a local level; design and delivery of a strategy; the relationships between people and place; and integrating well-being and social value into high street design.

A huge thank you to everyone who came by to spend the evening with us, and to our panelists for joining us to discuss this topical and multi-faceted issue:

Morwenna Hall (Partner and COO at Argent LLP)
Alpa Depani (Head of Strategic Planning & Design at LB Waltham Forest)
Eleanor Fawcett (Head of Design at OPDC)
John Nordon (Co-Founder at Neighbourhood company)
Jayden Ali (Director at JA Projects)

You can now watch the How Do You Solve a Problem Like New High Streets on Vimeo

Gort Scott are set to be a part of the latest step in the Mayor’s Recovery Programme: Property X-Change, launching summer 2022.

The initiative aims to create a diverse, cross-city network and encourage collaboration and shared thinking to develop thriving highstreets for everyone. The programme features a strong team in Rumi Bose, Hassell, TEMPLO DESIGN, Ash Rao, James Parkinson, Camilla Siggaard Andersen, Susie Hyden, Adam Scott, Kat Hanna, Elly Watson, Andrea Carpenter, Oli Whittington and Lucie Murray.

Property X-Change was developed by the Greater London Authority, CBI (Confederation of British Industry), Cross River Partnership, Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), British Property Federation, London Councils, London First, Guardians of the Arches, the Mayor of London, and Transport for London Property, with support from the Bloomberg Foundation.

Stay up to date with progress and ways to get involved on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Gort Scott’s transformative development for St Hilda’s College in Oxford has been shortlisted for the Brick Awards 2022 Educational Building category. Comprising two bold and elegant buildings which sitting in a redesigned landscape, the Anniversary Building defines the boundary of the College and strengthens its street presence, whilst the glazed Pavilion nestles on the edge of the River Cherwell and provides a space for lectures and events.

In developing the new buildings’ appearance, we have echoed and reinterpreted characteristics and idiosyncrasies of neighbouring College buildings. While the predominant material used is brick, linking these new additions to their context, decorative detailing such as a scalloped frill to the top storey of the Anniversary Building cultivates a unique identity, with precast concrete components and bronze-coloured metalwork providing contrast.

We are pleased to have been included in the Brick Awards shortlist amongst so many other exciting and innovative educational spaces.

Winners to be announced 10th November 2022

The London Festival of Architecture’s 30 Objects in 30 Days is back for its third year and day No.4 features Gort Scott Associate Andrew Tam and Architect Ewa Effiom sharing their thoughts on the place of architectural drawings in an ever-shifting industry.

“For our submission, we decided to talk about architectural drawings. Drawings are often the first step in the act of building, but they make architecture exclusive because of the type of education you need to read them. Both of us are interested in making the architecture profession inclusive and so ponder their relevance to society beyond the profession.” - Catch Ewa and Andrew’s thoughts here.

Director Fiona Scott joined the judging panel for the Schüco Excellence Awards last week, alongside Ingrid Petit (Feilden Fowles), Steve Mudie (Alinea Consulting), Pankaj Patel (Patel Taylor), Innes Johnston (Max Fordham), Carol Patterson (OMA), Harry Montresor (Montrésor Partnership), and Isabel Allen (Architecture Today).

In its ninth year the Schüco Awards introduce ten updated categories across design and innovation: Commercial and Mixed-Use development; Cultural building; Education, Health and Leisure building; Refurbishment and Adaptive Reuse project; Individual house; Individual house improvement; Residential development; Specialist contractor; Steel project; and Sustainability.

Winners to be in announced on 30th June.

Director Jay Gort, and Associate and Environmental Action Group Lead Jonathan Mann will be attending Footprint+, Brighton next week, as part of our response to the climate and ecological emergencies.

Our industry needs to make massive changes and Footprint+ will enable us to learn more; to consolidate our existing training in passivhaus, our long experience of retrofit and our growing knowledge of the circular economy, whilst also opening new avenues for exploration.

Footprint+ is also an opportunity to build connections with like-minded collaborators who will push us forward. Business as usual is not enough; we want to build and create valued relationships that will drive environmental performance far in advance of current legislation.

The Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has appointed 42 new Mayor’s Design Advocates to support the refreshed Good Growth by Design programme and help shape London into a better city by promoting quality and inclusion within the built environment.

Fiona Scott has been asked to continue in her role as Mayor’s Design Advocate for a second year running alongside other independent specialists appointed to support the Mayor’s vision of “good growth” and ensure new buildings and public spaces will benefit Londoners and exist at the heart of the capital’s recovery from the pandemic.

Advocates have been selected to reflect London, with 55% being women and 45% being from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds. In addition to high profile names, the new cohort also includes emerging built environment talent, and people with diverse expertise in key areas such as zero-carbon and sustainability, the safety of women and girls and housing quality.

The Good Growth by Design Programme has developed a new forward programme in response to the last four years of change, reflecting the importance of an inclusive recovery from a pandemic that has highlighted inequalities in the capital and the need to counter racism and prejudice in the built environment.

As a part of Gort Scott’s ongoing social value commitments and work with the London Legacy Development Corporation at Pudding Mill Lane, we collaborated with Mossbourne Academy to offer workshops and work experience placements to A-Level students.

A key objective within the Pudding Mill Lane masterplan has been to improve representation of local young people in the design process to improve how proposals meet their needs. This led to workshops with LLDC’s Legacy Youth Voice panel as well as collaboration with Hackney’s Mossbourne Academy.

Most recently, we welcomed two Mossbourne students for week-long work placements where they were paired with a mentor, provided with a choice of project brief, and guided through researching, developing, and presenting design proposals through images and a model for a Southwark site. Working together, their response was a new community hub that activated a space under a flyover for music, gardening and other community uses.

Gort Scott continues to offer work experience placements throughout the summer and encourages students aged 14-18 to apply here.

Gort Scott has explored the dynamics of high streets and town centres for the entirety of the practice’s 15-year history, through on-the-ground research, strategic plans and built projects. Some of that work has involved looking at creating new high streets that help stitch together different parts of the city and local communities. This is a difficult and complex form of urbanism and has to be undertaken with extreme care. No one wants new developments to be soulless, monocultural places but it is a very real danger. With this conundrum in mind, Gort Scott has gathered a series of high street experts from across the built environment to propose potential solutions for the future and discuss the pitfalls of this delicate ecosystem of economic and social value.

Join us, in collaboration with London Festival of Architecture, at our Bermondsey studio for a panel discussion on 14th June with community, public sector and developer partners led by Directors Jay Gort and Fiona Scott, where we will consider London’s current urban challenges and transitions.

Guest panellists:
Morwenna Hall (Partner and COO at Argent LLP)
Alpa Depani (Head of Strategic Planning & Design at LB Waltham Forest)
Eleanor Fawcett (Head of Design at OPDC)
John Nordon (Co-Founder at Neighbourhood company)
Jayden Ali (Director at JA Projects)

Book your free ticket here