Our founding director Fiona Scott has been appointed as one of 16 new HS2 Independent Design Panel members, alongside Glenn Howell’s Dav Bansal, Perkins & Will’s Asif Din, We Made That’s Nisha Kurian and D.U.P’s David Ubaka.

The HS2 Independent Design Panel was set up in 2015, at the request of the Department for Transport, to provide professional expertise and advice to HS2 Ltd. ‘The panel helps ensure that, through great design, HS2 delivers real economic, social and environmental benefits for the whole country.’

Sadie Morgan, co-founder of dRMM and chair of the design panel, said: ‘We are delighted with the fantastic response from across the design and construction industries, having received over 100 applications to join the panel. It is important that the HS2 Independent Design Panel continues to evolve, bringing in fresh perspectives. We have strengthened the panel’s diversity and adjusted the mix of skills it includes to meet the needs of this stage of HS2 Ltd’s design work.’

Gort Scott’s Ewa Effiom will be judging the Archiboo Award’s Best Use of Video category, alongside Clare Hughes and Laura Mark. The awards are now in their sixth year and recognise architects’ and consultants’ creative expression in the digital space.

In other exciting news, Ewa recently wrote about sustainability in his home town of Brussels for Wallpaper* Magazine. The subject of the piece is Tour & Taxis, a former mail facility that has been reimagined as an eco-led quarter.

You can read the full article, here.

A walking tour of Unity Place, the latest phase of Brent Council’s twenty-year South Kilburn Regeneration, is a part of this year’s Open House London Festival’s programme of events.

Gort Scott, alongside Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Alison Brooks Architects and Grant Associates were commissioned by the council to design a residential-led masterplan, framing a neighbourhood park in the context of Grade I listed St Augustine’s Church. The scheme offers 100% affordable housing. Within this masterplan, Gort Scott designed a residential block, which provides 50 new homes. This significant new residential provision aims to activate a new neighbourhood area of London.

Read more about the tour and book your tickets here.

The tour will take place on Sunday 12 September at 2pm.

We are delighted that our Pudding Mill masterplan has been shortlisted for this year’s AJ Architecture Awards.

The scheme, designed by Gort Scott and Mikhail Richies with collaborators 5^th Studio, RCKa, ZCD, JCLA, BBUK and Stantec, is one of the last significant pieces of the Olympic legacy jigsaw.

Pudding Mill Lane will be a thriving, new local centre around an overground rail station, delivering c.900 homes and 36,000sqm of employment space. The new neighbourhood will also provide 40% affordable housing.

This year’s AJ Architecture Awards judges include Tamsie Thompson of RIAS, Kirsten Lees of Grimshaw, Eva Jiricna and Kunle Barker. The winner will be announced on the 17^th of November.

Tonight, ‘Epic Iran’ will feature on BBC2’s ‘Secrets of the Museum,’ a behind the scenes look at the V&A - showing the work of its curators and conservators.

The episode shows the extensive conservation works and installation of ten-meter-long replicas of the painted interiors of mosque domes from central Iran, dating from the 1850s and created by local Iranian craftsmen.

The three hanging gores are a key element of the exhibition, together with a suspended animation created by Luke Halls Studio, which shows how the pattern replicates on the original shape of the dome.

‘Epic Iran’ is open until the12 September 2021.

We are excited to have Shivani Suthar and Robin Simpson join us for their work experience placements.

Shivani completed her Part 1 in Architecture at Oxford School of Architecture, graduating in 2021. During her final year of undergraduate studies, she investigated ‘how strengthening an existing form of sustainable infrastructure, the canal, can help reduce the social stigma that currently exists between the canal boat community and locals.’ At Gort Scott, Shivani is using her understanding of placemaking, sustainability and context-led design to work on the Oxford Covered Market masterplan for Oxford City Council.

Robin has been with us for the last three weeks as part of a shared placement with Free Haus Design to broaden his experience and understanding of practice. He has been helping with delivery of stage 4 visuals as part of the Three Mills Studios regeneration project as well as using previous experience in helping to specify materials. Robin is currently in the final year of his Part I at London Met and has been working with Farsight.ai and artist Lawrence Lek as a digital artist and world builder. He recently won an award as part of London Met Accelerator - Big Idea Tech category for his Open Art digital galleries project and will be delivering his first exhibition with curators Thorp Stavri later this year.

Congratulations to Gort Scott’s Jonathan Mann and Paul Wild who are now Certified Passive House Designers!

‘The course is aimed principally at building professionals in the UK and prepares delegates for taking the Certified European Passivhaus Designer qualification. It introduces the principles behind the Passivhaus standard and methodologies and the use of the Passivhaus Planning Package (PHPP) for achieving low energy performance, with teaching firmly based on UK building examples. The AECB CarbonLite Programme is designed to prepare delegates not only for the exam but for future involvement in very low energy building projects.’

Congratulations to Jonathan Mann, Sela-Jaymes Taylor and Andrew Tam, who have recently become Associates at Gort Scott, joining our Senior Team.

Fiona and Jay said: “Sela and Jon joined us last year, both very talented designers with experience at all project stages, seeing their projects built. Sela brings an emphasis on heritage and conservation, Jonathan in environmental design. Andrew has been with Gort Scott for over 8 years and brings acute design sensibility, great care and precision to all our endeavours. They are all uniquely talented, skilled and dedicated architects and their senior roles as part of the team at Gort Scott are hugely valued. They join existing Associates Alan Worn and Joseph MacMahon, Associate Director Susie Hyden and Technical Director Chris Neve as our heroic senior management super team. Thank you, guys.”

Ewa Effiom joined Gort Scott last month as an Architect, bringing a broad set of skills and interests to the practice.

With a master’s degree in both architecture and urbanism, Ewa has a particular interest in public spaces, and their importance to the quality of life and sense of belonging in urban areas. He has experience working on masterplans and feasibility studies and has been involved in projects at a variety of scales.

Ewa was also part of the Architecture Foundation’s New Architecture Writers, which sought to create more equity within the domain of architectural journalism and has a recurring role as a visiting critic at the Manchester School of Architecture.

Gort Scott in collaboration with IF_DO and Unscene Architecture was among the seven practices shortlisted for the design competition to take forward a major redevelopment programme at City of London School.

The international open call competition was organised by New London Architecture (NLA) and the City of London Corporation. 71 teams responded to the call for entries, which specifically encouraged collaborations of established teams with new and emerging practices.

Our proposal has been developed around the concept of ‘Finding the heart’ emphasising the courtyard playground as the ‘heart’ of the school and masterplan. The existing building and new buildings complete the quadrangle, embracing and protecting this space whilst allowing each to confidently express their own character.

Gort Scott Associate Director Susie Hyden will join on the 11th of June the panel of discussion Designing London’s Recovery organised by the Design Council.

The Recovery Programme, overseen by the London Recovery Board, identified one grand challenge: To restore confidence in the city, minimise the impact on communities and build back the city’s economy and society, following a missions-based approach to deliver the programme through nine Recovery missions. The Open Call for Ideas deadline is the 30^thJune.

Susie has been invited, together with Patricia Brown (Director of Central) and Dan Hill (Mayor’s Design Advocate and Director of Strategic Design at Vinnova) and Pam Warhurst (Chair of Incredible Edible) to share experiences and insights on Brief Three of the Programme focusing on: A Green New Deal and High Streets for All.

Book your free ticket here

We are delighted to announce that, as part of the Londonon collective, we are the joint winners of an international design competition by the Bergen Municipality, to re-masterplan its Laksevåg waterfront district. The competition sought ‘visionary, site-specific and feasible’ concepts to restore and redevelop the former shipbuilding area which occupies a prominent city centre location overlooking the Puddefjorden.

The core of the collaboration was built around four UK practices who make up a large part of Londonon, a self-funded research initiative which explores the urban condition across cities on a global platform. The team consists of Haptic Architects, Morris+Company, Turner Works and Gort Scott, alongside Elliott Wood, Urban Systems Design and VILL.

Our proposals focus on the notion of surgical repair and remodelling, with a circular philosophy of retention and reuse as the foundation of the concept. We have focused the programme on work and craft, drawing upon our shared expertise in realising the powerful contribution that buildings of all scales can have for creative industries.

Image credit: Filippo Bolognese

Gort Scott’s new Gateway West office at White City Place is starting on site.
We are delighted to be working with Stanhope on this characterful new addition to the emerging Gateway scheme which champions the masterplan’s sustainable agenda.

The constraints of the angular site have been treated as virtues to generate a strongly sculpted brick building that anchors this important corner and forms a point of contrast to the predominantly steel and glass-clad neighbouring buildings.

A collaborative approach to sustainability has lowered embodied carbon, achieved 2025-2030 energy performance.

Find out more about the project here

We are excited to unveil the design of the Epic Iran exhibition opening on Sunday 29th of May at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The show explores 5,000 years of Iranian art, design, and culture, bringing together over 300 objects from ancient, Islamic, and contemporary Iran and it is conceived as a journey between spaces of very different atmospheres, each relating to the objects displayed and their time and place in history.

Jay Gort said “The history of Iran is incredibly rich with a complex weave; certain epochs are referenced at various stages of renaissance and modernity. It is this re-iteration of arts and culture that leads to the tenacious identity. The challenge, therefore, has been to capture how one point of the expansive history references another, without creating confusion or pastiche. We have been unafraid to play with sensory layers – using the metaphor of a city to communicate the richness of Iran’s thousands of years of culture, breaking down the preconception of historic exhibitions as silent, while carefully guiding and orientating the visitor”.

Find out more about the project here

Our drawings, Thames to Tooting: Urban block and the arterial London high street, expand upon research Fiona Scott initially did as part of the AJ/RPS Urban Design Scholarships programme which proposed a new understanding of London’s urbanism – one focused not on centres, but on routes. This linearity isn’t the American ‘strip’, and it’s not a Modernist streak of speed and movement: it’s a low-key, disorderly linearity that is particular to the way London has evolved.

These particular drawings capture a moment in time and were exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2010. They show High Street urban blocks along a long, arterial high road that runs from London Bridge, through Borough, Clapham, Tooting, and out of London, following the route of a Roman road. Roads like these are part of a large network of high streets that are the life-blood of the capital. They have an extraordinary depth and variety of form and use, which supports more than half of London’s jobs.

The drawings aimed to harness the move to a renewed recognition of the importance of our high streets after riots and recession and informed an attitude to London’s urbanism at a strategic level and how investment and resources could be distributed. The drawings and what they encapsulate about truly understanding and valuing what already exists in all its complexity is foundational to the ethos of the practice and how we go about our work.