Scottish Awards for Quality in Planning 2000
Commendation for development on the ground
30. GLASGOW: HOMES FOR THE FUTURE
nominated in 2000 by Glasgow City Council, Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, and Scottish Homes.
The Homes for the Future project has an inner city location beside Glasgow Green, just to the east of the historic centre of Glasgow. The site used to contain a group of derelict infill sites that was once a former industrial inner suburb. The area had become a no-go area, isolated and excluded from the city centre and east end.
Approach: The Glasgow 1999 Homes for the Future Core Group has master-planned the development over 3 phases up to the year 2005; the city will receive over 300 homes. The first phase, completed in 1999, provided 100 homes for both rent and sale. This represents a significant enhancement of the physical environment, which now provides an attractive edge to the Glasgow Green. The Core Group includes the major regeneration agencies in the city, working together to create a programme of renewal. The GDA, Scottish Homes and the Glasgow City Council have worked with Glasgow 1999 to develop the management structure and funding assistance required to deliver this complex project. The Planning Service together with Page & Park Architects provided the master plan that details the elements of the project. The process entailed a highly original approach, which has produced a housing development of vision and variety: it involved 7 architects and 5 developers, co-ordinated by the planning team. ROCK DCM acted as project managers for the development.
The development experiments with dense house types that provide the highest quality of patterns of living in the inner city. It contains apartment blocks by Elder & Cannon, Ian Ritchie and Rick Mather. A stepped block with cascading terraces by Eisaki Ushida & Kathryn Findlay, and a hybrid row house and apartment group by McKeown Alexander. RMJM has contributed a 4-storey block of flats with a linked tower of maisonettes. Wren Rutherford's 4-storey mini-tower block with its ground-floor wheelchair flat and upper floor workspace maisonette, both with patio and conservatory, gives a novel twist to the row-house tradition of small private gardens. One of the key features of the approach used by the Core Group was its working relationship with Ian Ritchie Architects, Thenew Housing Association and local residents. The outcome has created 12 flats for rent, which will benefit the local community in the years ahead.
Future: The Council intends to use this project as a stepping stone to a wider plan for the revitalisation of the area surrounding the Green. Indeed, Homes for the Future has contributed to the award by the Heritage Lottery for funding to renew Glasgow Green; the Council has commenced the implementation of a £10.5 regeneration programme. The Core Group has started planning the next phases by working on the same vision that will tackle land assembly, site remediation and the identification of developers. This completes an earlier partnership approach to the regeneration of this urban area; it develops derelict land that divides the city centre from the private houses at Monteith Row, created as part of GEAR.
Legacy: The model of partnership working will also act as a template that will help to plan other districts of Glasgow. The Core Group has an innovative and repeatable model for housing provision for rent as well as a prototype for houses for sale that developers could apply elsewhere. To this end, the project has advanced the art and science of planning for the benefit of the public; indeed, the project team intends to produce a paper that will summarise best practice.
The judges visited the Homes for the Future site. At the outset it is fair to say that they were seeking assurances on a number of aspects of this development. Was this an exercise in style without substance? Would it create or support community life? Why was the opportunity not taken to secure exemplary design for sustainable development? What was the input of the planning service? How did the development plan provide a context? Not all of these questions could be answered entirely to their satisfaction. Nevertheless, they were much impressed by the visit and presentation. They now recognise the role of the planning service in carrying forward this opportunity to a very demanding timescale. They see a unique cluster of innovative developments which has engaged the public imagination and helped to transform an important fringe area of the city. Much now depends on what will follow in the remaining phases. The judges appreciate that Homes for the Future has been an outstanding initiative in many ways. As a landmark demonstration project for urban living it should also help to secure investment for the further developments now in prospect. After due deliberation, the judges recommend Homes for the Future for commendation in this category.