May 11 2023

A former hostel in Glasgow's east end is to be subject to a major residential redevelopment at the hands of Collective Architecture and the Wheatley Group.

The Bellgrove Hotel on the Gallowgate, alongside an adjacent brownfield site, will provide 70 apartments for mid-market rent in a combination of converted and new build designed to reinstate lost urban grain. New build homes will be entered via a lift and deck access with ground floor properties designed to be wheelchair adaptable.

Taking its cue from the B-listed hotel this approach embraces a simple massing with feature curved brick entrance closes used as well as curved corners to the block as a whole, all within the constraints of a timber kit building.

In a design overview, Collective wrote: "The principal elevations of the converted hotel itself are conserved in line with best practice, with the opened-up rear elevations defined by carefully detailed access decks, whose horizontal emphasis and subtly curved elements reflect the art moderne detail of the building.

"Likewise, the new build block incorporates subtle references to the moderne style, with curves at the corners entrances to closes, and canopies all establishing an architectural connection with the hotel whilst avoiding pastiche."

Proposals include the removal of the 'Bekllgrove Hotel' signage, not shown on archive drawings from 1935 showing the building as originally intended. 

4 Comments

#1 Posted by Jack on 11 May 2023 at 11:44 AM

I’m glad to see this building redeveloped, but it seems they’ve conveniently left out the fact they are demolishing half of it?! The new builds look fine. The landscaping detailing looks good but there is too much undefended landscaping - no clear ownership. It may well become one of the many unclaimed and neglected pocket parks in Glasgow. Better to bring the building edge up to the street to maintain the building line (maybe even add a commercial unit or two) and then have a more generous interior courtyard

#2 Posted by Peter on 11 May 2023 at 12:55 PM

For the love of god - add 3-4 storys to each block. Apparently there's housing crisis around and we're still getting urban village, low density, sea of parking baum/tarmac rubbish like that. If not there, then where?

#3 Posted by Roddy_ on 12 May 2023 at 02:12 AM

A very confused masterplan for this area which started off with car access and parking fronting onto the Gallowgate. This now looks to have been replaced with blocks that shrink away from the street edge and the parking replaced with a green strip.
The one thing that Gallowgate at this location has been calling out for is some kind of activation of the street edge - more shops, more amenities and better passive surveillance. I'll be astonished if the green strip that the blocks sit behind is anything more than a maintenance burden (#1 Jack is correct - we've had defensible space theory for over 50 years now) .There is also a dichotomy here - the thinking goes like this ; lets set the buildings back behind a green strip because the of 'the busy road' and then expect that the green strip will function as amenity space next to that busy road. Why not address the urbanity of the street- yes set back perhaps -and create properly defined and supervised areas of greenspace and play in courtyards or properly defined public spaces to the rear. And when it comes to linear parks we need only look at the one in Laurieston (bleak and poorly conceived) to show us how carefully they need to be designed.
Yet another scheme that proves conclusively that urban design governance in the city is a best minimal and at worst non-existent.

#4 Posted by Georwell 84 on 12 May 2023 at 13:48 PM

If you need a park then build a proper one in a block space and use the rest for proper tenements with scale all the way to the railway line. No little houses at this distance from city centre. What happened to the underground parking idea all new city tenements were supposed to incorporate.

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