Interesting to note Glasgow University's report today on how poor British house builders are. 'No imagination.' Certainly borne out on the majority of new housing we see on this website.

I see lots of people shouting about how poor Scottish Housebuilders are.

if you think you could do better and make a financial success of it why are you not doing it ?

Mince.

#2, agreed. So many people commenting on the articles on this website are all too keen to start criticising and rubbishing new proposals that are put forward. Very rarely do they make suggestions as to how to improve them in a feasible way.

#2 and #4, this is totally uninspiring and I struggle to see how you can argue otherwise! There are plenty of good examples of social housing recently where simple, elegant buildings have been designed with a restricted budget!

#5 such as?

#4 Good point.
I started to explain the (many) exact reasons for my appalled reaction to this one, however I started to lose the will to live. It is patently obvious why this is so bad. It would be good to know what your positive remarks on this design would be?
Still think its best summed up by my previous comment..

Less homes, more containment devices.

If its soooo Bad what are you doing about it ?

(other than sitting on your keyboard slagging it off)

#7, I would say the positive aspects of this design are the frontages onto Southloch Street, the high(ish) density of the scheme in an area of North East Glasgow that is full of derelict land, the use of a pitched roof as a nod to the vernacular, and the dual aspects of the apartments. The development providing a contribution to an area that has been starved of investment is also a positive sign, albeit not design related.

Could it be improved; yes. Were I designing this scheme, I would have been keen to take the form, materiality, scale and density of the red sandstone tenement facing onto Petershill Street and replicate it right back to the northern fringes of this site, completing a one sided tenement block as either one large block like those found in South or West Glasgow, or two smaller four sided blocks, with a new street in the middle. Terraces or balconies would have been nice. Larger (bay) windows too. The site sits adjacent to the Springburn branch of the North Clyde line, allowing people to be at Queen Street in less than ten minutes, so I would have also pushed for minimal or no parking.

Would my scheme end up being built? Probably not. This is a social housing scheme, they need to provide value for money, and my scheme probably wouldn't get planning permission.

So all in all, I think it is not a bad effort. If the Scottish population is so unhappy with the standard of new builds in our towns and cities, they should pressure their local and national governments to change their policies, not constantly criticise designers and architects who often find themselves following these constraints in order to make a living, rather than making conscious design decisions to put together a scheme like this.

The best schemes are able to take constraints and work with them to produce something imaginative.

There's no imagination in this whatsoever - it's simply a collection of standards that have been complied with to a greater or lesser extent. Yes, the designers haven't set or enforced them, but this is really lowest common denominator stuff.

Where's the ambition?

This design is really poor.
In such an urban setting is is very disappointing to see a series of detached blocks which make no attempt to fit within the established urban grid.
This is just a series of standard blocks that could be placed anywhere in a field.
The blocks themselves are pretty poorly done, with no attention paid to the orientation for sunpath, views, etc. It's just the same bang average block rotated in different directions.
The whole thing is dominated by parking which completely takes over the landscape.
A very poor proposal for what is a good site, with lots of potential.