February 17 2021

The Wheatley Group has won planning consent from Glasgow City Council to proceed with a significant development of 254 homes in Glasgow's east end.

Calton Village will see Hypostyle Architects and TGP landscape architects rehabilitate 5.2 acres of fallow land centred on Armour, Sydney and Melbourne Streets.

Delivered in five distinct phases the work will carve up the current city grid by driving a diagonal route from Armour to Melbourne Street, bookended by green spaces.

All roads will be lined with new tree planting and raised tables installed at junctions to enforce speed restrictions and new amenity spaces introduced along Armour Street to create a linear urban 'park' stretching to the former meat market and respecting views toward Wellpark Business Centre.

These spaces will serve nine similar brick blocks of between four and eight storeys, each with a south-facing terrace metal clad 'cut away' to provide additional amenity. Terraced housing and a gateway apartment block fronting the Gallowgate round out the accommodation on offer.

Explaining the decision to approve council planners wrote: "The proposal was considered to be in accordance with the development plan and there were no material considerations which outweighed the proposal's accordance with the development plan."

Formerly utilised for various intensive industrial uses the land will require remediation to remove contaminants, including a layer of surface soil capping for gardens and landscaped grounds. 

13 Comments

#1 Posted by Steppish on 17 Feb 2021 at 16:26 PM

Abolish GCC Planning

#2 Posted by Damp Proof Membrane on 17 Feb 2021 at 17:00 PM

No words really. There are through routes there already. They're called streets. The city's grid is one of the most wonderful things about Glasgow. So aye, let's remove more of it. We could've had new articulated urban streets. But nah. And the perimeter left-over grounds don't look like they're going to be used by anyone.

#3 Posted by David on 17 Feb 2021 at 17:45 PM

#1 Abolish Hypostyle Architects! I too despair that GCC have approved this, but they are not architects and are probably just desperate to see this long derelict land redeveloped.

Hypostyle on the other hand are educated design professionals who should know better than this.

#4 Posted by IndyNoo on 17 Feb 2021 at 19:36 PM

#3 since when has being a registered Architect in the UK had anything whatsoever to do with design? It is only the title of Architect that is protected here, not the function, and there is nothing at all questioned about the competency of design output by any exam body in the UK.

#5 Posted by MV on 18 Feb 2021 at 09:16 AM

#3 "they are not architects and are probably just desperate to see this long derelict land redeveloped." The planners are not architects, but their "design officers" are. Perhaps it’s been a while since you submitted a planning application in Glasgow, but the planners defer to these architects on design matters. It’s a protracted system in Glasgow at the moment, which would be slightly easier to bear if the system helped improve design proposals or weeded out the bad ones… but it doesn’t!

#6 Posted by Charlie_ on 18 Feb 2021 at 10:26 AM

As an attempt at urbanism i think this is the worst thing ive ever seen proposed in Glasgow - hypostyle & GCC should be equally ashamed.

#7 Posted by Betty Bummblegum on 18 Feb 2021 at 14:04 PM

The Glasgow city grid is something to be proud of, this kind of hipster urban design shouldn't be allowed to "carve up the current city grid" (as they phrased it).

#8 Posted by Wheatleybox on 18 Feb 2021 at 16:22 PM

All these beautiful buildings all over the city to take inspiration from. Nine blocks of soulless mini Wyndford set in a no mans land. No attempt to repair previous decades of damage done to the Gallowgate by building an active frontage and giving it some vibrancy and life. Obliterating the grid pattern and no nod to the areas historical styles of building. Brilliant. Contrast this to the new flats on London road across from the catholic church at the Barras. At least they went with the street lines and made use of the last remaining tenement block and that nice sandstone archway into the back courts. I like them, decent effort. This though..... . Hypostyle and Wheatley group have to be made to go back to the drawing board.

#9 Posted by David on 18 Feb 2021 at 17:12 PM

#4 Why were Hypostyle hired then? The responsibility of this awful design lies with them, and having been through architectural school myself, they should most definitely have come up with a better urban response that this dross. What a wasted opportunity.

#10 Posted by Actually looked at the drawings on 19 Feb 2021 at 10:42 AM

Have any of you actually looked at the site? The architects didn't have any frontage to activate because the site is effectively landlocked by smaller sites. Where they did have frontage, Gallowgate, they have created this in a linear block, only possible by building over Sydney Street (which, if you actually look at it, is a dead-end street finishing in a warehouse. Oh no! What a shame to loose!) The other existing streets, Armour and Melbourne Street, have actually been reinforced, widened, green space added to make them, bare I say it, pleasant. I'd hardly call this destroying the grid, when they actually make the only through streets better!
If only UR could actually put up useful drawings instead of the trad-nimby-click-bait... but at least they included the link to the planning app for anyone who cares to look past a thumbnail.
That said, not too sure what I think of the brick choices. The metal window details look interesting though!

#11 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 19 Feb 2021 at 11:14 AM

Another batch of parkland multis.
This time the dwarf variety -- how our horizons have shrank in 60 years.

Very thin gruel -- as noted earlier we have a grid why don't we use it?

Plus the small scale houses -- where is the density / the grandeur / the presence we need so close to the City Centre?

It is not even filler -- just low cost ground coverage.

#12 Posted by Peter on 19 Feb 2021 at 15:21 PM

Being it once in a generation opportunity, why on earth haven't it been properly executed? Landlocked? Then why this crappy bedbugs infested businesses in the lower corned been spared in demolition? What happened to a proper land buying and combining of the smaller bits? Then useless rail tunnel - why not build atop of it, covering once and for all to the world? And finally, for god's sake - if Hypostyle copy/pasted some random catalogue of bricks, couldn't it at least be some decent looking architecture? This is painful to watch. Combined with rubbish workmanship, value engineering, and overall cheapness - call it mouldful Oatlands #2 in a year or two once finished. Shame on you, everyone involved.

#13 Posted by Yogi`s picanic on 19 Feb 2021 at 23:30 PM

#10. On the linear block on Gallowgate , "only possible by building over Sydney St". No it is not, drop out the mini park on Melbourne St/Gallowgate. Stick to original street lines, build bigger secure landscaped back courts. Glasgow is littered with parklets and ill defined areas that either cost residents a small fortune to "maintain" via factors or are barely maintained by the council. I`m sure people who end up living here would rather have somewhere that was theirs, than an open to all under used site on the Gallowgate. If you do that there is plenty room for a more dense active frontage on Gallowgate. Plus, football fans on their way to parkhead..carry outs.. needing a piss.. I`m sure that parklet is wonderful and well thought out but it`s not somewhere I`d be going for a picnic.

Post your comments