THE GSSArchitecture Masterplanning Team have the wide range of skills and experience required to develop holistic masterplans for greenfield, existing commercial and residential sites, putting a delivery strategy in place and obtaining planning approvals for immediate and longer term development.
From its Kettering head office and a further four offices located across the UK, the practice covers a significant number of projects across a vast array of sectors.
GSSArchitecture Partner, Tom Lyons, said: “We have been working through masterplans and delivery strategies for landowners and developers to obtain planning approval and bring forward projects for many years now. With a rapidly growing population in Northamptonshire and a significant increase in demand for commercial and residential property, there is now a rush to construct new homes in order to meet demand and provide employment opportunities to accelerate economic development.”
GSSArchitecture’s masterplanning portfolio ranges from small residential projects to commercial developments of up to 100 acres on mixed use, greenfield or regeneration sites. At present, the practice is working for developers and house builders on a variety of sites to deliver a total of 20,000 new homes just in the East Midlands region over the next few years.
GSSArchitecture have recently been appointed as architects and lead consultants to provide specialist building and urban design expertise for New Lubbesthorpe, one of the largest residential developments in the region. The development will include more than 4,000 homes, a community centre and two further centres featuring retail, commercial, employment, leisure, health, community and residential uses. The provision of nursery, primary and secondary schools, including a new two-form entry primary school for 420 pupils, is to be delivered by GSSArchitecture. New Lubbesthorpe is proposed to be entirely ‘green’ and the emerging masterplan has retained and protected existing landscape, ecology and heritage assets.
The design solutions for existing developed sites and urban locations bring their own set of challenges, requiring a more creative approach to the reuse of existing buildings. Schemes in Northampton town centre have seen the bringing together of the GSSArchitecture masterplanning, commercial, residential and historic buildings teams to produce designs for urban mixed use offices, residential, retail and leisure developments. In November 2017, planning permission was approved for a town centre project that will see the conversion and extension of a former council building to create student accommodation, retail units and a new restaurant on Fish Street, adjacent to the GSSArchitecture masterplan for the cultural quarter of the town which includes developments to Northampton Museum.
Tom Lyons added: “We have seen a renewed confidence both nationally and locally from our developer clients and from our existing commercial clients who are looking to expand and develop their own premises and businesses. Although we are seeing this across the country, and on our London-based projects, there is also a real vote of confidence in Northamptonshire for business and economic development. Our historic location in the county together with our other offices allows us to service and control our work in the region, in London and across the rest of the UK.”
To find out more about GSSArchitecture’s recent and current projects and our range of services visit the website at www.gssarchitecture.com or call 01536 513165.
