As ever - refined and elegant. Hope it sees the light of day.

UR - are the consultation boards available?

Hi Roddy - Keepmoat have the boards here https://www.keepmoat.com/northbridge

Hi UR - Can't see them on that link. This is the previous iteration, the design before the June consultation.

The landing page is just a sales pitch but if you click on the five links these should take you to the second stage boards - plenty more images on there.

I think that for all of the talk of elegance, it more boring than elegant.

Elder and Cannon should read humanise.

Thanks UR - sorry I just didn't see those links initially. Act in haste repent at leisure...

This is why architects make really bad urban designers especially when they don't have a track record of urbanism/masterplanning.

E&C are committed Modernists, trained in the Modernist idiom and bring those predelictions into their masterplans. It works works well as far as individual buildings go, but when the scale becomes that of a neighbourhood, the sterility of Modernist planning permeates the thinking; island buildings, lack of human scale, cul de sacs, poor block structure, dull monotonous housetypes. Even the dreamhaze visuals (which are very nicely executed) cannot hide the fundametal failings of this as a piece of urbanism.

In many ways, they set the paradigm with their 2 smaller schemes in Bridgeton and Maryhill which both shrink away from and reject addressing the street edge in favour of point blocks at jaunty angles.

https://www.google.com/maps/@55.8486274,-4.2255737,127a,35y,39.54t/data=!3m1!1e3?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cowal+Rd,+Glasgow/@55.8942641,-4.2962453,149a,35y,270h,39.5t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x488845baaecc617b:0x62830271178aab40!8m2!3d55.893909!4d-4.3017311!16s%2Fg%2F1v3kmn96?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

They did things much better in the past when they needed to address the urbanity of tenements of Dennistoun, Shawlands and Govanhill- or working within the masterplan of New Gorbals.

https://www.google.com/maps/@55.8571599,-4.2226098,136a,35y,34.78t/data=!3m1!1e3?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Govanhill,+Glasgow/@55.8400411,-4.2614049,128a,35y,90h,39.53t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x488846ed93a86c83:0x4f51ed935534dfb6!8m2!3d55.8363765!4d-4.2633074!16zL20vMDd3M3d4?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Shawlands,+Glasgow/@55.8276141,-4.2860218,87a,35y,180h,39.56t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x4888465f3a9f1c09:0xcc216c2d1d52aec2!8m2!3d55.8251245!4d-4.2864469!16zL20vMDQwczBz?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

P.S. That 3rd image with the long stretch of 6ft high railings shows a real lack of concern for those using the adjacent path. What happens at night?
It need not have been this way. How about - conceptually at least -creating a block structure that creates active fronts to the path i.e. closes to flats, set-back front gardens and entrances to townhouses/maisonetter/semis. It does not and should not have to be like this.
I'd love to say that the city planning dept will catch these fundamental issues but I think we all know that's not true.

That's an excellent point at #8. The Dennistoun and Govanhill examples (in particular) have a timeless quality which suits their context.

As much as the moody dark brick/minimal articulation schtick works up to a point - and works well in some examples - it's not a one size fits all approach.

Being stripped back and rational is fine, but it doesn't have to be at the expense of the street.

Architects have had a history of designing things that they would never work or live in themselves.

The more I look at that main symmetrical image it becomes increasingly terrifying. Given the choice between living there and not being alive, I know what I'd choose.

Wow!!! And not in a good way.
Grim is a word that doesn't do this "improvement" justice.

I get that E&C want to stamp their own identity onto the site, but going by their consultation boards it appears to be a soulless mess of a scheme. The previous Collective design wasn't perfect but at least it wasn't this bland mess of meh.

Additionally, it appears that they are proposing to just leave a big chunk in the middle, which will be the same as the first phase (with its copper / zinc gables and buff brick). That's ridiculous, it will look so odd!

And those house types are atrocious. With there very narrow plots, the tiny back gardens, the weird add-on's to the rear, the whole exercise smacks of trying to squeeze as much out the site as possible.

Surely this will get kicked by GCC.