Crown Street

The regeneration of the Crown Street area of Glasgow has created a highly liveable neighbourhood with well-placed community facilities and attractive public spaces. Masterplan by CZWG Architects.

As part of the Gorbals area, the neighbourhood has undergone a number of redevelopments during the last century and has traditionally been associated with low levels of income and poor standards of living. Following the demolition of unsuccessful 1960s residential tower blocks in the late 1980s, a masterplan was devised to create a mixed-use neighbourhood that would return to the smaller scale of the original residential tenement buildings of the area and meet the social and economic needs of the future population. Glasgow’s Crown Street is an inner city area that sits approximately a mile to the south east of the city centre and immediately south of the River Clyde.

CZWG Architects was selected through a competition by Scottish Enterprise Glasgow (formerly the Glasgow Development Agency) in 1990 to prepare the masterplan, and individual architects were then commissioned to design each of the residential blocks, in order to ensure a diversity of architectural styles, and a human scale to the area.  The development was completed in 2000, and additional development on sites adjacent to Crown Street is set to be complete by 2015.  The development is also part of a wider strategy to regenerate the area along the south bank of the River Clyde and to re-establish city centre living in Glasgow.

The neighbourhood has a strong focus on liveability, with a range of independent shops, community facilities and green open spaces serving the neighbourhood.  A flagship library has been introduced on the High Street, a former church has been converted into a well used community centre and communal gardens and small parks provide plenty of space for young children.  The area has rapidly developed a strong sense of community, despite the comprehensive redevelopment which has taken place.