Description

Context
The Gorbals is an inner city area, across the Clyde from the centre of Glasgow.  Characterised originally by four-storey tenements, it once had a thriving social and cultural life.  However, massive overcrowding and squalor meant that the area became associated with poverty, crime and deprivation.  The Gorbals was comprehensively redeveloped in the 1960s as part of a wider Glasgow-wide regeneration process, characterised by the construction of new estates in tower-block form. 

The Crown Street scheme was built in 1968 and comprised twelve linked deck access blocks.  The blocks suffered from incurable penetration dampness, however, and within the first nine years of the building life, families were being moved out and the blocks were empty by 1982.  They were finally demolished in 1987, leaving a sixteen hectare development site in the Gorbals.

The Crown Street Regeneration Project
The Crown Street Regeneration Project was set up in 1990 to facilitate the second round of comprehensive redevelopment for the Crown Street neighbourhood.  CZWG Architects were commissioned following an architectural competition and created a masterplan that returned the area to the mass and scale of the original tenement streets, with buildings addressing the streets once more.  The masterplan for the neighbourhood updated the original tenement model by setting the tenement-style blocks on a more spacious street pattern, and by focusing on creating a mixed-use and mixed tenure neighbourhood. 

The scheme comprises over 1,270 private sector homes, 600 socially rented homes, 80 student flats, 12 local shops and a supermarket, along with a hotel, library, a local park and 5,000m2 of office space.  The housing blocks are largely three and four- storey modern tenements, with an increase in scale at each street corner in order to improve legibility and create landmarks in the neighbourhood.

Each of the residential developments is designed as a perimeter block and set around a communal garden that can be used by the residents. Each home on the ground floor of the blocks also has a small private garden that backs onto the larger communal garden.  Each block has been designed by a different architect and features a theme of decoration and street art, either through murals or sculpture, in order to create distinctiveness and a sense of place.

Parking levels within the neighbourhood are set at a ratio of approximately 1.2 parking spaces for each dwelling, although this varies depending on the housing tenure.  The majority of this provision is designated as on-street parking, avoiding instances of large, unwelcoming car parks. Some parking spaces are positioned as a central spine to the road and are defined by cobbled paving which limits the negative visual impact of parked cars and provides a central island for pedestrians crossing the road.

Provision of community facilities in the neighbourhood has been considered vital in an area traditionally under-served by community services.  The area boasts three separate health centres, a local police station and a flagship library with free internet access that has become the most popular in Glasgow.  Green spaces are also available for residents without access to the communal gardens, through a circular green at the southern end of the High Street and the burial ground park to the east of the main health centre.

A key building within the Crown Street neighbourhood is the transformed St Francis Church in Cumberland Street.  The building sits within the Queen Elizabeth Square area that connects Crown Street to the recently regenerated East Gorbals area, and provides an additional 600 flats, with 150 for social rent. Careful restoration and adaptation of the church building has created a community centre with a cafeteria, stage and dressing rooms, and office space that is well used by local schools.

Approximately 20% of current residents are former Gorbals inhabitants thanks to a programme designed specifically to re-house those with family or other connections in the area.  Phase one attracted 34% families, 36% singles and 30% couples without children.