East Renfrewshire Council SHIP Sites

MAST are working in partnership with CCG (Scotland) Ltd. and East Renfrewshire Council on the latter’s affordable housing programme.  The project has seen the successful delivery of three sites to date – Robertson Street, Fenwick Drive, and Blackbyres Court (all in Barrhead) providing a total of 45 new units in a mixture of houses and flats.  A further site at Balgraystone Road (to the south of the town) will provide an additional 47 units, due for commencement in 2020.  The overall programme aims to deliver 240 new homes across East Renfrewshire in the next five years.

The combined programme has required the creation of a suite of common house types, refined in conjunction with discussions with the client’s housing and occupational therapy staff to ensure that provision aligns closely with local housing need.  We were keen, however, to ensure that each site had its own identity – with this in mind, massing and elevational treatments were considered individually to create a distinct aesthetic for each.  These had to respond to varied contexts – from a more suburban form at Fenwick Drive and Blackbyres Court, to a town centre setting at Robertson Street.

Each of the sites have been configured to achieve Section 7 Silver Aspects 1 and 2, primarily adopting high performance timber frame technology in addition to areas of photovoltaic panels to each property.  This ‘fabric first’ approach aims to address issues of fuel poverty and energy efficiency in a manner that delivers tangible benefits to the end user.