GSSArchitecture are a national, award-winning architectural practice with a dynamic and forward-thinking approach. Founded in 1879, we are one of the longest established practices in the UK.
We have substantial experience across an array of sectors, including industrial and commercial. Our work includes designing and managing the delivery of new headquarters buildings, large commercial developments and office parks, major industrial production and distribution units, and masterplanning large industrial complexes, commercial offices and light industrial districts.
How We Can Help You
From our six operational bases across the UK, our dedicated teams are able to provide appropriate solutions for your development needs. With our balanced approach, we will work closely with you and the project delivery teams to ensure the end result is suitable for today’s current climate, as well as being future focused.
Every project is different and therefore we tailor our services to meet your specific requirements, whilst remaining flexible.
Our in-house departments, including graphics and masterplanning, further support our architectural teams, whilst our long history and strong relationships with industry consultants and specialists perfectly positions us to coordinate and assemble full delivery “one-stop shop” teams.
Benefits of Well Considered Design Solutions
The experienced team will work holistically with you to deliver well-designed buildings which provide both economic and social value benefits to those who use them and invest in them, which include:
• improved productivity
• sustainable outcomes
• increased wellness and wellbeing
• cost-effective delivery
“GSS have provided excellent support to Snap-On in realising this vision in a timely and cost-effective manner .”
Nick Wetherell, Operations Manager at Snap-On Tools
“There is a growing need for special technical expertise in the design and construction of new buildings for the food industry to take into account the latest safety and hygiene legislation.
We have been pleased to work closely with GSSArchitecture to ensure that this new unit is at the forefront of new technology within the industry.”
David Brady, (former) Works Manager at Weetabix
“I have never been as inspired by a construction project and never as proud of the resulting building and believe that we have built ‘ The Best Building in Newcastle .’”
Iain Garfield, Director of Estates and Facilities at Newcastle University (The National Innovation Centre)
As experienced Chartered Architects we can work with you to explore your options, bringing a wide range of experience, innovations and best practice to realise your vision.
We can bring a wide range of innovations and best practice from our different sectors to meet your specific needs and aspirations. This experience includes masterplanning, new builds, remodelling and extensions and specialist heritage advice.
We will work with you in a collaborative way to develop a workable brief to explore design concepts and options, to manage your project through the planning process, the development of detailed design proposals, details and specifications, together with all necessary statutory approval processes.
Feasibility studies are an extremely important part of the development process. By carefully mapping out your options, risks, constraints, and opportunities we can present creative proposals and scheme appraisals that are deliverable, viable and fit for purpose. Developing your brief is fundamental to this process.
Our highly experienced teams work on a wide variety of projects, ranging in both sector and size. This means that the knowledge, experience and ‘lessons learnt’ can be brought to benefit your feasibility brief and our experience allows your dedicated project team to explore all the options quickly and effectively to arrive at an appropriate project delivery strategy.
A good masterplan is not just about the distribution of land use, it should provide you a sound starting point to create healthy communities and well-planned development strategies. A masterplan should give you a carefully considered and well thought out long-term planning document that serves as a conceptual plan to guide future growth and development.
Master planning is all about setting the standard that creates an appropriate sense of place, connecting buildings with social, public and cultural spaces to create environments that help communities to thrive.
3D Graphics / Animation
As a streamlined part of our service offering, 3DLABS is our in-house digital design studio that specialises in CGI visualisations, 3D printing and marketing support services. They offer these services to communicate our clients designs, concepts, products or services to a wider audience, allowing them to be represented in the most visually appealing medium.
They have been offering these services for nearly a decade, gathering a diverse client base with their own unique needs and requirements.
The studio is made of a highly skilled team, led by their Studio Manager who has over 15 years of industry experience. He is supported by a team who each bring their own passions and specialisms, with photorealistic renders, interior design, graphic design to name a few.
Interior Design
In recent years, there has been an increased awareness of how the built environment can impact health and productivity, and its added benefits to help institutions flourish. Organisations are now focusing their efforts on how to use the built environment for mental health and wellbeing by encouraging choice, movement and relaxation, controlling temperature, noise levels and air quality, ergonomic furniture, plants, and adding breakout areas. These are all fundamental components of good interior design.
Our interior design services include interior layouts and drawings, internal elevations, room data sheets, space planning and interior architecture, furniture selection and accessories, custom furniture and textile design and colour palette consultation.
Estates Strategies
Estate Strategies are critically important documents to have in place to provide a framework and direction for how an estate needs to grow and evolve to support you in delivering your strategic objectives. Estate strategies are important to a number of our higher education clients for example, and we have worked with a number of UK based universities to help them define their strategies.
Good estate strategies can add value to other large estates however, such as landed estates or multiacademy trusts for example. Our teams have the depth of skills and experience in house to work with you and your estates teams to consider whole estate strategies and how individual projects might fit into the ‘bigger picture.’
Heritage
If you are an owner or custodian of buildings with historical significance, we can help to understand your properties, advise on the best techniques to care for them and make sensitive changes that will mean your heritage assets are both successful and sustainable.
Whether a simple Grade II* Listed House or a complex World Heritage Site, all heritage assets have their own story and unique value and getting the right advice from a well-qualified, specialist team can really make the difference.
Principal Designer - CDM
The importance of the Principal Designer’s role cannot be underestimated and the skills that make a good Principal Designer should never be omitted from a development project. Fundamentally, a good Principal Designer helps to ensure that everyone involved in construction stays safe during the course of their work and complies with the statutory duties and we often provide this service on schemes where we have also been appointed as Architect and/or Lead Consultant.
GSS can give you the confidence of knowing that our organisational approach to Health and Safety is led from partner level, ensuring that all our teams receive regular training, making certain that processes are in place to plan and manage health and safety throughout the project and helping to protect everyone’s health and safety.
Principal Designer - BR
The appointment of a Principal Designer – Building Regulations (BR) is required for all construction projects, from small domestic extensions to complex multimillion-pound developments. If your project is classed as a ‘Higher-Risk Building’ under the Building Safety Act 2022, then additional requirements apply.
Our Principal Designers have undergone competency assessments in line with PAS 8671 requirements and will be able to assist and guide you in navigating your legal duties under the Building Safety Act 2022. They will ensure that you fully understand your duties before any design work commences.
One Stop Shop
Successful construction projects rely on the right balance between design and project control, including project and cost management. We can offer you a streamlined consulting service bringing together all of the design team partners that you need from across our network of approved supply chain partners.
Using a one stop shop service is not right for everyone, but it can mean that you benefit from a single point of contact for your integrated design team. Our teams will use their construction knowledge and cost planning experience to offer expert advice on construction approaches and procurement options. This begins from the very initial feasibility testing of a project, right through until the handover of the completed building.
All successful partnerships are founded on taking a truly collaborative approach to achieving common aims and objectives. Clear communication is therefore an essential part of collaboration, alongside developing and nurturing a culture of working together as one team. GSS have a successful track record of achieving excellent outcomes through working collaboratively and can draw on our experience and lessons learned over the years to encourage and drive collaboration.
Sustainability
With climate change being one of the biggest challenges we face in our lifetime, GSS are committed to ensuring their projects are designed to incorporate innovative, sustainable solutions that not only benefit the building user, but the wider environment.
Our in-house Sustainability Innovation Group are collaborating with industry leaders to research and develop the latest technologies and sustainable processes that can be incorporated into our designs. The basic objectives of sustainability are to reduce consumption of non-renewable resources, minimise waste, and create healthy, productive environments.
Artificial Intelligence
GSS’s in-house Artificial Intelligence (AI) Innovation Group is responsible for providing comprehensive guidance and assistance, ensuring the safe and appropriate utilisation of AI within our work.
This dedicated team from across the UK actively explores both the limitations and opportunities of AI, striving to enhance quality and efficiency. We have implemented a structured plan that is aimed at identifying opportunities through harnessing the latest advancements in AI technology and the team will research and assess these to ensure that they align with our moral and ethical standards.
Fostering a collaborative environment, the group encourages innovation and integration of AI technologies that can add value to our clients. Their efforts include developing customised AI solutions, training for wider GSS team members, and overseeing a robust framework for AI governance.
Our in-house AI Innovation Group plays a crucial role in driving GSS’s commitment to leveraging the benefits of AI and maintaining our competitive edge in the industry.
Net Zero Carbon
Many of our clients have set Net Zero Carbon or Carbon Neutral targets for their buildings and estates through either decarbonisation of their current estate, or through targeting Net Zero Carbon in new buildings or investments.
We are also on our own route to becoming Carbon Neutral by 2030, a target which, although complex and challenging, we believe to be realistic and genuine.
Health and Wellbeing
There is an increasing awareness of how our environment can affect our physical and mental health and the impact that this has on our productivity and wellbeing. The Covid pandemic has reinforced the importance of good mental and physical health for everyone in society and there is an increased focus on the need for more human-centred, sustainable environments that support the people who work and live in them.
We understand that good design is at the centre of this and has real power to improve peoples’ lives and support organisations, delivering places that support health, comfort, and happiness. The quality of environment can help to reduce staff turnover, improve outputs, and attract new people to an organisation.
Our designers are trained to look at how new and existing buildings, and external spaces, can deliver high quality places that is not only functional, adaptable, and efficient but is also welcoming, inclusive and supportive.
Procurement
Professional services frameworks have become increasingly important over recent years as a method to engage construction professionals in a way that ensures compliance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and that promotes a more streamlined way of partnering in the longer term.
As a practice, we have secured positions on a range of established, UK compliant frameworks, which enables easier, quicker and cheaper procurement routes for our clients. In addition to our national and regional frameworks, GSS have also secured places on a number of university frameworks across the country.
For more information on our frameworks and how you can appoint GSSArchitecture for your project, please visit our website via the below QR code:
Scan for more information on our frameworks.
New Build Offices
From corporate headquarters to speculative commercial office space, we have the range of in-house experience and skills to deliver efficient, effective and flexible working environments. This has included developing design strategies that deliver cost effective, agile and adaptable working space whilst supporting positive wellness, wellbeing and sustainability outcomes.
All new office developments reflect end user/developer bespoke requirements, with many new office projects being delivered as part of larger regeneration and/or challenging planning sites.
Remodelled Offices
Our team has delivered a range of remodelled office developments for developers and end user clients. This has taken the form of conversions of non-office buildings such as retail, industrial or historic premises and converting/extending to create modern flexible and adaptable working environments.
Other projects include rethinking existing offices to deliver the latest philosophies of sustainable and flexible workplaces, which promote wellness and wellbeing and integrate technologies in a cost-effective and deliverable way.
These solutions often need to be project managed to support delivery in an efficient, phased manner within operational environments, maintaining the business continuity whilst minimising disruption.
Our portfolio of light industrial commercial projects covers a wide variety of activities. This includes specialist engineering, motorsport, manufacturing, technology and food & retail.
Whether these solutions are for end user or developer clients, we look to provide cost effective and innovative solutions, addressing the brief whilst providing future flexibility and adaptability.
Although predominantly new build, often in challenging planning locations, this work also includes repurposing or modernising existing buildings to meet changing client and market requirements.
Distribution
GSS have delivered the full range of different distribution and storage solutions, including purpose built facilities for end users, often with distinct storage requirements and retrieval systems. Many of these projects are located next to, or close to, existing manufacturing arrangements.
Other projects include speculative or pre-let developer led schemes, either as individual buildings or as part of a larger business/ distribution park. Again, these are designed to offer end users the flexibility for different racking and sorting systems and strategies.
In addition, we also deliver a range of interventions in existing distribution facilities, to upgrade and expand properties and address changing strategic, technological and logistical needs.
Manufacturing & Processing
The broad spectrum of manufacturing and processing projects delivered by GSS has included food products, packaging, clothing, furniture, engineering solutions and chemical production. Many of these developments have been designed for large national and international organisations.
All projects require the development of a detailed understanding of each clients’ product, processes and goals before arriving at a bespoke solution. These solutions must meet all the clients requirements in a flexible, efficient and cost effective way with minimum impact on existing operations, when delivered on an operational site. Many manufacturing and processing projects also include storage and distribution solutions.
Retail & Food
GSS have delivered a wide range of retail and food solutions for end user clients and developers. These can be new builds or refits as part of town/city centre regeneration schemes, through to new mixed-use developments.
Retail has included new build supermarkets, department store refits/ remodels and smaller specialist shops & arcades, together with fuel filling stations. Food retail has included facilities for McDonald’s, Costa, Dominos and other drive through, take-away & eat in developments, such as pubs and restaurants.
Often these GSS retail and food projects are part of larger masterplanning consideration, incorporating a range of mixed-used facilities as part of a wider regeneration scheme.
Masterplanning
The GSS Masterplanning Team deliver the full spectrum of masterplans, from large and complex sustainable urban extensions, covering many hundreds of acres, through to smaller urban sites. In turn, the in-house masterplanning experience is normally part of a wider service, taking larger or sensitive schemes through the planning process and realising the masterplans in an efficient, usually phased way, to suit client and end user briefs and funding.
Some masterplanning schemes we have recently delivered include a four million sq. ft. distribution park and a range of mixed-use developments, incorporating offices, food, hotel, pubs/restaurant, light industrial, care homes, retail, car showrooms and children’s nursery.
Masterplanning considerations include infrastructure, landscaping, water management, heritage, noise and environmental/ecological considerations.
