The architects wanted to create references to cats in the design, but agreed with the client that these details would be subtle. "After years of designing with human situations in mind, it was quite interesting also designing with cats in mind," Jay Gort told Dezeen.

The building occupies a former joinery shed in the village of Fulbourn. Gort Scott covered the original facade with cedar slats and picked out the shape of the cat's ears using wider sections.

"The screen was considered the most elegant and cost effective way of giving the building a more welcoming, joyful appearance in a context of fairly run-down sheds," said Gort.

The building's interior is reorganised, creating a large reception and waiting area at the front of the clinic. The reception desk is built from plywood and features ornate feet shaped like cat's paws.

Beyond the reception are a series of consulting rooms, an operating theatre and a diagnostic laboratory, plus a large preparation room lit from above by skylights.

Interior walls are painted in calming shades of turquoise, with occasional details picked out in yellow.

Gort Scott is led by architects Jay Gort and Fiona Scott, whose past projects include a rugged stone house on the Isle of Man. Jay Gort also spoke at Dezeen's Designed in Hackney Day last year, where he argued that the beleaguered British high street is actually a thriving location of "collision and conflict".

Another veterinary clinic completed recently is a combined surgery and home in Japan.

Photography is by Angus Leadley Brown.

Here's some more information from Gort Scott:

Cambridge Cat Clinic

The site for this new, cat-specialist veterinary practice was originally a joinery workshop, opposite an open field at the edge of Cambridge. Our client was a veterinarian establishing a new business.

Gort Scott obtained planning permission for change of use and remodelling of the existing building to also include a new cedar wood screen on the front elevation, with a suggestion of cats ears. Beyond this screen is a generous reception and waiting area with specially-designed furniture, and views back to the open field.

The main working area for the medical staff is a large multi-functioning ‘prep room’, which is top-lit by two generous skylights.

The scheme’s design includes many aspects that respond to the client’s considered approach to the welfare of her animal patients and their owners.

The building serves both as a general practice specialising in feline medicine, and also as a surgery, with a full operating theatre, lab and diagnostic area.

Above: site plan - click for larger image

Name of project: Cambridge Cat Clinic
Date of completion: 01/ 06/ 2012
Total contract value; £156,000

Credits list
Client: Cambridge Cat Clinic
Start on site date: 05/11/2011
Gross internal floor area: 224m2

Above: floor plan - click for larger image

Form of contract and/or procurement : JCT Minor Works contract
Structural engineer: Charles Tallack Engineering consultancy
Planning supervisor: AFP Construction consultants
Total cost : £156,000
Main contractor: Bob Black Construction Ltd.

Selected subcontractors and suppliers:
Windows: Velfac
Flooring: Forbo
Internal partitions: Rodecca
Joinery: Precision Joinery

Above: front elevation - click for larger image

The post Cambridge Cat Clinic
by Gort Scott appeared first on Dezeen.

Gort begins his presentation with an image by documentary photographer Mishka Henner showing onlookers at a gay pride parade in the English town of Oldham (above). "I’ve put this in here because I think it’s a really priceless photograph," says Gort, who has worked with Henner on a number of projects.

"He uses the camera to strike up conversations with people, and to try and capture the places as well," explains Gort. "That’s something that’s really important about our work, that whole idea of valuing what exists to start with."

He goes on to show two drawings of London high streets (above and below) made by Fiona Scott, the architect with whom he founded Gort Scott Architects in 2007.

"I think these drawings start to show some of the amazing characterfulness and juxtapositions of different uses and building types that exist [on London's high streets]," he says.

"A lot of people say the high street is dead," he continues, "[but] nearly 60% of all London’s employment goes on near high streets, and there’s an amazing richness and vitality that is far from dead, actually. If you go down to Tooting, or up to Cricklewood, you’ll find a high street that isn’t about shopping – it’s about the representation of local communities in that area."

The high street is a "physical device" where communities meet and where "collisions and conflicts happen", he adds.

Introducing the Tottenham Public Room project (above) in north London, he says: "It's a public space that can be used to try and encourage a trading of skills. Volunteers from the Tottenham area are trying to help a disenfranchised community, which was really splintered after the riots [in 2011]."

"We want to do buildings that have an impact, but we realise we have to operate a little bit by stealth in terms of getting into different areas," he notes.

He goes on to introduce two very different forms of architecture that have inspired his practice, noting that he is most of all interested in atmosphere.

"Atmosphere is dictated by the structure, the scale, the light, the materiality, the orientation – where you’re placed within the city itself – and how all those things start to combine to have an impact on the kind of space," he says, comparing a grand palace in Genoa (above) with a room of scaffolding props (below).

He finishes by introducing his firm's most challenging project to date, a house on the Isle of Man (below). "Whereas Tottenham Public Room was going to be built for a temporary setting, this is going to hopefully last in a really harsh climate on the southern tip of the Isle of Man for a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years," he says.

After experimenting with lots of different materials, the architects realised that the most successful buildings on the island were made out of traditional stone. "We thought, why not just build this thing out of stone [and] use a Welsh slate roof," he says. "To just work with that palette of materials was really rewarding."

Dezeen's Designed in Hackney initiative was launched to highlight the best architecture and design made in the borough, which was one of the five host boroughs for the London 2012 Olympic Games as well as being home to Dezeen’s offices.

Watch more movies from our Designed in Hackney Day or see more stories about design and architecture from Hackney.

The post "High streets are places of collision
and conflict" – Jay Gort appeared first on Dezeen.

Located in the grounds of a country house, the two-storey building is split into two apartments that include a guesthouse on the top floor and a residence for an au pair on the ground floor.

Grey slate covers the roof, which pitches upwards to create an asymmetric gable at one end of the house.

"One of the building's primary successes in our view is its presence in the wider landscape," architect Jay Gort told Dezeen. "The striking silhouette rises from the high point of the site and shares a relationship with some of the other figures that punctuate the horizon."

Gort also explained how guests staying in the top floor apartment will spend most of their time at the main house, so a concrete staircase and balcony provide a route over the stone wall that separates the two buildings.

This staircase, which features stainless steel balustrades, is the only entrance to the upper floor, so the small garden and driveway belong exclusively to the ground floor residence.

As well as using regional materials, the architects also specified traditional construction methods that would suit the local contractors. "We decided to tailor details to suit their expertise and skills," said Gort.

Other rural houses we've featured include a slate-clad house in Wales and a renovated farm building in the south of England.

Photography is by David Grandorge.

Here's some more information from Gort Scott:

Isle of Man House

Isle of Man House is the first stand-alone new building for London-based architecture practice Gort Scott. The building is a part of a privately owned estate, made up of a collection of buildings and gardens, in a dramatic windswept rural setting.

Gort Scott produced a strategic plan for this estate in 2008, and the house and its garage represents the first of three proposed new buildings. A new swimming pool house, also designed by Gort Scott, is currently on site.

Site plan - click above for larger image

Set on the rocky Scarlett peninsular, on the island’s South coast, the cottage is built from local Castle Town Stone. The cottage covers two floors and contains two separate apartments each 80m2 in floor area. Emerging from the Castle Town Stone perimeter wall, the building’s cuboid form tapers up into an asymmetric Welsh slate roof pitch that leans into the Irish Sea winds. The building stands at the high point of the site and is intended to sit as a figure in the landscape; the profile of the roof was considered from a number of surrounding vantage points.

Ground floor plan - click above for larger image and key

The client requested two discrete apartments, one for guests and another for an au pair; this required the cottage to have differing relationships to the main house and to the estate as a whole. The upper floor guest apartment residents would spend time at the estate’s main house, so Gort Scott’s design provides an entrance through a walled garden to the rear of the building, connected directly to the main house along a stone path. A drive leading into the estate arrives at the door of the ground floor au pair apartment, allowing a degree of separation from both the main house and upper guest apartment. Locating the stairs to the guest apartment into the estate’s walled garden means the house’s modest garden and parking area can be used exclusively, and privately, by the ground floor residents.

First floor plan - click above for larger image and key

Inside, both apartments have a simple open-plan layout of living and kitchen areas leading onto two double bedrooms and a bathroom. The upper apartment is entered using the external staircase, leading into the kitchen, then into a double height living and dining area. This space is naturally lit by a skylight and by a floor to ceiling window, which opens onto a generous seaward-facing steel balcony. The ground floor apartment is entered through the living and kitchen area that has aspects across neighbouring fields, the estate grounds and towards the sea. Glass entrance doors that lead onto a patio area are sheltered by the upper apartment’s balcony.

Section - click above for larger image

The thick external walls of the house have a blockwork cavity wall construction with an outer face of 250 millimeter thick Castle Town Stone. The stone was quarried from Pooil Vaaish, a few miles from the site. These walls support a beam and block floor and a timber and steel roof structure. The dark colour and the roughness of the traditionally laid stonework are contrasted by the crisp pre-cast concrete window and door surrounds that emphasise the composition of windows on the four sides of the building.

Elevation one - click above for larger image

There are essentially three parts to the form of the building, the main body of the house that is abutted by a table-like terrace to the front and an external stair to the rear. The terrace and stair are constructed in slender, exposed in-situ concrete, with stainless steel balustrades, and were conceived as large pieces of external furniture.

Elevation two - click above for larger image

Structurally these two elements are independent of the estate’s main house, but are 'pressed' into the house's external wall so that the concrete supports are flush with the face of the stonework and appear as concrete ‘veins’ in the surface of the stone walls. This detail is repeated for the wind post in the garage building. The tone and finish of the in-situ concrete was chosen to marry with the pre-cast window surrounds.

Elevation three - click above for larger image

Professional Services
Contractor: Nick Ingam
Quantity Surveyor: Berrie, Millar & Cox
Structural Engineer: Structural Engineering Services Ltd
Stonemason: Dennis Quayle

Elevation four - click above for larger image

Materials / Suppliers
Precast concrete: Lancashire Precast & Brick
Windows: Veka
Roof: Natural Welsh Slate
Castletown Stone: Pooil Vaaish Quarry

The post Isle of Man House
by Gort Scott appeared first on Dezeen.