Cheap Shop
Cheap Shop is a space in Govanhill, Glasgow, that is now shared by a collective of artists, gallerists and curators and which has been established as an important feature on the creative and cultural map of the city. The property was acquired during lockdown, and a remote process of finding the right occupier, and then collaborating on an internal fit out, ran parallel with structural repairs and the necessarily simple external works which provide the largest possible openings and the greatest possible security at the lowest possible cost. The only embellishment comes from the galvanised abstracted canopy/sign/housing/frame which explores ideas of economy and utility as subtle decoration.
Project Team: Duncan Blackmore, Neil Clements, Daniel Stilwell, Thom Brisco
2021
Home of 2030
The Home of 2030 was a competition run by the RIBA on behalf of MHCLG and BRE to explore what the future of housing should be like to address 4 key themes; Age friendly and inclusive, Low energy, Healthy living and Deliverable & Scaleable. Igloo won with its design +Home and is looking to build a pilot dwelling as part of the Future Living Expo in Sunderland. The winning entry effectively demonstrates how current leading industry thinking should be applied to the home to address the need to reduce carbon emissions and create sustainable places.
Creative Team: John Nordon, Igloo Regeneration, Mawson Kerr Architects, Useful Projects/Expedition Engineers, Elliot Wood Engineers, Cast, Landsmith Associates
2016
PegasusLife
PegasusLife is a retirement developer that was founded in 2012. It was established with a goal to transform a sector that at the time was synonymous with poor quality product design. In the 5 years John Nordon led the design team they were nominated for 28 housing design awards and were winners of 10.
Creative Team: Lou Dawson, John Nordon, Roger Black, Mark Smith, Clare Bacchus
2015
Awards
Nominated for 28 housing design awards. Winner of 8 HAPPI awards, 1 Project Award and 1 Best Neighbour Award.
0.6% of people over the age of 65 in the UK live in retirement homes, compared to 4.5% in the USA
*Source: The Top of the Ladder, 2013
The Ship
The Ship Inn is a 10 bedroom boutique hotel on the South Coast that opened in 2008. It has been featured every year in the Good Pub Guide, The Good Hotel Guide, The Michelin Guide, and in 2010 was selected as one of the Guardian's Summer Pubs of the Year.
Owners: Lou Dawson, Karen Northcote, Theo Bekker
2008-2018
Awards
Winner of the Good Pub Guide Award and featured in the Michelin Guide every year of being open.
Kinrise
Kinrise is a commercial real estate fund and development company, with office buildings in most of the major cities in the UK. The company's founders are driven by a desire to do business in a manner that benefits everyone: from the tenants who occupy the buildings, to the local community in which they are based. In doing so, they have developed a successful business, providing workplaces where compassion and sustainability sit at the heart of the culture.
Creative team: Lou Dawson, Mark Smith, Caitlin Barnbrook, Karine Day
2017
Wildernesse House Pavilion
Wildernesse House is a specialist retirement development, set on an historic estate in middle of Sevenoaks. The restaurant known as ’The Pavilion’ forms the social core of the scheme and is intended architecturally to act as a contemporary counterpoint to the Grade II-listed country house that leads the identity of the place. A strong visual connection is made to the historic context and beautiful landscape setting through considered open plan arrangement of the space and large glazed openings that connect inside and outside.
Design team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Morris + Co Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2017
Red House
This rare and complex site, between Peckham Rye and Lordship Lane, was previously a small workshop. With 31/44 Architects, a scheme was devised which terminates the terrace in a delicately balanced gesture of quiet deference and confident decoration. The proposal begins with an act of continuity, referencing detail, form and pattern, and ends with a highly individual home that is the product of the complex site conditions.
Development Team: Duncan Blackmore, 31/44 Architects, Elite Designers
2019
Awards
Winner of the Manser Medal, RIBA London Best Small Project and The Brick Awards.
All of Us
All of Us was established in 2015 as a business with a goal to completely transform the culture and delivery of care in the UK. Underpinned by the most progressive model for dementia care in the sector, the company set out to question every aspect of conventional thinking around how best to look after people with this illness that effects
,
Creative team: Lou Dawson, John Nordon, Mark Smith, Maite Canto
2016
No 79 Fitzjohn's Avenue
No. 79 Fitzjohn's Avenue is a specialist retirement development of 33 apartments on Fitzjohn’s Avenue. The development consists of two building connected at the ground floor with an entrance foyer, leading to a private landscaped courtyard and terrace.
Design Team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Sergison Bates Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2013-2021
Response rates to adverts in the Telegraph were x5 that of other retirement developer advertising
*Source: am-i
EXPO 24
EXPO24 is the UK’s first Future Living Expo, with events and engagement activity building to a three-month festival in 2024. The Expo programme will explore three key themes: advanced manufacturing, sustainable living and smart technology and will engage, inform and celebrate new communities housed in well designed, ecologically sound homes, built using different forms of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC)
Design team: John Nordon, Siglion/Sunderland City Council, Igloo Regeneration, Mawson Kerr Architects, Open Studio Architects, Proctor & Matthews Architects, Studio Blackburn, Renew
2017
Kiosk
Kiosk is an experimental 'spare room' for a street - a small multi-use space facilitated by the residents of a street in Govanhill, Glasgow. The ongoing project provides a modest visible street-level space suited to a range of uses that might not naturally fit into a domestic or commercial situation. Kiosk has been used as a venue for community organising and activism, as meeting space for small organisations, for playing board games, to repair furniture and restore bikes, for film screenings, workshops, experimental creative work, small performances, student exhibitions, retail pop-ups, art installations and parties. Having purchased a small unused building and working together with Baxendale Studio, subtle but purposeful physical interventions - a new window, storage, a seat - have guided use and fostered relationships with the local community who now co-direct the project.
,
Project Team: Duncan Blackmore, Lee Ivett (Baxendale Studio)
Ongoing
Hollow Rocks
Hollow Rocks is a sports and social club, designed to draw on the inherent joy there is in playing sports, with a group of people you get along with, in the place where you all live. From 2023 onwards the company will be operating a network of clubs across the country that will provide opportunities for people to experience both the emotional and physical benefits that come from participating in individual and team sports; improving your skills and building your fitness whilst having fun with your mates.
Founders: Lou Dawson, Anthony Klein, Caitlin Barnbrook
2017
"That's Not Me"
"That's not me" was an exhibition at the NLA (New London Architecture) on the subject of housing for older people in London. Its identity was intended to get straight to the heart of the issue: that the vast majority of people in the relevant demographic rule out retirement living, as they imagine a homogenous product that doesn’t reflect who they are. The exhibition focused on the PegasusLife's Hampstead and Westminster developments, showing how each had been inspired by the history of the local area, the character of the context, and the identity of the people who live there.
Creative team: Lou Dawson, John Nordon, Mark Smith
2016
Over 15,000 people visited the exhibition
*Source: NLA
One Bayshill Road
One Bayshill Road is a specialist retirement development in the heart of Cheltenham. The building comprised 48 apartments as well as lounge, spa, pool, gym and restaurant also open to local members. In 2015 it won the HAPPI Project Award and Housing Design Awards : Project Award, and in 2020 it won Good Neighbour Award and Housing Design Awards.
Design team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Glenn Howels Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2012-2018
Awards
Winner of Housing Design Awards: Project Award, and Housing Design Awards: Good Neighbour
Margate Washhouse
Margate Washhouse is a small building on the oldest part of Margate High Street and home to independent fashion retailer, Werkhaus Margate. The premises were built as Bathing Rooms and would have backed directly onto the sea prior to later land-reclamation. More recent uses had included a boot maker, an amusement arcade a launderette and a second-hand furniture store. Low quality later interior layers were removed and original surfaces and finishes exposed. Sensitive improvements were also made to the fabric and performance of the building. The ultimate occupier was found during a period of 'unwound' meanwhile use which saw the building hosting a variety of exhibitions, community uses and experimental pop-ups.
Project Team: Duncan Blackmore, Studio Sam Causer
2015
Steepleton
Steepleton is a retirement village with 113 apartments set in Tetbury in the heart of the Cotswolds. The development layout draws on the idea of ancient settlements, with a village hall at the centre of 9 buildings, each of which is constructed around a kitchen garden. There is also a restaurant open to the public. In 2019 it won HAPPI Housing Design Awards Completed Project and Bronze in the What House Awards.
Design Team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Proctor & Matthews Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2012-2017
Awards
Winner of Housing Design Awards: Project Award, Housing Design Awards: Completed Project and What House Awards and Longlisted for MacEwen Award Architecture for the common good.
Keelson Yard
Keelson Yard replaced a single bungalow on a large plot in Whitstable, Kent, with a pair of houses and six apartments, consistent in scale with the street, and referencing the subtle variety of the paired and grouped Edwardian houses nearby.
Development Team: Duncan Blackmore, 31/44 Architects, P J Thomason & Associates
2021
Helicon
Helicon is a property management company that was born from a recognition of the need to create a more transparent structure for property management, where residents are able to understand and participate in the decisions being made within their homes, and have more control over how the money they invest in their property is being spent.
Creative team: Lou Dawson, John Nordon, Clare Bacchus, Roger Black, Joe Russell, Mark Smith
2015
Haddo Yard
Haddo Yard is a development of 7 apartments that sits on a site previously occupied by a beige bungalow in a prominent position directly opposite the train station in Whitstable. Recognising an opportunity for density we worked with Denizen Works to design and construct a project embedded in its place, incorporating the materiality of the town's sea defences and reflecting a distinct local vernacular.
Development Team: Duncan Blackmore, Denizen Works, Morph Structures
2017
Chapter House
Chapter House is a specialist retirement development in the centre of Lichfield on a site that was originally a friary. The scheme comprises 38 one and two bedroom apartments as well as a lounge, social kitchen and friary gardens. In 2018 it won the HAPPI Completed Project Award.
Design team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Proctor & Matthews Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2012-2016
Awards
Winner of Housing Design Awards: Completed project, shortlisted for MacEwen Award and Civic Trust Award.
Pilot
Pilot is a restaurant and cafe concept currently in development. Its proposition is to offer a clean, healthy, predominantly meat free menu that people don't notice is clean, healthy and predominantly meat free, because it's just what you want to be eating regardless.
Owners: Lou Dawson, Karen Northcote
2020
Bellevue
Bellevue is a specialist retirement development of 59 apartments located right beside Hampstead Green. The building comprises 59 apartments as well as a lap pool, sauna, gym, cafe, lounge, kitchen, library and roof terrace. In 2016 it was the HAPPI Project award.
Design team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Morris + Co Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2013-2020
Awards
Winner of Housing Design Awards: Project Award and shortlisted for Civic Trust Award
Chimes
Chimes is a specialist retirement development split across two modern buildings in Westminster, London. The development comprises 46 apartments as well as a central courtyard, a lounge, a cafe, pool, spa and gym.
Design team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Mae Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2013-2021
Cheap Shop
Cheap Shop is a space in Govanhill, Glasgow, that is now shared by a collective of artists, gallerists and curators and which has been established as an important feature on the creative and cultural map of the city. The property was acquired during lockdown, and a remote process of finding the right occupier, and then collaborating on an internal fit out, ran parallel with structural repairs and the necessarily simple external works which provide the largest possible openings and the greatest possible security at the lowest possible cost. The only embellishment comes from the galvanised abstracted canopy/sign/housing/frame which explores ideas of economy and utility as subtle decoration.
Project Team: Duncan Blackmore, Neil Clements, Daniel Stilwell, Thom Brisco
2021
Home of 2030
The Home of 2030 was a competition run by the RIBA on behalf of MHCLG and BRE to explore what the future of housing should be like to address 4 key themes; Age friendly and inclusive, Low energy, Healthy living and Deliverable & Scaleable. John Nordon led on this competition for igloo’s willing design +Home and is now looking to build a pilot dwelling as part of the Future Living Expo in Sunderland which he is also leading on for igloo. The winning entry effectively demonstrates how current leading industry thinking should be applied to the home to address the need to reduce carbon emissions and create sustainable places.
Creative Team: John Nordon, Igloo Regeneration, Mawson Kerr Architects, Useful Projects/Expedition Engineers, Elliot Wood Engineers, Cast, Landsmith Associates
2016
The house of the future?
A sun-filled, shape-shifting, shed-share paradise - The Guardian
PegasusLife
PegasusLife is a retirement developer that was founded in 2012. It was established with a goal to transform a sector that at the time was synonymous with poor quality product design. In the 5 years John Nordon led the design team they were nominated for 28 housing design awards and were winners of 10.
Creative Team: Lou Dawson, John Nordon, Roger Black, Mark Smith, Clare Bacchus
2015
Awards
Nominated for 28 housing design awards. Winner of 8 HAPPI awards, 1 Project Award and 1 Best Neighbour Award
0.6% of people over the age of 65 in the UK live in retirement homes, compared to 4.5% in the USA
*Source: The Top of the Ladder, 2013
The Ship
The Ship Inn is a 10 bedroom boutique hotel on the South Coast that we owned and operated from 2008 until 2018. Throughout that time it was featured every year in the Good Pub Guide, The Good Hotel Guide, The Michelin Guide, and in 2010 was selected as one of the Guardian's Summer Pubs of the Year.
Owners: Lou Dawson, Karen Northcote, Theo Bekker
2008-2018
Awards
Listed in the Good Pub Guide, The Good Hotel Guide, The Michelin Pubs Guide and featured in The Guardian’s best summer pubs guide.
Kinrise
Kinrise is a commercial real estate fund and development company, with office buildings in most of the major cities in the UK. The company's founders are driven by a desire to do business in a manner that benefits everyone: from the tenants who occupy the buildings, to the local community in which they are based. In doing so, they have developed a successful business, providing workplaces where compassion and sustainability sit at the heart of the culture.
Creative team: Lou Dawson, Mark Smith, Caitlin Barnbrook, Karine Day
2017
Wildernesse House Pavilion
Wildernesse House is a specialist retirement development, set on an historic acre estate in middle of Sevenoaks. The restaurant known as ’The Pavilion’ forms the social core of the scheme and is intended architecturally to act as a contemporary counterpoint to the Grade II-listed country house that leads the identity of the place. A strong visual connection is made to the historic context and beautiful landscape setting through considered open plan arrangement of the space and large glazed openings that connect inside and outside.
Design team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Morris + Co Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2017
Morris & Co builds vaulted wooden restaurant with aluminium arcade
Red House
This rare and complex site, between Peckham Rye and Lordship Lane, was previously a small workshop. With 31/44 Architects, a scheme was devised which terminates the terrace in a delicately balanced gesture of quiet deference and confident decoration. The proposal begins with an act of continuity, referencing detail, form and pattern, and ends with a highly individual home that is the product of the complex site conditions.
Development Team: Duncan Blackmore, 31/44 Architects. Elite Designers
2019
Awards
Winner of the Manser Medal, RIBA London Best Small Project and The Brick Awards
All of Us
All of Us was established in 2015 as a business with a goal to completely transform the culture and delivery of care in the UK. Underpinned by the most progressive model for dementia care in the sector, the company set out to question every aspect of conventional thinking around how best to look after people with this illness that effects
Creative team: Lou Dawson, John Nordon, Mark Smith, Maite Canto
2016
No 79 Fitzjohn's Avenue
No. 79 Fitzjohn's Avenue is a specialist retirement development of 33 apartments on Fitzjohn’s Avenue. The development consists of two building connected at the ground floor with an entrance foyer, leading to a private landscaped courtyard and terrace.
Design Team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Sergison Bates Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2013-2021
Response rates to adverts in the Telegraph were x5 that of other retirement developer advertising
*Source: am-i
EXPO 24
EXPO24 is the UK’s first Future Living Expo, with events and engagement activity building to a three-month festival in 2024. The Expo programme will explore three key themes: advanced manufacturing, sustainable living and smart technology and will engage, inform and celebrate new communities housed in well designed, ecologically sound homes, built using different forms of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC)
Design team: John Nordon, Siglion/Sunderland City Council, Igloo Regeneration, Mawson Kerr Architects, Open Studio Architects, Proctor & Matthews Architects, Studio Blackburn, Renew
2017
Kiosk
Kiosk is a small civic space in what was an unusal and unused building in Govanhill, Glasgow, one of Scotland's most diverse postcodes and an area struggling with tensions around the integration of new immigrant communities. We were involved in the development of the project together with Baxenale Studio, and during the construction of the space we involved the local community as part of the project goal is to see how the availability of a small civic space might help foster collective and individual agency in the community. We were responsible for XXX.
XXX team: Duncan Blackmore, Baxendale Studio
2019
Hollow Rocks
Hollow Rocks is a sports and social club, designed to draw on the inherent joy there is in playing sports, with a group of people you get along with, in the place where you all live. From 2023 onwards the company will be operating a network of clubs across the country that will provide opportunities for people to experience both the emotional and physical benefits that come from participating in individual and team sports; improving your skills and building your fitness whilst having fun with your mates.
Founders: Lou Dawson, Anthony Klein, Caitlin Barnbrook
2017
"That's Not Me"
"That's not me" was an exhibition at the NLA (New London Architecture) on the subject of housing for older people in London. Its identity was intended to get straight to the heart of the issue: that the vast majority of people in the relevant demographic rule out retirement living, as they imagine a homogenous product that doesn’t reflect who they are. The exhibition focused on the PegasusLife's Hampstead and Westminster developments, showing how each had been inspired by the history of the local area, the character of the context, and the identity of the people who live there.
Creative team: Lou Dawson, John Nordon, Mark Smith
2016
Over 15,000 people visited the exhibition
*Source: NLA
One Bayshill Road
One Bayshill Road is a specialist retirement development in the heart of Cheltenham. The building comprised 48 apartments as well as lounge, spa, pool, gym and restaurant also open to local members. In 2015 it won the HAPPI Project Award and Housing Design Awards : Project Award, and in 2020 it won Good Neighbour Award and Housing Design Awards.
Design team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Glenn Howels Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2012-2018
Awards
Winner of Housing Design Awards: Project Award, and Housing Design Awards: Good Neighbour
Margate Washhouse
Margate Washhouse is a small building on the oldest part of Margate High Street and home to independent fashion retailer, Werkhaus Margate. The premises were built as Bathing Rooms and would have backed directly onto the sea prior to later land-reclamation. More recent uses had included a boot maker, an amusement arcade a launderette and a second-hand furniture store. Low quality later interior layers were removed and original surfaces and finishes exposed. Sensitive improvements were also made to the fabric and performance of the building. The ultimate occupier was found during a period of 'unwound' meanwhile use which saw the building hosting a variety of exhibitions, community uses and experimental pop-ups.
Project Team: Duncan Blackmore, Studio Sam Causer
2015
Steepleton
Steepleton is a retirement village with 113 apartments set in Tetbury in the heart of the Cotswolds. The development layout draws on the idea of ancient settlements, with a village hall at the centre of 9 buildings, each of which is constructed around a kitchen garden. There is also a restaurant open to the public. In 2019 it won HAPPI Housing Design Awards Completed Project and Bronze in the What House Awards.
Design Team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Proctor & Matthews Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2012-2017
Awards
Winner of Housing Design Awards: Project Award, Housing Design Awards: Completed Project and What House Awards and Longliste
Keelson Yard
Keelson Yard replaced a single bungalow on a large plot in Whitstable, Kent, with a pair of houses and six apartments, consistent in scale with the street, and referencing the subtle variety of the paired and grouped Edwardian houses nearby.
Development Team: Duncan Blackmore, 31/44 Architects, P J Thomason & Associates
2021
Helicon
Helicon is a property management company that was born from a recognition of the need to create a more transparent structure for property management, where residents are able to understand and participate in the decisions being made within their homes, and have more control over how the money they invest in their property is being spent.
Creative team: Lou Dawson, John Nordon, Clare Bacchus, Roger Black, Joe Russell, Mark Smith
2015
Haddo Yard
Haddo Yard is a development of 7 apartments that sits on a site previously occupied by a beige bungalow in a prominent position directly opposite the train station in Whitstable. Recognising an opportunity for density we worked with Denizen Works to design and construct a project embedded in its place, incorporating the materiality of the town's sea defences and reflecting a distinct local vernacular.
Development Team: Duncan Blackmore, Denizen Works, Morph Structures
2017
Chapter House
Chapter House is a specialist retirement development in the centre of Lichfield on a site that was originally a friary. The scheme comprises 38 one and two bedroom apartments as well as a lounge, social kitchen and friary gardens. In 2018 it won the HAPPI Completed Project Award.
Design team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Proctor & Matthews Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2012-2016
Awards
Winner of Housing Design Awards: Completed project and shortlisted for MacEwen Award and Civic Trust Award.
Pilot
Pilot is a restaurant and cafe concept owned by us, currently in development, due to open this year. Its proposition is to offer a clean, healthy, predominantly meat free menu that you wouldn't notice was clean, healthy and predominantly meat free because it's just what you want to be eating regardless.
Owners: Lou Dawson, Karen Northcote
2020
Bellevue
Bellevue is a specialist retirement development of 59 apartments located right beside Hampstead Green. The building comprises 59 apartments as well as a lap pool, sauna, gym, cafe, lounge, kitchen, library and roof terrace. In 2016 it was the HAPPI Project award. We were responsible for product and brand development.
Design team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Morris + Co Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2013-2020
Awards
Winner of Housing Design Awards: Project Award and shortlisted for Civic Trust Award
Chimes
Chimes is a specialist retirement development split across two modern buildings in Westminster, London. The development comprises 46 apartments as well as a central courtyard, a lounge, a cafe, pool, spa and gym. We were responsible for product and brand development.
Design team: John Nordon, PegasusLife Team, Mae Architects, Camlins Landscape Architects
2013-2021
