The Gascoigne Neighbourhood development is a large-scale regeneration project in the Gascoigne area of Barking, East London. It’s being led by Be First, the urban regeneration arm of Barking and Dagenham Council.

Gascoigne Neighbourhood

The Gascoigne Neighbourhood development is a transformative project that’s turning a former housing estate into a sustainable neighbourhood with high-quality homes, green spaces, and vital community facilities — all designed with energy efficiency in mind.

As part of this regeneration, the Collida project, part of Willmott Dixon, delivered a block of eight homes built to the rigorous Passivhaus Classic standard. To meet the performance and aesthetic demands of this scheme, the ACS Certus™ system was used, offering a precision-engineered solution that replicated traditional brickwork while significantly reducing on-site build time.

The use of Certus™ on this Passivhaus-certified block enabled the delivery of airtight, thermally efficient homes with the added benefit of speeding up construction — supporting both the sustainability goals and tight timelines of the wider Barking estate regeneration.

ACS Products

This pilot project explored the potential of offsite construction for future phases. Resource constraints and increasing costs are making offsite solutions more cost-competitive, particularly when early collaboration facilitates efficient design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA).

In response to the growing need for efficient and cost-effective construction methods, ACS developed the Certus™ – Modular Brick Façade System . This offsite solution is a pre-assembled, A1 non-combustible modular brick façade system, that offers a wide range of aesthetic possibilities and engineered for long-term performance with a 60-year design life.

As part of the ACS commitment to excellence, the Certus™ system has also passed one of the most rigorous product testing programmes ever undertaken for a brick façade product and carries a CCPI Mark, BBA Agrément Certification, NHBC Accepts, and testing to CWCT Sequence B and BS 8414-2.2015. These tests and certifications have all validated the integrity, durability and long term performance in large scale applications.

The Benefits of Certus™ – Modular Brick Façade System

For Passivhaus developments like this, achieving exceptional thermal performance and airtightness is paramount. Our Certus™ – Modular Brick Façade System offers significant advantages in this regard.

A key advantage of the Certus™ system is that it is a brick-slip system, utilising thinner brick facings compared to traditional full-depth bricks. This difference has a significant impact on the building envelope’s design. By reducing the thickness required for the external brick layer, Certus™ frees up valuable space within the wall cavity. This additional space can then be allocated to increasing the thickness of the cavity insulation, a critical factor in achieving the exceptional thermal performance demanded by standards like Passivhaus.

Certus™ is manufactured and assembled at our purpose built facility in Leeds. This controlled factory environment allows us to accelerate project timelines with faster installation

Working With Willmott Dixon

The project was delivered for Willmott Dixon’s in-house design team, Collida. Lorna Taverner BA(Hons) is Head of Design at Collida and said:

“After collaborating with ACS on prototype homes, we became aware of the level of engagement from the ACS team in the design process, starting from our initial contact about our scheme. When the next job entered the office at Stage 4, a significant challenge we faced was converting traditional masonry to brick slips, all whilst maintaining compliance with the planning application. Despite this challenge, the collaboration between ACS, our in-house Architects, and the supply chain team was fantastic. Throughout the construction stages, ACS provided efficient and cost-effective solutions to any on-site issues. Now that the project has been handed over, the client is not only pleased with the overall finish but also delighted that we were able to use half the amount of bricks originally anticipated.”

Our Partners for this project
Contractor: 

Willmott Dixon