NORD was established in Glasgow in 2002 following the completion of the Tramway Arts Centre, which won the Architecture Grand Prix Prize at the 2001 Scottish Design Awards. It has been cited as the best value for money Arts Council funded building in Britain. Awarded the Grand Prix at the 2002 Scottish Design Awards The Tramway houses a variety of spaces suitable for showcasing all mediums of art – including of course film. NORD founder Alan Pert, who led the Tramway project team, negotiated a variety of challenges in bringing this project about given the extraordinarily limited budget and the listed building status of the venue. As such there are significant parallels between this project and the GFT proposals.

The Tramway returned to Alan, now having set up NORD, in 2006 when seeking an architect to collaborate with the internationally renowned artist Toby Patterson for this small bespoke piece.