Our people

Our team draws experience and insights from a range of backgrounds and professions. We all believe passionately in the ability of good design to transform places. Here you can find out about our board, team, and volunteer panel of experts.

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Our people

Meet our team

Jim MacDonald

Chief Executive

Jim is a Town Planner, Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. He has over 30 years’ experience working on built environment issues within central and local government across the UK. Previously, he served as Historic Scotland’s Deputy Chief Inspector and has also worked for Glasgow City Council, North Lanarkshire Council, the City of Westminster and English Heritage’s London Region. He has held non-executive roles across Edinburgh World Heritage, Old Town Projects Ltd., and Skye Connect, and regularly volunteers with Planning Aid for Scotland.

Alex Laurenson

Interior Designer

Alex is qualified in both sound engineering and interior design, with 10 years of experience working in the third sector as an arts educator. Alex’s main roles are managing the Materials Library and supporting our events and our work on place. He is currently undertaking a master’s degree in urban design.

Andrea Hepburn

Corporate Officer

Andrea is our Corporate Infrastructure Officer and a member of our corporate team with previous administration experience in both the commercial and residential property sectors. She is responsible for supporting the Chair and Chief Executive, providing secretariat support to the Board and leads on HR administration for the organisation.

Anja Ekelof

Communications Manager

Anja trained as a journalist and has over 20 years of experience in a variety of senior communications roles across the public, education and third sectors. She leads our communications work which covers press and media, digital communications, and marketing.

Daniel McKendry

Principal Landscape Architect

Danny is a Chartered Landscape Architect and Geographer with 30 years experience leading regeneration, economic development, and infrastructure projects across Scotland. He has particular skills in facilitating conversations about place between communities and public and private sector stakeholders.

Danny Hunter

Principal Architect

Danny is an Architect with over 15 years of experience in professional practice whose experience spans commercial, residential, educational and public projects. At Architecture and Design Scotland, he is primarily involved in design advice for health, and support for the learning estate. He is passionate about good design and the positive impact that this can have on people’s lives.

Eirini Atmatzidou

Design Officer

Eirini qualified as an Architect Engineer in Greece, where she worked as an architect and stage designer before moving to the UK. She holds an MSc in Material Practice from the University of Edinburgh (ESALA), where she is currently tutoring in postgraduate and undergraduate courses. With extensive experience of materials and fabrication processes, she now works on a wide range of projects at Architecture and Design Scotland.

Emelie Borg

Senior Corporate Officer

Emelie qualified as an Architect in Sweden and has worked in the private, NGO and public sectors. She leads outcomes and performance reporting and supports the Chief Executive in ensuring our work is effectively aligned to established and emerging policy. Emelie coordinates consultation responses, supports our corporate communications and briefings to Chair and Board.

Gillian Black

Principal Urban Designer

Gillian is a planner and urban designer with extensive experience across housing regeneration, retail, master-planning, commercial, and infrastructure developments. She contributes to our design advice work. Gillian is part of the Expert Network for Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI).

Hannah Douglas

Senior Design Officer

Hannah is a history and sociology graduate who has wide experience of working across the public, private and third sectors in a range of roles. She currently works primarily on learning and communications.

Heather Claridge

Director of Design

Heather is a qualified urban designer and town planner, with a background in geography. Heather has extensive experience of working on large-scale urban regeneration, sustainability, and town centre initiatives. She is currently responsible for directing multiple design advice teams. Previously Heather worked for Glasgow City Council, where she supported local and creative partnerships within Glasgow’s Canal Corridor and helped grow internationally recognised initiatives to activate vacant and underused spaces. She played a leading role in delivering Glasgow’s greener legacy projects for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. She has contributed to multiple complex green and blue infrastructure projects in the east end of the city. Heather is a non-executive Board Director for the Academy of Urbanism, Charity Trustee of the Green Action Trust, an affiliate of the UN Habitat’s Planners for Climate Action, former Royal Town Planning Institute UK Young Planner of the Year and featured in the top 50 women of Influence for 2019 and 2020 in ‘the Planner’.

Ian Gilzean

Head of Innovation and Digital Place

Ian joined us on secondment from Scottish Government in May 2024 to take the lead on digital innovation and the Place-Tech programme. Ian joined Scottish Government’s Architecture Policy Unit in 1999 and was Chief Architect from 2006 until November 2023 when he moved into the Digital Planning team as Head of Digital Place and Innovation. Ian has also worked for the Scottish Arts Council and as an architect in public and private sector roles in Edinburgh, London and Glasgow with a focus on regeneration and community empowerment. Ian has been involved in architectural education for over 25 years and is an Honorary Professor in Architecture and Urban Planning at Dundee University.

Johnny Cadell

Principal Architect

Johnny is an Architect and has over 30 years experience in senior design and management roles working across the UK in the public and private sectors. He has specialist skills in housing masterplans, stakeholder engagement, urban design and street design.

Kate Givan

Principal Design Officer

Kate is a Chartered Urban and Regional Planner, industrial design graduate and qualified Project Manager who has led and contributed to a wide range of advice, skills, research and policy work in her time at A&DS. Kate currently supports partners to apply place-based collaborative approaches to plans, strategies, and place briefs as part of the Place Scale Strategy team. As our lead on the Key Agencies Group, Kate has supported the development of new approaches to place-based partnership working across agencies.

Kate Hendry

Principal Design Officer

Kate studied architecture and worked in practice and as Programme Manager of the Scottish Government’s Sustainability in Architecture Programme (Sust.) before joining Architecture and Design Scotland. She has expertise in sustainable design and is an experienced project manager. Currently, Kate’s focus is on leading our Scotland + Venice project and providing support on outreach activities.

Laura Hainey

Senior Architect/ Principal Design Officer

Laura is an Architect who specialises in sustainable design and materials and has an interest in the circular economy and offsite construction. Laura’s experience lies in housing where she worked on projects across the UK, with additional volunteering work in India designing an earth brick school. Laura is co-lead on Climate Action Towns.

Lesley Riddell Robertson

Principal Designer

Lesley is a designer and educator with extensive experience working within the design, architecture and cultural sectors. She is a trained facilitator with a specific interest in developing community engagement and capacity building in relation to placemaking. Her main focus at Architecture and Design Scotland is support for the learning estate, community empowerment, evaluation, skills development and learning resources.

Lynne Lineen

Director of Outreach

Lynne has varied experience over 30 years in both the private and public sectors with her qualifications as a Chartered Accountant and also a Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel Development. As Director of Outreach, she focuses on the outward-facing work of Architecture and Design Scotland and supports her colleagues to ensure the benefits of the Place Principle becomes an everyday reality across Scotland.

Maureen Jobbins

Corporate Services Executive Assistant

Maureen is a member of our corporate team and leads on the administration of budgets, purchasing, and contracts as well as supporting our Board.

Morag Bain

Principal Design Officer

Morag graduated in art and architecture. Following a period in theatre set design, she has spent her career promoting architecture and design through exhibitions and articles. She has also tutored at university level. Before joining A&DS she was Director of the Access programme at The Lighthouse. At Architecture and Design Scotland her role includes the curation of the Scottish contribution to the Venice Biennale and the creative direction of our web-based publications.

Rachel McBryde

Communications officer

Rachel is a content marketer with an international business and interior design background. In her previous role, she worked as a content and social media marketer for B2B and B2G software as a service (SaaS) companies across North and South America across various industries. Rachel joined Architecture and Design Scotland to work on communications, particularly across our various digital channels.

Steve Malone

Principal Architect

Steve is an Architect with over 20 years of experience in the private and public sectors. At Architecture and Design Scotland Steve helps provide advice and support for public sector-driven investments including healthcare, housing and community as well as public infrastructure investment. Steve previously led our work on town centres and how they can be more supportive environments for our ageing population.

Board member

Dr. Varna is a Senior Lecturer in Urbanism and Planning at Newcastle University, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. She has obtained her PhD focused on assessing the quality of public spaces created on Glasgow’s regenerated waterfront, at the University of Glasgow (2007 – 2011).Her main research interests and activities are grounded in a passion for quality of place, inclusive city governance, and successful city partnerships.

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Lynn Wilson

Board member

Lynn is a designer and Circular Economy expert who has worked in the UK and internationally in sectors including arts and community development and environmental and planning policy. From 2013 to 2017 she was part of the pioneering Circular Economy team at Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS).

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Meet our Design Forum panel members

Kevin Cooper

Kevin is a director at Archial Architects in Glasgow, an educational enabler for Architecture and Design Scotland, and a visiting critic at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee. He is experienced in a wide variety of sectors, including residential and masterplanning projects and has a particular interest and expertise in the design of educational buildings.

Mark Greaves

Mark is a chartered town planner and urbanist. He established Mark Greaves Urbanism in 2013 having previously represented The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community in Scotland and as a local authority planner. He draws from considerable knowledge, skills and experience having been involved with numerous and varied planning, masterplanning and regeneration projects throughout Scotland and the wider UK. He has a particular interest in community engagement, working with communities and adhering to the principles of sustainable urbanism.

Sheena Raeburn

Sheena Raeburn is a chartered member of the Landscape Institute with over 13 years’ professional experience as a practising landscape architect. She has been a director and co-owner of RaeburnFarquharBowen since 2011. She has acted as a mentor and is currently an examiner for candidates on the Landscape Institute ‘Pathway to Chartership’. She has a particular interest and expertise in housing, regeneration and masterplanning and applies a collaborative and considered approach.

Nick Bowen

A director of RaeburnFarquharBowen, Nick is a chartered landscape architect with over 17 years’ professional experience in public, private and third sector practice. He has worked on many masterplanning, green infrastructure, urban regeneration and rural projects in sensitive locations, with an emphasis on ecology and sustainability.

Roddy Langmuir

Roddy is a senior director with Cullinan Studio in London. He trained at the University of Edinburgh and has considerable experience working in Scotland. This includes the design of a well-regarded house for his father in Speyside and the new John Hope Gateway to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. He has also worked on a range of university projects, at all scales, and on various public buildings and masterplans in the UK and abroad.

Gordon Fleming

Gordon’s work mainly focuses on regeneration and designing for sensitive sites. Following sixteen years in London, principally as an associate with MacCormac Jamieson Prichard, he is now a director of Ayr-based ARPL Architects. He has also been a design tutor at Strathclyde University since 2001, is a former GIA Council member and is accredited in Sustainable Design by the RIAS.

Kenny Fraser

Kenny is a chartered landscape architect and academic with 15 years’ professional experience including the Scottish Parliament Building landscape project. He combines teaching in the School of Landscape Architecture at ECA with award-winning practice at rankinfraser landscape architecture LLP where he is a founding partner.

Gordon Murray

Gordon Murray has practised in Glasgow and across Scotland for 35 years. His work has been exhibited at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, at the Royal Scottish Academy and RIAS in Edinburgh, in Rotterdam and Marseilles, and in the 2004 Venice Biennale. He was appointed Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Strathclyde in 2007. He has over the last 15 years occasionally taught in schools of architecture across the UK, as well as the Bauhaus in Dessau, Berlin and in Bilbao at the University of the Basque Country.

Mike Harrison

Mike Harrison is a founding director of HarrisonStevens, a chartered landscape architect and graduate of Edinburgh College of Art. Mike has a pragmatic approach to both design and construction and is an experienced urban designer. His project delivery ranges from large scale town centre regeneration masterplanning, urban design projects, and strategic blue-green infrastructure to the detailed implementation of high-quality public realm, streetscape, housing, cultural and healthcare projects.

Colin Hamilton

Colin is a director of Max Fordham LLP with over 25 years’ experience providing environmental and sustainable engineering design solutions for masterplanning, new build and refurbishments of existing buildings. Many of these have been historic buildings. He also lectures, providing guidance to engineering and architecture students at several Scottish universities.

Chris Rankin

Chris is a partner at rankinfraser landscape architecture and a part-time lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art. He studied landscape architecture at Edinburgh College of Art and the Berlage Institute, Amsterdam. Chris’s work ranges from strategic landscape planning through housing-related masterplans to public realm, parks, gardens and artworks in both urban and rural environments.

Peter Richardson

Peter graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1988, winning the Edinburgh Association Architectural silver medal. He has been in private practice in Glasgow since 1993 and is a director of ZM Architecture Limited. He is also a registered APEAS examiner and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Ewan Anderson

Ewan is an architect and urban designer who leads 7N Architects’s studio in Edinburgh. He has over 20 years’ experience in delivering major architectural and regeneration projects throughout the UK. He has a particular interest in a holistic approach to making places that are not constrained by professional boundaries.

Alan Hooper

Alan studied at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, graduating with an M.Arch in 1988 and registered as an architect in 1993. While practising with several award-winning practices, he began teaching part-time in Glasgow and Dundee. He became a full-time academic at the Mackintosh School of Architecture in 2004 and took over the running of the B.Arch programme in 2008.

Ric Russell

Ric was co-founder of Nicoll Russell Studios. As a design partner and university lecturer, he has accumulated a wealth of experience across an extremely broad range of architectural typologies. Many of his designs have been credited with national awards and he has collaborated on many prestigious civil engineering projects. He is also a former Royal Fine Arts Commission commissioner and Company Board Director of A&DS. Ric was awarded an OBE for services to architecture in 2005.

Graeme Armet

An associate with Richard Murphy Architects, Graeme has over 20 years’ experience in delivering award-winning architectural and regeneration commissions both in this country and Denmark. He focuses primarily on private and public housing and design for dementia patients. Graeme is also a part-time studio tutor at the Glasgow School of Architecture where he qualified in 1989.

Helena Huws

Helena is a qualified architect and project manager with over 15 years of professional experience. She is currently employed at Scottish Canals as part of a multi-disciplinary strategic development team tasked with building a sustainable economic future for Scotland’s waterways. Her design skills bring a placemaking approach to a wide range of regeneration programmes, helping to safeguard the rich heritage of Scotland’s canals for future generations to enjoy.

David Simister

David is an architect, urban designer (author of AJ Metric Handbook Chapter Five on Master-planning) and educator with over 40 years’ experience creating award-winning buildings and spaces. He was Creative Director at AHR (formerly Aedas) Architects where he ran design review, workshops and competitions, combining teaching at the Grenfell-Baines School of Architecture. He is a Civic Trust Awards assessor and was in the housing group at Irvine Development Corporation. Currently reviewing student design projects at Manchester and Liverpool University Schools of Architecture, Part 3 Assessor at London Met and regular Panel Member on the National Design Review Panel. David taught at the Mackintosh School of Architecture before setting up Simister Monaghan Architects in Glasgow in the 1970s. He is a Fellow of RIAS and a past council member.

Andrew Bayne

Andrew is a planner and urbanist with experience in new settlement planning, sustainable communities, urban design guidance and community consultation. His major projects include new settlement masterplans for Winchburgh and Edinburgh’s South East Wedge and the Waterfront Granton design guidance. He set up ABC Masterplanning in 2006, prior to which he worked for EDAW and Llewelyn-Davies.

Rod Kemsley

Rod studied at the Bartlett and Edinburgh University, practiced in London, Berlin and Glasgow (Nicholas Hare, SOM, Carlos Zwick, McNeish Design Partnership) and registered as an architect in the UK and Germany. He founded studio KAP in Glasgow in 2002 and developed an award-winning body of work, widely published in the UK and abroad. Currently based in the Cairngorm National Park, he combines private practice with work in the Forres studio of Law Dunbar Nasmith.

Roger Stephenson

Roger is a managing partner at stephenson:ISA studio ltd. He was awarded an OBE for services to architecture in 2001 and has also been an external examiner and studio instructor in many UK universities, as well as a visiting professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was a former member of the CABE National Design Review Panel and chair of RIBA North West 2007-2009.

Marc van Grieken

Marc van Grieken, MSc FLI BNT, is a landscape architect with experience in the UK, the Netherlands and New Zealand. Marc founded MVGLA in 2015 and specialises in masterplanning and landscape design, landscape and visual impact assessment, and expert witness and peer review services. He is a fellow of the Landscape Institute (LI) and a member of the LI Technical Committee. He also a member the Professional Review Group for the MA and MLA landscape design course at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

Keith Brownlie

Keith is an architect and an alumnus of the GSA. He runs a practice (BE&M) in the UK and Denmark specialising in the design of infrastructure and is a former partner of Wilkinson Eyre Architects in London. He has extensive experience in urban infrastructure and public realm design, with past projects including the Stirling Prize-winning Gateshead Millennium Bridge and the Lubetkin Prize-winning Guangzhou International Finance Centre.

Lisa Mackenzie

Lisa Mackenzie is a practicing landscape architect and member of the Landscape Institute. She is Principal at Lisa Mackenzie Consultancy and a senior lecturer in the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Edinburgh. In her work and teaching, she employs the fundamentals of art and ecology to evolve strategies for multi-dimensional landscapes transcending the scales in both urban and rural environments.

Lesley Woodbridge

Lesley currently works with Liverpool City Council’s urban design team to embed public art into the planning process. Her previous experience includes working with the Victoria and Albert Museum and public and private sector galleries in England and Scotland before spending 15 years with one of Scotland’s leading public art commissioning agencies.

Karen Cadell

A partner at AREA, Karen is trained in architecture and urban design and has over 20 years’ experience of delivering architectural, urban design and masterplanning commissions. This includes regeneration areas, town centres, settlement expansions and work within sensitive landscape settings.

Kevin McGeough

Kevin is Head of Strategy and Place-making at Ebbsfleet Development Corporation where he has the overall responsibility for developing and delivering the vision for Ebbsfleet as a 21st-century garden city including the delivery of 15,000 new homes and up to 30,000 new jobs ‘where London meets the Garden of England’. Kevin is an architect and urban designer and in previous roles with the Homes and Communities Agency and English Partnerships he has led the production of several national best practice initiatives and publications

Simon Carne

Simon is an architect, planner and urban designer. His architectural career included the Peter Moro Partnership and Shepheard Epstein and Hunter working on arts and university, public and private residential and mixed-use projects. After seven years at the City of Westminster as client lead on parks, gardens and street design, Simon was a director at Urban Initiatives. Simon is also on several design review panels in Wales, South West England, London and Cambridge.

Suzanne McIntosh

Suzanne is a planner, urban designer and mediator with over 20 years’ experience. She is the owner of Suzanne McIntosh Planning, a consultant to Sir Frank Mears Associates, a corporate member of the RTPI, and an affiliate of the RIAS. Her interests include masterplanning and acting as an expert witness at Inquiries.

Jim Chapman

Jim is an architect and urban designer with over 40 years’ experience in the design and delivery of major projects in many sectors, some of which have won Civic Trust and RIBA design awards. He has enabled masterplanning, healthcare, arts and education projects and is an RIBA competitions assessor. He is also Visiting Professor of Architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture, and a fellow of the Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management.

Chris Morgan

Chris is a director at John Gilbert Architects in Glasgow. He is an ARB registered architect with 20 years’ experience in ecological design and sustainable development. He was recently certified as a Passivhaus designer and holds certificates in permaculture and building biology. He is accredited to ‘advanced’ level by the RIAS in sustainable design and is former chair of the Scottish Ecological Design Association.

Eugene Mullan

Eugene is an architect, urban designer and founding director of Smith Scott Mullan Associates. He has 25 years’ experience in the design and delivery of residential projects, masterplans and consultation processes, primarily as part of neighbourhood regeneration projects. He is secretary of the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group on Architecture and the Built Environment, a board member of Planning Aid Scotland, and convenor of the CRAGS Community Sports Centre, a social enterprise in Edinburgh.

Nicola Garmory

Nicola Garmory has more than 30 years’ experience as a landscape architect working in both the private and public sectors, at home and abroad. In 1994 she co-founded the award-winning TGP Landscape Architects in Glasgow and Durham and has been involved in all aspects of landscape design and implementation, from educational projects to urban realm schemes, business parks, housing, and infrastructure.

Stephen O’Malley

Previously a director at Stockley, Stephen was one of the founding directors of Civic Engineers in 2009. This practice has since completed and continues to deliver high quality civil, structural and urban infrastructure projects. He has a passion for, and a belief in, the importance of public realm and placemaking, using design techniques and methods that rely on showcasing the prevailing character, culture and geography of the existing landscape, changing how people respond and engage with spaces. Stephen became a fellow of the Institute of Civil Engineers in 2013 and a member of the CIHT in 2014.

Keith Gowenlock

Keith is a director with Jacobs, based in Glasgow, with an exciting role across Scotland and Northern England taking forward city, public transport and placemaking agendas. He has over 30 years’ experience working in transportation, development infrastructure and related fields in both consultancy and public sectors. He led the team that developed the ground-breaking Designing Streets policy for the Scottish Government and associated training for planners and engineers.

Stephen Proctor

Stephen is a founding director of Proctor and Matthews Architects in London with over 25 years of experience as an architect and urban designer. His extensive portfolio of award-winning work includes mixed-use regeneration projects, visitor attractions, education and community buildings and new residential neighbourhoods. He is a member and past chair of the RIBA’s Housing Group and has also been a lecturer, visiting critic and external examiner at schools of architecture across the UK and abroad, including the University of Sheffield where he is currently a visiting professor.