Since relocating to the city in 2016, a community-minded ethos, outward focus and local authority expertise have helped the eight-strong practice wield outsized influence
The word ‘strategy’ comes up surprisingly often when talking to O’DonnellBrown’s three directors. Founded in London in 2013, the practice has grown in a steady, deliberate fashion to today’s eight-strong contingent, despite a rapid rethink after a 2016 move to Glasgow.
Current projects are diverse and compelling: from transforming a local pipe factory into a creative hub, in collaboration with Loader Monteith; to delivering ‘Gap Homes’ for young people leaving care, with Barnardo’s; to a major regeneration of the Govan Graving Docks on the Clyde, with ZM Architecture.
Founders and life partners Sam Brown and Jennifer O’Donnell graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 2007, before moving to London, with Brown taking a job at Tower Hamlets Council, focusing on education. O’Donnell, who had spent time fundraising for a Nepal-based NGO, travelling there to help develop a school project, worked at a range of London practices, notably Hawkins\Brown. She joined Brown at Tower Hamlets in 2013 as the pair set up shop, giving ‘an opportunity to test working together; it wasn’t a given that we wouldn’t kill each other’.
Residential, retrofit and community engagement
According to O’Donnell, their mutual experience renovating and extending schools and nurseries ‘really set the practice’s DNA, in terms of both community-minded architecture and working with existing buildings’. That DNA soon proved its worth. The refurb and extension of Swanlea Sixth Form, Tower Hamlets – wrapping new and old in a unifying layer of dark-stained timber and thick cladding – gained awards, ‘stretching our skills; galvanising our recognition of what we wanted to do together’, Brown says.
On moving to Scotland for family reasons, this ‘bedrock of experience’ proved undervalued. Despite ongoing school projects in the South East, efforts to break into Scottish education were frustrated by procurement barriers.
‘It was hard, as we’d started to specialise, but it proved a pivot point – we had to diversify,’ says Brown. ‘We targeted residential, retrofit and community engagement, drawing on our London experiences. Our entrepreneurial spirit kicked in – we decided to do something about it ourselves.’
‘We needed to be proactive, inquisitive and not afraid to start conversations,’ continues O’Donnell. ‘It’s something of a point of difference as a practice.’
Key was the arrival of Michael Dougall in 2019, after a decade working on community housing with Collective Architecture, and a stint as the youngest ever president of the Glasgow Institute of Architects. A graduate from the University of Strathclyde, he brought with him considerable residential expertise, along with vital insights into how to build teams and contacts to deliver major developments in the city.
One self-initiated research project, prescient given the impending pandemic, was the Community Classroom. Emboldened by converting its own studio, the practice created this demountable, adaptable timber structure for accessible outdoor learning in 2019. O’Donnell reflects, ‘We gained so much confidence in how we work, and our approach to relationships and projects.’
It also resulted in a major client. Five apprentices from Barnardo’s Works were involved in the build, leading to a stream of work, initially around establishing, and then delivering, the charity’s Gap Homes typology for young people leaving care in the UK. Last November, residents moved into the first cluster in Stirling.
Proactivity and conversations have proved rewarding. Winning Archiboo’s 2020 Architect Pitch for post-pandemic housing forged links with HUB, with an Edinburgh print works conversion completing this year. A relationship with developer New City Vision led to its largest completed project to date, the Foundry in Glasgow’s Southside – 206 new build apartments, due for handover in spring.
And starting conversations has also proved vital for delivery. The repurposing of the derelict Govan Graving Docks is a decades-long saga, but a masterplan has finally been drawn up, with 300 homes, a heritage park and dock, an active travel route and the retrofit of the surviving pumphouse.
Collaborative, ground-up approach
Expertise working with councils and communities has been key, says O’Donnell. ‘Flipping the development’s narrative, leading with public access before talking about new homes, starting from the ground up, actually going out and speaking to people, building trust… It sounds trite, but we spent the best part of a year listening.’
Another key strategy is collaboration: ‘We’re agile, and hands-on in terms of directors, but working with other practices helps us access new markets and larger projects, and punch above our weight,’ says Brown.
One example: it approached White Arkitekter to forge a joint entry to an open competition organised by the Royal Incorporation of Architects, Scotland, for a £15m cultural retrofit on Dumfries’ Crichton Estate. Beating Hoskins and Caruso St John (‘a real confidence boost’, admits Brown) resulted in a fulfilling relationship based on shared values, with White Arkitekter’s sustainability expertise matched by the practice’s retrofit experience and local knowledge – early-stage proposals include earth-based construction.
Retaining external roles also speaks to O’DonnellBrown’s ethos, and enriches both projects and networks. At present, Brown is teaching at Sheffield University, Dougall is an examiner with the Architects Professional Examination Authority in Scotland, while O’Donnell has just started a second term as a Design Council Expert, intertwining her with London discourse.
This ‘divide and conquer strategy’ (as O’Donnell jokingly puts it) relates to social responsibility, but also to national ambitions: ‘We’re proud to be based in Glasgow,’ says Brown, ‘but want to be regarded as a UK practice – we’re passionate about being open to different places.’
School projects in London keep the firm at the cutting edge of material passports and reuse, now rooted in its processes. Zero Waste Scotland was brought in to run circular economy workshops for the Gap Homes, while Material Index is providing audits at the Crichton Estate.
Playing the long game
We finish by talking about a project that epitomises O’DonnellBrown – the conversion of the redundant Millport Town Hall on the Isle of Cumbrae into a community centre, due to be completed later this year. Kicking off with a feasibility study commissioned by a local charity back in 2018, it’s an example of the practice’s early gambles bearing belated fruit.
‘It’s been challenging,’ says Brown, ‘helping an inexperienced group manage the project, and navigate the processes. They’ve made 103 funding applications and had 49 successful, which is incredible – it’s grown to a £3.5–4 million undertaking, all run by volunteers.’
2025 is a big year for completions, so existing projects and clients are O’DonnellBrown’s priority. Even so, the firm is toying with the idea of small-scale development, and is one of three finalists for the C40 Reinventing Cities competition to regenerate Glasgow’s canals, in conjunction with Mikhail Riches.
Looking back, Dougall says, ‘You can trace from where we were in 2019, to where we are now, in quite a linear way… It’s been about being a smaller, agile practice, but also playing the long game.’
The residential and retrofit focus, he says, is no accident, relating to two vital issues, the housing crisis and climate emergency: ‘In some ways, we’ve been quite strategic – these types of projects are getting commissioned and coverage because they are so critical. And we’re well-placed to deliver them, thanks to the experience and expertise we’ve developed.’
That progressive focus also plays a role in engaging the team, praised by the directors as key to the practice’s success: ‘They’re so talented’, says O’Donnell, ‘We wouldn’t be able to do what we do without them, so it’s vital to keep them energised.’
The struggle to penetrate Scottish education goes on, but for Brown, ‘perhaps the most satisfying recognition of where we’ve got to is the feasibility work we’re currently doing at Smith’s Dock, Newcastle. The client basically punched “dock regeneration architect” into Google, and our name came up’. The strategy, it seems, is working.