Submission by Stallan-Brand Architecture & Design.
Being a good ancestor
Practice
1. Do you have a clearly stated purpose aligned with the planetary emergency? We’re looking for a bold ambition here, and a culture which recognises the need for long-term thinking.
We recognise architecture can save lives. As a practice borne of Glasgow – a city with the lowest life expectancy in Europe and continued unacceptable levels of deprivation and poverty – we witness the critical role architecture has in our well-being.
There is a phenomenon urbanists call the ‘Glasgow Effect’, which references the city’s traumatic legacy of modernist post-war planning that destroyed the city’s urban community and condemned generations of displaced people to poor education, health, and employment prospects.
We see our work designing projects across the UK as central to addressing this legacy of community disconnection, understanding that the key to ‘regeneration’ is our younger ‘generation’ and the need to address the challenges they face through delivery of thoroughly researched, context-driven granular place-making, homes and education spaces which provide healthy, connected and safe environments to help people thrive.
2. Do you have a clearly stated purpose aligned with the planetary emergency? We’re looking for a bold ambition here, and a culture which recognises the need for long-term thinking.
The studio was set up with a number of trusted employees with whom the founding directors had worked previously and who inherently understood their ethos and ambition to develop a practice that recognised the need for resilient design and supporting positive progression.
As the team has grown, other individuals have joined who also have experience of working with Paul and Alistair and who equally support the studio’s attitude and aims. The senior team is comprised of people who have worked together for many years and who are trusted to liaise with and seek clients who are looking to make positive regenerative impacts.
The studio’s core principles are a commitment to design excellence and clear communication. We aim to foster a collegiate environment where the team feels they have agency to develop and evolve their career. We encourage everyone to contribute to creating an inclusive and positive studio culture.
3. Do you share research and knowledge for the benefit of society and the wider world?
The practice typically shares information by supporting a range of institutions, organisations and professional bodies with lectures, events and exhibitions.
Members of team, at all stages, give talks each year at the Scottish architecture schools. Topics are often based on our key areas of urban and societal research presented through housing and education projects. We also delivered a public lecture on the Doolan prize winning Union Terrace Gardens development, which saw the radical positive transformation of the most important public space in Aberdeen city Centre.
Over the last 12 months the Design Director has become increasingly involved in championing opportunities for establishing bottom up improvements for Glasgow and is using his, and the studio’s, research to work with the GCC regeneration team, councillors across the political landscape and representatives from SFT, the GIA and RIAS to create a call to action to help attract meaningful investment for the city region.
Project
1. Do you advocate for long-term thinking at the outset of work? Do you initiate work with long-term thinking and challenge clients? Also, can the organisation demonstrate that this approach has worked?
We do. With a practice borne of Glasgow – where project budgets are tight and often under great scrutiny – it’s become second nature to us to be extremely resourceful and drive real efficiencies in projects, whether through our spatial planning or material selection and detailing, ultimately so we can still achieve people-focused exemplar design solutions. This logic is increasingly being applied to demonstrate long-term value by evaluating likely cyclical maintenance and replacement costs in parallel to embodied carbon assessments. To many of our clients’ credit, this is generally a relatively easy conversation and process.
We have to consider the reality of fuel poverty for many end users, so designing homes and public buildings for maximum efficiency in-use is a critical factor for us.
2. Does your work take account of the future climate and the need for resilience?
They do to an extent, but this is something we’d like to improve on, in tandem with our clients, collaborators, and the engineers and landscape architects we regularly work with. The easy part, which we generally already do, is working with structural engineers to design long-term flexible and adaptable structures that can be easily spatially reconfigured or stripped back to a bare frame to be reclad or, if necessary, disassembled.
We initially developed a residential model which allowed for non determinative living, for our Maltings Wynd project in Glasgow. The intent was to enable the homeowner to drive flexible layouts to respond to their own patterns and adapt to evolve with their lives. Sales and marketing viability led to it being delivered as a more traditional model, but it was an informative process and an area we would continue to explore, particularly with a view to it having commercial appeal.
3. Does the majority of your work go beyond mitigating negatives and towards optimising positives?
Our studio aligns with the aims of the 2030 challenge and this year handed over our first Passivhaus project, Scotland’s largest Passivhaus learning campus in Tain. A political objective determined by the project sponsor Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) requires schools to achieve an energy target of 67 kWh/m²/annum. This target is verified in use, and compliance is a condition of future funding.
The energy target covers all energy consumed during 2,000 operational hours per year. This is only one of a number of projects where we are bettering statutory performance targets.
We help clients address business expenditure in the face of rising operating costs as many of our public sector clients rely on this information to access funding.
We are alert to the potential of reduced capital costs as embodied carbon targets push towards leaner, more efficient designs using less material, or ideally, the repurposing of existing structures.
Co-evolving with nature
Practice
1. Do you use biophilia within your premises and/or do you regularly gather in natural settings?
We encourage people to have plants at their desks and create an environment that meets their needs. We have a city centre office but are located close to the river and Glasgow Green. We encourage people to take time away from their desks, especially at lunchtime, and recognise that even a short walk along the riverside can radically assist in alleviating stress.
We hold a potluck studio lunch once a month so we can relax, chat, and eat together. One of our major recent projects, Barclays Campus Glasgow, features some fantastic landscape design and new public spaces, which we co-designed and which we use as an extension of our studio. We have been known to have walking meetings at our Laurieston project and along the riverside – talking while walking can often lead the conversation in different directions and encourage an openness that can sometimes be lost in a meeting room.
2. Can you share examples of where you have considered nature in decision making?
Nature has been an influencing factor for many of our projects, particularly those where we see an opportunity to inject a positive green space into a brownfield urban site, driving opportunities for community cohesion and climate resilience.
Over the last ten years, we have worked with cultural institution SWG3 to develop an eco-centric venue and events destination that has significantly contributed to the City’s River Clyde regeneration initiative. We championed the transformation of a contaminated industrial site into a thriving campus centred around an accessible community garden. A large triangle of once-derelict land has been transformed into a dynamic green space in consultation with the local community.
Maltings Wynd is part of a major regeneration of an industrial area in-transition, in the North of Glasgow. The development is completely centred around a new communal rain garden. The homes open directly on to this wonderful space, alive with plants and wildlife.
3. Are you supporting nature locally and nationally?
In 2025 we completed Earlston Primary school in the Scottish borders. Located on the historic High Street, it offers more than a school, delivering a library, self-serve café and multi-use space for Community use.
Budgetary constraints meant that the building footprint reduced resulting in a prominent corner of the site remaining undeveloped. Following handover, once the school had settled in, the project architect was determined to complete the landscaping of this corner by delivering something meaningful for the Community. Aware of a previous Community Orchard project in the town, the practice thought it fitting that the design team donate a number of fruit trees to create a small orchard in this location and a planting day was held April 2026. It was incredibly special to be part of an event that brought the school and community together and which will hopefully and literally bear fruit for years to come.
Project
1. Can you demonstrate work that strives to match the performance of a mature ecosystem?
The majority of our projects occur on tough brownfield sites; achieving biodiversity net gain and promoting best-practice sustainable drainage solutions is fundamental. This is embedded in our masterplanning approach, an example being our Ravenscraig affordable housing development in Greenock.
The former hospital had challenging topography but some incredible existing landscape including a sweeping avenue of mature trees and wetland area. Our approach was to apply the lightest touch possible to this special site, so we worked with the existing building platforms to create a series of homezones which were connected by a mixture of formal and rambling paths.
An area of scrubland was redeveloped with new landforms, planted with meadow grasses to create a new wildlife trail. An opening was created in a site boundary, connecting it to an adjacent walking route leading directly to the Clyde Muirshiel National park, offering residents significant access to existing and enhanced green space.
2. Are you working on material stewardship?
We have a great studio environment in a generous listed Victorian building, which used to be a Police Training Centre – we’re proud to operate from such an interesting historic space. Our studio space is in the original Refectory and in late 2019 we took on the former gym so we could have a flexible space to support a whole host of activities: model-making, crits, lectures, large meetings, charrettes, workshops, parties, lunchtime exercise sessions, a reflection space, archives and a materials library.
Our portfolio of retrofit and conservation projects is growing. We have two accredited conservation architects in the practice, with others working towards it. We are experienced in the technicalities of delivering upgrades to building envelopes which require sensitivity to maintain the performance and characteristics of their beautiful traditional materials, and ensure their continued longevity. Products and details used in such projects form an important part of our materials library.
3. Does the majority of your work demonstrate the use of biologically-inspired approaches such as Bioregionalism, Biophilia or Biomimicry?
Currently it’s the minority, but we are striving to reverse this ratio. Our Maltings Wynd project for igloo kicked off with a collaborative charette process with a number of other amazing Glasgow-based architectural practices to design a suite of self-build prototype house types that could readily be adapted over time. Eventually leading to a collaboration with Ann Nisbet Studio, this community-focused ecosystems approach led to a Building with Nature Accreditation.
This former industrial site is designed around a central sunken garden, which exemplifies multifunctionality as a green, shared community space, particularly for residents with below-standard sized private gardens. The design supports the capture of rainfall at source, cleaning surface water runoff, and storing it within the site boundary to provide new and additional habitat for a greater diversity of flora and fauna. The proposals offer natural play space and provide enhanced management of the microclimate.
Creating a just space for people
Practice
1. Do you have a progressive EDI policy and can you evidence many forms of diversity, which are welcomed and acknowledged, within your company/organisation?
We have an Equal Opportunities Policy which underpins the ethos of the practice, ensuring we hold ourselves accountable to working in a completely inclusive manner. Reviewed annually at management review, to check we remain satisfied it is sufficiently robust. The policy sets an expectation for the way everyone conducts themselves and treats one another in the workplace. This attitude extends towards our clients, consultants, and anyone we come across as part of our daily working practice.
We strive for a positive studio culture where everyone has agency. We have regular catch-ups to keep the team appraised of what’s going on with the practice. We welcome feedback and hold reviews which are an opportunity for open discussion and where individuals are encouraged to highlight any areas where they feel the practice could improve. We are alive to the ever-changing world and the need to keep listening and communicating to avoid stagnation.
2. Do you operate a no overtime culture, meet the living wage consistently, and stipulate a fair salary ratio between staff of all levels?
We recognise the critical importance of achieving a positive work-life balance and how this benefits everyone individually and the practice as a whole. The studio is structured to ensure that there is sufficient support on all projects, and regular resource reviews allow the management team to keep on top of project pressures and staff allocation. As a result, we have low instances of overtime. On occasions where a project requires additional input due to specific pressures, this will be addressed on an individual basis.
The studio is of a scale where the management team are all very engaged and actively involved in projects day to day, so they are attuned to the details of each project and the individual team members working on them.
All staff are paid the national living wage. Salaries are reviewed annually and are aligned with the median level for the region.
3. Do you support charities, community groups, social enterprises, action groups and others through pro-bono work, charitable giving or in-kind donations?
We believe that social value extends beyond the buildings we design—it’s about investing in people and fostering stronger, more connected communities. We continually seek new ways to positively contribute to the communities we work with.
The studio has undertaken various pro bono work, including regenerative initiatives for the town of Lanark, improved public realm, wayfinding, and branding to strengthen its historical identity. In tandem with delivering a new high school for Peebles, the studio provided pro bono services that involved a masterplanning and feasibility study of the local sports provision for Peebles Community Trust and the charity Live Borders.
The studio supports numerous charities through the industry across the year. A recent example saw members of the team give their time to a speed mentoring session, offering an opportunity for graduates to ask open questions about the industry. This event was held to raise funds for the Architects Benevolent Society.
4. Do you use an ethical framework to assess opportunities and/or supply chain partners and is them team consulted on these decisions?
Practices must be ‘commercial’ to remain in business – we have an obligation to our team to maintain income to support their salaries and keep the office running well. Currently all SME’s are facing similar challenges arising from an endemic culture of low fees. We believe procurement rules and methodologies must change to avoid becoming a race to the bottom, where unhealthily low fee proposals often trump the quality aspect of a bid. We are lobbying against this and sit on a Procurement Working Group including other leading architects and Scottish Government, Architecture + Design Scotland and RIAS representatives. We do this, not because we want more for ourselves, but because we firmly believe we need to strive for a society that values design quality and demands better built environments.
Should we need to, we’d have no qualms refusing certain work that didn’t align with the practice’s ethos of responsible urbanism.
Project
1. Does your work demonstrate deep engagement with local stakeholders and end users?
Stakeholder engagement is mapped out at the inception of all jobs, to plan the optimal stage gates for wider collaboration and feedback. Stallan-Brand do undertake this engagement and have run many models of session from discussion and making workshops to walking events.
We also regularly collaborate with New Practice (Civic) who are specialists in community consultation and stakeholder engagement. It is invaluable on some of our larger and more complex projects to have this specific expertise carried out by ‘a critical friend’ with a more objective overview of the design and enabling clear collation and concise presentation of the feedback. This has also enabled us to adapt our own working methods and improve in this area, particularly in education projects, where we hope teaching staff and students feel like they are an integral part of the process of creating their new learning environments.
2. Does your work create connected and resilient communities which positively contribute to neighbourhoods and allow equality of access?
We prioritise creating connected, resilient places. Our Earlston early years and primary school project was contextually sensitive, located on an historic high street with a brief to deliver education and community facilities as part of a town centre masterplan which included affordable housing, play spaces and improved transport infrastructure.
The provision of quality external space was a driving force for the design. New safer routes were developed to the school, moving the pupils away from the busy high street. Access to outdoor play, despite the Scottish weather, is encouraged through the introduction of cantilevered roof areas, providing shelter. Each early years’ playroom has direct access to outdoor space and there is a community orchard providing a point of connection between the school and the town.
Earlston Primary is a critically important part of the successful town centre strategy and has contributed to establishing a more inclusive community driven environment.
3. Does the majority of your work promote equity in society, and consider all people, not only building inhabitants
As architects, we shape environments that foster equity, ensuring schools serve entire communities—not just students. Our practice believes education should extend beyond the classroom, offering lifelong learning opportunities and social enrichment.
Our designs create inclusive spaces, supporting intergenerational learning. At Jedburgh Grammar Campus, school facilities serve broader community needs—hosting cookery classes, IT workshops, digital awareness programs, and health and beauty lessons, providing complementary services while enabling pupils to apply their learning in real-world contexts.
Beyond sustainability, our approach restores, uplifts, and connects communities – also demonstrated at Earlston Primary. Schools become civic anchors, fostering engagement, skills development, and opportunity for all.
Through deep collaboration with educators, stakeholders, and residents, we craft environments that enrich lives, empower communities, and regenerate neighbourhoods, ensuring a lasting impact for generations to come.