The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
The first steps along O’DonnellBrown’s journey towards becoming a standout practice with a ‘strong social conscience’ began in Glasgow. Founders Jennifer O’Donnell, 36, and Sam Brown, 39, met at the Mackintosh. However, the pair’s first base was in London. The firm was set up in 2013 on the back of projects for Tower Hamlets Council, both as in-house and external consultants. Most notable was the revamp of the leaking Swanlea School sixth-form building in London’s East End.
In 2016 O’Donnell and Brown uprooted the practice and moved back to Glasgow to a self-built garden studio – The Greenhouse – in the leafy Pollokshields area on the city’s Southside.
Underpinned by a ‘mission to bring about positive change’, the firm’s workload is diverse both in size and sector. Its smaller-scale, self-initiated projects include a prototype £10,000 demountable outdoor classroom and The Sitooterie, a flexible modular structure made in consultation with local businesses in Glasgow to allow outdoor dining and trading spaces in a coronavirus-conscious climate.
Source:Tim Crocker
Swanlea School sixth form building makeover, east London
Meanwhile it continues to work on impressive retrofit schemes and an increasing number of residential schemes, such as a 206-home project on the site of a former Glasgow foundry.
Its rising reputation in housing was boosted in September, when it triumphed against the likes of Mole Architects, Citizens Design Bureau, Hall McKnight and Morris+Company to win an Archiboo-organised contest to create a new generation of ‘life-enhancing’ housing.
Milestones
2013 Practice founded by former Glasgow School of Art students
2015 Completes extension and refurbishment of Swanlea School’s sixth-form centre in Whitechapel, east London, while working as internal consultants at Tower Hamlets council
2016 Founders move to Glasgow and build their own studio
2018 Reveals plans for 206-home Foundry scheme on former industrial land in East Pollokshields, Glasgow
2019 Builds £10,000 prototype for a demountable outdoor classroom
2020 Secures approval for revamp and extension of Millport Town Hall on the Isle of Cumbrae, Ayrshire. Wins Archiboo-organised housing contest
O’DonnellBrown designs community classroom prototype
Retrofirst stories: O’DonnellBrown on plans to revive a Scottish town hall
O’DonnellBrown wins HUB and WhiteHat ‘life enhancing’ housing contest
AJ 40 under 40 in association with
