O’DonnellBrown bridges conservation and community design
Sometimes a project comes up so often in conversation with architects that it reveals the backbone of what they do. For Glasgow-based studio O’DonnellBrown, that project is the 2019 Community Classroom — a self-built outdoor learning pavilion that set the tone for their approach to adaptive reuse and community-centered design.
Originally constructed outside their own studio, the pavilion was a prototype developed with a UK charity that supports young people entering the trades. It’s designed as a demountable “kit of parts” using timber, plywood, and Monarflex — a waterproof fabric typically used on scaffolds that “could be draped over the structure and allowed users to open and close each side as required,” said Sam Brown, who co-founded the practice with Jennifer O’Donnell.
The idea was simple: create a low-cost, repeatable structure for community and learning infrastructure. “There were only three lengths of timber used in the entire structure,” Brown said. “Simplicity of structure was a major driver.” That work and the research behind it have since led to more outdoor learning pavilion iterations, including an off-grid facility for Edinburgh University in rural central Scotland.
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From a temporary classroom to a performing arts center
One notable heir to the Community Classroom typology is the Take a Bow Opportunity Centre in Kilmarnock, completed in 2025. The firm led an intensive renovation of a 1970s-era community center that was poorly insulated and riddled with damp and asbestos, turning it into a space for a performing arts and youth development charity.
The retrofit included serious insulation upgrades to walls, roof, and floor; larger windows on the front elevation; moving the parking lot to the back to create a new public space that blends into the adjoining park; and adding “a modest extension on the facade” to create a proper changing area near the stage. Working with energy consultant Carbon Futures, the firm developed an energy strategy that reduced the building’s overall carbon emissions by 70 percent, aligning with Take a Bow’s net-zero goals.
“By adding a glulam colonnade across that elevation, we unified the new and existing parts of the building but also created an improved sense of arrival,” explained Michael Dougall, a director at the firm since 2022. The timber canopy provides covered space usable by the adjoining cafe and for outdoor performances — a continuation of detailing first developed for the Community Classroom.
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Turning vacant buildings into viable community assets
They have developed a specialization in taking “often quite tricky” vacant or historic buildings across the UK and reimagining them, said O’Donnell. Dougall added that these are often redundant public assets taken on by charitable organizations who have the drive and commitment to turn these buildings into assets used by the community for years.
That includes Millport Town Hall on the Island of Cumbrae, an hour’s drive and an eight-minute ferry ride from Glasgow. What started as a feasibility study in 2018 became a six-year project driven by a group of locals who made over 140 funding applications — and won roughly half of them. The building now houses a large hall for ticketed performances, several smaller spaces for local clubs and charities, and three apartments rented for short-term stays to generate steady income for the venue’s operating costs.
Conservation and retrofit as one practice
Back in Glasgow, the firm completed New Olympia House in 2023, an office retrofit of a 1927 former Salvation Army Citadel. Their “defurb” strategy improved energy efficiency, created an accessible entrance, and freed up flexible floor space while exposing brickwork, roof trusses, and existing timber linings. They’re also converting the ornate 1870s Pipe Factory in the city’s East End into office and educational spaces for a local arts organization.
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O’Donnell, who is working toward becoming a conservation accredited architect, noted a frequent tension between balancing a conservation approach with much needed energy improvements. For the practice, conservation and retrofitting aren’t separate specialties — the same principles apply: understanding the significance of site and structure, repairing before replacing, retaining embodied carbon, and designing for reversibility. “Taking a conservation approach to projects should be the default approach, encouraging us to look more closely, intervene minimally, and make long-term decisions that respect heritage and sustainability.”
The long game at Govan Graving Docks
The architects took me to see their progress on the Govan Graving Docks site, a 22-acre historic shipbuilding site on the south side of Glasgow that has sat vacant since the late 1980s. It’s slowly being transformed to include a new riverside park, 304 homes along its southern perimeter, a waterside trail, and historic ship repair facilities in one of the former dry docks. Two previous planning applications after 2000 had failed — one, somewhat shockingly, “included infilling the docks as parking silos,” O’Donnell said.
When the practice started working on the masterplan in 2020, they spent nearly three years holding conversations and workshops with over 20 local organizations and various government bodies to understand what the community actually wanted. “Like many of the projects we work on it’s been about that intersection of relationships that enables something to gain traction,” she said. “We thrive in that space where we have to unstick things to move forward.”
