Summary:
This year’s Alexander Thomson Lecture is being given by Emma Rose Berry of LDN Architects. Emma will discuss her career thus far and a selection of the projects she has worked on with LDN.

Bio:
Emma is a RIAS Conservation Accredited Architect at Advanced level with a record of completed heritage projects in both urban and rural locations.

Prior to working at LDN, Emma worked for Arc Architects, where her projects included ecclesiastical and luxury private residential projects within Listed buildings. Emma joined LDN over a decade ago in January 2012, becoming a Partner in January 2020. Emma has been involved in a number of significant conservation projects across the UK, including the transformation of Edinburgh’s Category A Listed Georgian Assembly Rooms and the conversion of Category A Listed Riddle’s Court into the Patrick Geddes Centre for Learning and Conservation, a Category A Listed Medieval Townhouse located on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.

Emma was Project Leader on the £15 million conservation and development of Halifax’s Grade I Listed Piece Hall, the sole surviving Yorkshire Cloth Hall and one of the most important historic buildings in England. The project was the overall UK winner at the Heritage Angel Awards in 2017 and was awarded four RIBA awards in 2018. An independent report found that it had boosted the local economy by £26m in its first two years of opening, and Historic England has described it as ‘the most successful renewal project of its time’.

Emma has also delivered numerous grant-funded fabric repair projects, including the Category A Listed Aberlady Parish Church in East Lothian, a Victorian Church attached to a 15th Century tower; Category A Listed Sir Walter Scott’s Courthouse, a 100ft Georgian steeple in the Scottish Borders; and restoration of the Newhailes doocot and ha-ha, significant structures within the designed landscape of the 17th Century Category A Listed country house.

Emma is currently leading the re-ordering of St Michael le Belfrey, a 16th-century Church located beside York Minster and Killin Church, a Georgian Church located within the Loch Lomond National Park, which comprises a rare octagonal plan form. Emma has also been leading various projects in the Scottish Borders, including the transformation of the Category A listed Port House in Jedburgh, as well as a Condition Report and Options Appraisal looking to save Hawick’s derelict Liberal Club. Most recently, she completed quinquennial reports for all of the structures within Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford Estate near Melrose.