The Glasgow School of Art

Christopher Platt is Chair of Architecture at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow, and founding director with Rod Kemsley, of the award-winning architectural practice, studioKAP (www.studioKAP.com) whose built work has been peer reviewed and published internationally. He is a registered architect in Great Britain and was previously a member of the Architektenkammer in Berlin. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and was made a Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects of Scotland in 2009. He was apprentice, student and design tutor at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow, under Professors Andy MacMillan and Isi Metzstein. He has lectured widely across the UK, Germany, Ethiopia, Malaysia and China. He has taught across all subjects in the architectural course and has been instrumental in bringing architectural education and practice closer by co-founding the Centre for 21st Century Practice to help facilitate research, pedagogy, scholarship and knowledge exchange across both disciplines. He is a visiting professor at the Bauhaus University in Weimar and has previously held senior positions in architectural practices in England, Germany and Ethiopia where he has an ongoing consultancy with Abba architects. His academic appointments include invited memberships to several revalidation boards and external examination bodies. His media appearances include TV, radio and YouTube. A book, ‘Dwelling with Architecture’ written with Rod Kemsley has just been published by Routledge.

"I practice architecture and reflect on that practice by teaching and writing. The discipline of research is embedded in the creative architectural process as well as in the realisation process of building buildings. Within the academic environment however, it must be externalised and made explicit. That’s why I am involved in both practice-based research and research-driven practice and write on a wide range of issues overlapping practice and academia. Architecture is a collaboration process needing leaders who are team players and team players who are visionaries. My architectural output is therefore intimately connected to my creative collaborators Rod Kemsley and Helen Campbell at studio KAP. We explore the fundamental role of the architect as the maker of places in urban, sub urban and rural domains. A growing body of that work is located in rural settings and explores aspects of tradition, history and memory to innovate new contemporary architecture. Key drivers in the design process are the physical and cultural context, client need and aspiration, distance and proximity and the process of building itself, all equally as relevant in rural Argyll as in urban Addis Ababa".