The Glasgow School of Art

This week's Friday Lecture on the Theme of 'Uncertainty' will be given by Brian McGinlay and Mark Bell from McGinlay Bell.


McGinlay Bell is a Glasgow-based architectural practice established by Brian McGinlay and Mark Bell in late 2015. The work of the practice is principally informed by a strong research and analytical focus on the design process that aspires to create contemporary, familiar and appropriate architectures.

Their approach is inclusive and collaborative that strives to produce buildings, spaces, interiors, or visions of a future that all maintain a close relationship with its given context, client needs and user requirements.



 In establishing practice, and working in practice, they find a natural sense of uncertainty or that feeling of ‘entering the unknown’ consistently exists. Time and patience seem ever more so paramount. Timings are difficult to control with lack of certainty but, by experience, they believe greater opportunities coexist in ideas, the process of testing ideas, and the ability to make ideas.



 Currently, and now in their third year of practice, McGinlay Bell are working across varying scales & typologies of projects for private, commercial and creative clients. They believe all projects, and regardless of scale or budget constraints, have the ability and opportunity to be crafted and constructed together in such a manner that help enrich and humanise new places of the everyday.

As they take stock of our own journey to date, the Mackintosh Friday Lecture ‘Uncertainty’ provides a welcomed platform for reflection. We find ideas manifest sometimes in vacuums, by instinct, or completely responsive to briefing constraints but with grabbed opportunities themes and meaningful outcomes have together generated a more cohesive practice language.