Questions of Design

Questions of Design is a consultancy, run by Gillian Horn, commited to raising the design quality of our built environment. It specialises in design quality evaluation, training and research.

Gillian brings a wealth of experience in the sector gained from over 20 years in architectural practice and over a decade of chairing Design Review Panels along with earning a doctorate and many years of work in education and training. This breadth of experience is coupled with a deep belief in the value of good design - socially, environmentally and economically. She is supported by a number of experienced specialist consultants who are called in as required.

Services

Design Expert witness

Gillian Horn is experienced as an expert witness at public enquiry in planning appeals, specialising in matters of design and townscape. Her rigorous, evidence-based approach has been informed by her doctoral research as well as her championing of research in practice.

Design Evaluation

We offer design evaluation for Local Authorities, in assessing larger development tenders, and for commercial and private clients looking to assess and improve the design quality of their bids or proposals. Gillian Horn's experience in client design advice and active involvement in Design Review over the last 15 years brings an invaluable contribution to design evaluation. She also works with specialists (eg in landscape, transport, historic buildings, urban design) as required for the projects.

Design Training

We offer design training for Local Authority officers and members, and for stakeholder groups. This is tailored to specific requirements and always uses language and references that can be easily understood and avoids expert jargon. Gillian Horn has a long history of architectural teaching and examining which informs her training in understaning good design, placemaking and design quality.

Design Research

We offer commissioned research services for the public and private sector. Gillian Horn brings her combined experience from research in practice and doctoral research to her evidence-based design research. She collaborates with other researchers and organisations to extend the reach of consultations and surveys.

About

Gillian Horn FD, MA (Cantab), PhD

Gillian is an architect with over 25 years of professional experience in practice, teaching, research and design advice. For 15 years she was a partner of Penoyre & Prasad (now Perkins&Will), a design-led practice recognised through many architectural and sustainability awards, including for the last three years, Architecture Today Test of Time Awards - a testament ot the practice's legacy and approach of designing buildings that are loved, for life.

Gillian's work has always centred on fully understanding the project need and the design problem from multiple viewpoints, using direct, immersive and observational research techniques as well as working closely with stakeholders and clients. She is skilled in developing robust briefs and contributed to both editions of the book Managing the Brief for Better Design (2001,2010). Gillian has extensive experience working upstream in the design process as client design adviser, including for LB Barking and Dagenham, Hertfordshire CC and RB Kensigton and Chelsea.

Gillian has a long history of working creatively, with environmental responsibility at the heart of her approach. She was project architect for Sarah Wigglesworth and Jeremy Till's innovative, award-winning house, Stock Orchard Street, completed in 1999, and contributed to the book Around and About (2010) that looked back on the process and its impact. She took this knowledge and passion into Penoyre & Prasad where projects included: Crawley Library, for which Innovate UK (then TSB) funding was granted for monitoring post-occupancy performance, in partnership with Oxford Brookes University and West Sussex CC; NW Bicester eco-town masterplan, that took a holistic, community-centred approach to enabling more sustainable living; and Barlby and Treverton Schools where she ensured that low energy was delivered not just designed, through securing a Soft Landings contract, working in collaboration with Etude. Gillian has also undertaken a low energy retrofit of her own 1950's house, that is carbon neutral in operation and achieves LETI new-build energy targets in use.

Gillian is very active in Design Review, having joined the Commission of Architecture and the Built Environment's (CABE) National panel in 2009, before becoming a chair in 2012. She has been chair for many panels since then, including those for major institutions and infrastructure projects as well as for Local Authorities. Her current chairing roles include LB Bexley, LB Wandsworth and Richmond, Canterbury and Dover CC, and St Albans CC.

Gillian is a Design Ambassador for the Design Council, where she was formerly on the Board of Trustees and a Built Environment Expert. She is also a ‘Wise Friend’ advisor to UDL (now Urban Design Learning).

She studied at Cambridge University, receiving first class honours with distinction, and was awarded a scholarship at Harvard Graduate School of Design. Funded by the White Rose Consortium for post-graduate study at Shefffield University, Gillian earned her doctorate in 2019. Her thesis explored the notion of taste in architecture and the schism between expert and lay opinions, focusing on attitudes to volume-built houses. She has taught at many schools of architecture since the beginning of her career, including the Architectural Association, Cambridge University, Kingston University and the University of Reading, following an award of a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professorship. She has been an external examiner for various schools of architecture for 15 years.

Gillian currently practices as an artist, consultant and researcher.