From their base in a refurbished victorian school in central Glasgow, Hamilton Hay Van Jonker speak to AT about their love of continuity and change, ‘Speed Mentoring’, and what it’s like to work as ‘one chapter in a building’s long history’.
Melanie Hay (Director), Tess Hillan (Architect), Cara Taggart (Architectural Assistant), XXX, Laurence Misick (Senior Architect), Nick Van Jonker (Director).
We think of our involvement as just one chapter in a building or place’s history. There’s a kind of humility in this, but it’s also empowering – other people have made change here before, and others still will again in the future.
We are an integrated studio of architects, heritage consultants and sustainability specialists. Working with ambitious clients we develop inspirational projects which connect people to their environment, their past, and to a shared sustainable future.
It is our intention to ensure we design in a way that facilitates future generations making changes to suit their own needs. It is no coincidence therefore that most of our work involves the alteration of existing, significant buildings.
The theme of continuity and change is so interesting to us. Lepus Arts is a project in a former church in Midlothian, where the community – some of whose parents got married in the church decades ago – are now using the hall in new ways, the vision being to create a new space which brings music, song, community and care back into this building.
We recently completed a strategic review of estate-wide energy use for a client who operates 35 UK entertainment venues. We produced guidance on net-zero targets, industry best-practice, and benchmarking. Bespoke metrics tailored to the entertainment venue typology were designed to identify target venues for further study, providing a framework for a gradual approach to improving the carbon performance of these unique buildings.
In June 2025, we held our second “Speed Mentoring” event in Glasgow. The purpose is to connect early career architects with a wide range of professionals whilst fundraising for Architects Benevolent Society; a charity that provides support to the architectural community and their families.
Our studio is in an old school building on the bank of the River Clyde in Glasgow, and 80 metres from the entrance to Glasgow Green, one of the city’s largest parks. It means we can make use of active travel networks along the river and through the park, giving us great opportunities for stress-relieving breaks or having lunch together in the Green.
We’re currently collaborating with a client in Caithness, Scotland to develop an experimental archaeology project exploring Iron Age building techniques. It includes a visitor attraction that combines cultural heritage and traditional skills with nature stewardship and biodiversity enhancement initiatives. The site is a mix of nationally significant habitats, including peatland, a few kilometres from the UNESCO World Heritage Site designated “The Flow Country”.
At the other end of the scale we are working on major arts and heritage projects in nationally important public buildings in the centre of Glasgow and Edinburgh. But an aim to make places useful, beautiful and meaningful for people, while being good caretakers of our natural and cultural resources is the thing which connects all this work.
Hamilton Hay Van Jonker
Glasgow
Reinventing practice features participants in the Regenerative Architecture Index.
