Christopher Gray

Biography

Chris is an architect with particular professional experience in complex masterplanning, urban design and strategic landscape framework projects. His professional experience draws from time spent in architecture and landscape architecture practices including several years as a registered landscape architect at the Olin Partnership in Philadelphia and time at Foster + Partners and Make Architects in the UK. Chris has experience working at range of scales, from tightly integrated architectural interventions, to masterplans for large settlement extensions and regionally important cultural and educational institutions.

Chris joined OPEN - now part of SLR - in 2011 and has worked on a range of large-scale mixed-use masterplans and settlement extensions across the UK, preparing designs from early strategic Local Plan representations to detailed planning applications for initial phases of housing, infrastructure and landscape. Key projects at OPEN include Countesswells, Newhills and Loirston in Aberdeen, Wantage in Oxfordshire and the University of Ulster Jordanstown Campus in Northern Ireland, all of which required significant community consultation.

Chris most recently led OPEN’s Highly Commended entry for the William Sutton Prize 2021 which proposed a “Community Green Hub Toolkit” which could be used by housing group Clarion (and others) to provide a range of life-improving experiences and facilities via community growing and initiatives with the aim of connecting people with their natural environment.

His expertise across landscape and architecture disciplines allows him to bring a unique and considered approach to challenging sites in urban and rural contexts. Chris is actively involved in university lecturing and studio tutoring, particularly at ESALA (The Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture) where as a part-time tutor he delivers design studios and lectures.