samuel@new-practice.co.uk
Samuel Stair
Senior Designer
BA PGDip
he/him
Prior to joining the practice, Samuel achieved his postgraduate degree from Glasgow School of Art having previously studied in Brisbane, Australia. He won the 2019 Dissertation Prize at the Mackintosh School of Architecture for his postgraduate thesis, ‘The Ambivalent Sublime,’ which reconsidered light and tectonics in architecture through a literary lens of the ‘poetic.’
Since 2018 he has been working in a freelance capacity across architecture, design, photography and publishing. Since joining New Practice he has worked on projects from concept to delivery including a major public facing exhibition and events space for COP26 and a heritage anchored masterplan for Glasgow’s oldest High Street.
Samuel is a foundational organising committee member of Open Plan Scotland, a volunteer led advocacy and support network for members of LGBTQIA+ studying or working in Architecture in Scotland. Between 2021 and 2023, Samuel was part of the organising committee for the Scottish Chapter of ArchitectureLGBT+. This builds on Samuel's existing and past work towards LGBTQIA+ community advocacy in architecture in Scotland.
Samuel is also co-editor of Chez Etym., a multi-disciplinary body of work which seeks to explore alternative and speculative perceptions of place and time; the foundation of this is the same-titled publication, exhibited at the 2021 New Generations Festival in Rome and published in 2022 by and as part of Occupy, the 2022 Australasian Students of Architecture Congress.
““I am continually excited by the philosophical and psychological implications of our relationship with the places we inhabit. In particular, how we socially prescribe meaning to these places, and the ways in which culture and identity hinge upon them.
As society is becoming increasingly connected through non-physical networks, I’m currently interested in the implications reflected in a similar shift as our once physical places move into digital and virtual realms.””