New Future Construction School

The People’s Emergency Briefing: Glasgow and the built environment New Future, in partnership with Glasgow Film Theatre, Atelier Ten, Architecture Fringe and Architects Declare, are hosting a post-election screening of ‘The People’s Emergency Briefing’, followed by a discussion with voices from Scotland’s built environment sector, alongside local councillors and newly elected MSPs. 📍 Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) 🗓 1st June 2026 🎟 £0 - £12 (pay what you can). Ticket link in bio. 🔞 16+ In November 2025, the National Emergency Briefing was delivered to over 1,200 national leaders in Westminster - a landmark event bringing together leading experts to assess the UK’s exposure to climate and nature risks. That briefing has now been adapted into a new public film, ‘The People’s Emergency Briefing’, designed to help ensure that both the public and decision-makers are clearly and honestly informed about the climate and nature crisis - and what it may mean for communities across the country. This post-election screening and panel discussion will be open to all, but has a specific focus on the implications for our built environment sector. The discussion will centre on how evidence-based insights must drive a collective response from across the industry. Please share this with your networks and communities - we would love to see as many of you there as possible. Full panel announcement to follow: Peter Reekie Sandy Trust @samtecture

Join us on Thursday, March 12th for Our New Future: Redefining Risk, Regeneration and Resilience Hosted by New Future Construction School, in collaboration with Friends of the Pipe Factory, Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance (STBA), and the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP), this panel discussion asks a critical question: How can Scotland’s built environment move beyond Net Zero to build a future that works for people, places, and the planet — and ensure the workforce is equipped to deliver it? 🗓️ Thursday, March 12th ⏰ 5:30-8:30pm 📍Material Source Studio Glasgow (180 W George St, G2 2NR) The event will examine how climate and environmental risk is currently understood and managed in construction, why existing systems struggle to support innovation and regeneration, and how education and skills must be treated as core infrastructure in the transition to a low-carbon future. To reserve a spot and for more details, visit our Eventbrite. Please note that this talk was previously advertised as taking place on March 19th; however, it will now be taking place on March 12th. This event is made possible with support from @heritagefunduk

🌿 Join us at StuCAN Festival 2025 in Glasgow for a workshop exploring natural materials and sustainable construction, led by Maria Sierra Sanchez and supported by Rob Colvin. Together, Maria and Rob bring a wealth of experience in regenerative design, education and practice rooted in natural building. Maria is an architect, founder of Senda Design, and COO of EBUKI, working across architecture, education and construction with a focus on building with earth and other natural materials. Rob is an architect, co-founder of the New Future Construction School, and studio tutor at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, whose work explores inclusive and sustainable approaches to built environment education through research, design and making. 🔨♻️🪾 🧱 The Workshop: Building with Earth and Fibre This session offers a practical introduction to natural building. Through hands-on experimentation and exploration, participants will work with earth and fibres to better understand how traditional materials can support more sustainable ways of building. We’re excited to welcome Maria and Rob to StuCAN Fest 2025 and are grateful to them for sharing their time and expertise. We look forward to an engaging session that invites us to slow down, connect with materials and reimagine how we build. 🤩 📲 To find out more, check out @beyondourroots_ and @newfuture_constructionschool over on their Instagram! #StuCANFest25 #NaturalBuilding #SustainableArchitecture #RegenerativeDesign #ArchitectureEducation #EarthBuilding #StuCAN #BuiltEnvironment #StudentLed

Skin of the City was the most recent iteration of the ongoing project, Erratic Drift, an evolving body of work about humans’ interrelations with the urban lithic, about stone and cities. The exhibition reflected on how, like our human skins, the city’s skin is continually changing and decaying – and being patched and replaced. It considers the consequences of covering the earth with hard stony matter: limiting biodiversity and exacerbating the effects of flooding or heat. The exhibition and associated events invited visitors to reflect on the complexities of humans’ interrelations with the urban lithic: stone’s associations with endurance alongside the mutability of stone-built cities; the practices and consequences of creating hard, impermeable lithic surfaces in urban areas; and the social and environmental effects of the extraction, manufacture, use and disposal of geomaterials. - Skin of the City was one of three events for @archifringe 2025 hosted by New Future and supported by @heritagefunduk , @thepipefactoryglasgow , @strangefieldglasgow and GALLANT Innovation Fund. - Photo credits: @imurchan for @newfuture_constructionschool

Skin of the City was the most recent iteration of the ongoing project, Erratic Drift, an evolving body of work about humans’ interrelations with the urban lithic, about stone and cities. At the core of the project was an installation of 3000+ fragments of stony matter that have flaked, chipped or crumbled from the walls, pavements, and roads of Glasgow. The fragments were collected from areas on the north and south banks of the River Clyde, between Partick and Govan in the west and Rutherglen and Dalmarnock in the east. The fragments were placed on the gallery floor using GPS coordinates to form a scaled, lithic map of the city. - Skin of the City was one of three events for @archifringe 2025 hosted by New Future and supported by @heritagefunduk , @thepipefactoryglasgow , @strangefieldglasgow and GALLANT Innovation Fund. - Photo credits: @imurchan for @newfuture_constructionschool

Skin of the City was the most recent iteration of the ongoing project, Erratic Drift, an evolving body of work about humans’ interrelations with the urban lithic, about stone and cities. Glasgow/Madrid-based artists Minty Donald and Nick Millar, with Madrid-based landscape architect and ecological thinker, Malú Cayetano, turned their attention to the hard, stony surfaces of urban environments: strata of concrete, asphalt, granite, sandstone, and brick, marking out a city’s boundaries, forming membranes between street and earth, between within and outwith. - Skin of the City was one of three events for @archifringe 2025 hosted by New Future and supported by @heritagefunduk , @thepipefactoryglasgow , @strangefieldglasgow and GALLANT Innovation Fund. - Photo credits: @imurchan for @newfuture_constructionschool

Whose Cathedrals are we building? Learning from Dalmarnock’s Past, Present and Future, was an event hosted with @architectsdeclare_uk , which gathered groups of speakers who exchanged stories about Glasgow’s East End across generations. The event explored how multi-generational or “Cathedral” thinking can take lessons from the past, rooted in the local context, and use these to engage stakeholders and residents in a shared vision for sustainable future development. - 2025-2050 “Emergent Futures” Built environment professionals Eva Voulgaridou of Association of Collaborative Design and Kevin Logan from Architects Declare were in conversation with Martin McKay, chief executive of Clyde Gateway. Martin reflected on the successful development of projects including the Cunnigar Loop, which transformed post-industrial land into a well-loved park with nature restoration at its heart. Eva and Kevin emphasised the importance of social sustainability and involving citizens in the development of places to foster a sense of community and belonging. - Full event video to follow.

Whose Cathedrals are we building? Learning from Dalmarnock’s Past, Present and Future, was an event hosted with @architectsdeclare_uk , which gathered groups of speakers who exchanged stories about Glasgow’s East End across generations. The event explored how multi-generational or “Cathedral” thinking can take lessons from the past, rooted in the local context, and use these to engage stakeholders and residents in a shared vision for sustainable future development. - 2000-2025 “Legacies” The conversation between architect Thomas Hamilton and filmmaker Chris Leslie was centred around the development of the Commonwealth Games village - a masterplan that continues to have a major impact on the local area. Thomas discussed his experiences as part of the project’s delivery team, whilst Chris reflected on two decades of documenting the perspectives of the local residents before, during and since the 2014 games. - Full event video to follow.

Whose Cathedrals are we building? Learning from Dalmarnock’s Past, Present and Future, was an event hosted with @architectsdeclare_uk , which gathered groups of speakers who exchanged stories about Glasgow’s East End across generations.  The event explored how multi-generational or “Cathedral” thinking can take lessons from the past, rooted in the local context, and use these to engage stakeholders and residents in a shared vision for sustainable future development. - Pre-2000s “A place that made things” Historian Peter Mortimer in conversation with local resident and community actor Owen Stewart discussed Dalmarnock and Bridgeton’s history, and the area’s importance in the development of Glasgow’s industries. Peter set the scene for the changes experienced during a period of rapid industrialisation, while Owen shared his memories of the area and the evolution of the urban and social fabric. - Full event video to follow.

Through collaborative workshops, hybrid learning, and landscape-based design, FieldSchool advances inter-cultural exchange and innovative education The live build was made possible by the generous financial support from the @Finnish Institute UK + Ireland. The students were the driving force behind the realisation of the live build. Each and every student involved brought unique expertise to the project from their diverse disciplines and cultural backgrounds which was invaluable. This collaborative endeavour simply would not have happened without the students, we thank them sincerely for the experience they brought and the fun that we all had! New Future Co-Founder Rob and Trustee Kathy, led the Mackintosh School of Architecture team in their respective positions as undergraduate design tutor and academic year head. - More information about the Shielin-Bough project and the FieldSchool publication can be found here: - #polytechnic #vocationaleducation #vocationaltraining #builtenvironment #livebuild #naturalmaterials #biobased #biobasedmaterials #regenerativearchitecture #communityimpact #communitybuilding #placemaking #codesign #culturalheritage

FieldSchool: inside a gathering circle that faces the forest As part of the Sheilin-Bough project, FieldSchool at @gsa_hi gave students the opportunity to lead a live build project, supported by staff from the @universityoflapland , @mackintosh.school.architecture The project was a chance to share skills and ideas, to experiment with materials, and to think, make and learn together. We used local, sustainable, vernacular building materials to build a place to gather which sits lightly in its environment. New Future Co-Founder Rob and Trustee Kathy, led the Mackintosh School of Architecture team in their respective positions as undergraduate design tutor and academic stage head. - More information about the Shielin-Bough project and the FieldSchool publication can be found here: - #polytechnic #vocationaleducation #vocationaltraining #builtenvironment #livebuild #naturalmaterials #biobased #biobasedmaterials #regenerativearchitecture #communityimpact #communitybuilding #placemaking #codesign #culturalheritage

FieldSchool: inside a gathering circle that faces the forest As part of the broader shielin-bough project, FieldSchool at @gsa_hi bridges Scotland and Finland, exploring how architecture, culture, and the environment intersect. The project gathered around the topic of the Laavu and the Shieling, under the shelter of Shielin-Bough which is a conceptual, physical and social space for thinking and learning together. Through a process of co-design workshops, lectures and discussions, the students developed a new outdoor shelter inspired by Scottish and Finnish cultural heritage and intercultural storytelling. New Future Co-Founder Rob and Trustee Kathy, headed up the Mackintosh School of Architecture team in their respective positions as undergraduate design tutor and academic stage lead. - More information about the Shielin-Bough project and the FieldSchool publication can be found here: - #polytechnic #vocationaleducation #vocationaltraining #builtenvironment #livebuild #naturalmaterials #biobased #biobasedmaterials #regenerativearchitecture #communityimpact #communitybuilding #placemaking #codesign #culturalheritage