News / 09-Apr-24

Poynton Bradbury Architects Appoints A New Director

Written by Cian Spowart
Poynton Bradbury Architects Appoints A New Director

Poynton Bradbury appointed senior architect Laura Highton as director. Laura joins fellow Poynton Bradbury directors Cian Spowart, Chris Turner, and Simon Burgess.

Registered as a Specialist Conservation Architect with the RIBA, Laura has a comprehensive knowledge of conservation practice and extensive experience of working with historic buildings.

Poynton Bradbury Architects Appoints A New Director
Poynton Bradbury Directors (Left to right) Simon Burgess, Laura Highton, Chris Tuner, Cian Spowart, overlooking St. Ives

“I’m very pleased to take on the role of director at Poynton Bradbury. It’s a well-founded practice with high aspirations and the team consistently push themselves to be the best architects they can be and to find the right projects.”

Laura Highton - Poynton Bradbury Director

Laura’s design experience includes multi-million-pound large scale community and public buildings such as museums, visitor centres and libraries, as well as smaller scale projects including bespoke new build residential and house renovations. Recently, Laura led Poynton Bradbury’s heritage team on designs for the £2.5 million renovation of the historic Market House in Penzance.

Laura, who knew she wanted to be an architect from a young age, recalled: “I remember coming on summer holidays to Cornwall and going past the Poynton Bradbury offices in St Ives.” She added: “Poynton Bradbury are unique in what they offer – we are based in the far south of the UK, in a beautiful part of the country and have excellent career opportunities, proving you don’t have to be city-based to be part of a leading architectural practice.”

Poynton Bradbury Architects Appoints A New Director
Laura at Poynton Bradbury's 50th Celebrations in September 2023

Poynton Bradbury recently joined the ethical B Corp movement, highlighting the practice’s commitment to delivering innovative, sustainable, and community-centric architectural solutions.

Laura explained: “The climate challenge continues to be highly relevant to us. At every stage of our designs, we look to introduce sustainable technologies. We push our clients to achieve the best, highly sustainable building for the right cost. We also look at the carbon footprint of our business and how that impacts on the projects we design.”

Poynton Bradbury Architects Appoints A New Director
Laura joined both of Poynton Bradbury's tree-planting days

“Poynton Bradbury has a strong people-first ethos – it’s ingrained in everything we do – and I want to help foster that whilst at the same time making sure we continue to produce high quality design work.”

Laura Highton - Poynton Bradbury Director

Established in 1973 as part of the community architecture movement, Poynton Bradbury is one of the South West’s largest architects’ practices. The firm’s conservation and heritage team have 100 years of combined experience and they have worked on hundreds of projects since 1973.

Meet the Author

Director
Cian Spowart
BSc  BArch  PgDip  ARB  ARB With over 20 years experience at Poynton Bradbury... Read More

BSc  BArch  PgDip  ARB  ARB

With over 20 years experience at Poynton Bradbury Architects Cian has an extensive portfolio of completed projects that range from a £30 million re-development of the Callywith College campus in Bodmin to the sensitive intervention of Lizard Lifeboat station, Lizard Peninsula. Cian works with a variety of public and private clients and is currently the design lead for a £60m Estates Transformation Programme with Cornwall Council to support the delivery of post-Covid workspace facilities and public-facing services across the County.

In 2018 Cian also started providing Design Manager support to MWJV, the consultant consortium delivering building and professional services to Cornwall Council, coordinating all design aspects from the supply chain across a wide range of sectors including Housing, Economic growth, Education, Estates Transformation, Placeshaping and Regeneration for circa £250m of construction value per year.

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