Ali Davey - Traditional Materials Project Manager, Historic Environment Scotland

Ali Davey is a Traditional Materials Project Manager in the Technical Conservation Team at Historic Environment Scotland. She delivers projects which support access to traditional materials and the knowledge to use and repair them. Her current projects focus on the sustainable supply and procurement of natural stone and thatch materials as well as management of the organisation’s Traditional Materials Framework.

Ian Ramsay - UK Sales Director, Burlington Slate Limited.

Ian has 33 years experience of traditional random slate quarrying with Burlington Slate, during which time he has worked with conservation professionals, clients and contractors on the roofs of Scotland’s historic buildings.

Burlington quarry Westmorland green and Burlington blue/grey roofing slates, two Cumbrian slates that have for 450 years contributed much to the nation’s built heritage. Ian enjoys nothing more than clambering over the roofs of our historic buildings trying to understand the story that their roofing slates hold, assisting the conservation architects who care for these buildings in protecting and maintaining the traditional aesthetic that the original slates bestow on the buildings they serve.

Burlington Slate also quarry and supply 6 British dimensional slates and limestones which are used for architectural finishes, flooring, paving and cladding on both new and traditional buildings alike.

Gareth Jones - Director, Pollock Hammond Architects

Gareth Jones studied Architecture and Urban Conservation in Dundee before working for several years with The Scottish Historic Buildings Trust.  He had worked as an Assistant with William A Cadell in Linlithgow and subsequently returned to the firm, by then the Pollock Hammond Partnership, as an Architect specialising in historic building projects.  He is currently Director of Pollock Hammond Ltd and conservation accredited at advanced level.

Gareth also has an interest in Scotland's early industrial history and has researched and developed experimental archaeology projects relating to salt production and its associated coastal buildings and infrastructure.  

John Brown - Director, Page\Park Architects

John Brown is an accredited Specialist Conservation Architect, and Director at Page\Park Architects. As conservation lead for the practice, he oversees significant conservation, adaptation and refurbishment projects across the UK. John was closely involved in the strategic development of the refurbishment project at Rosslyn Castle, and is now overseeing the refurbishment of Leeds Town Hall, and Pollok Stables in Glasgow’s Pollok Park. He is also working closely with the National Trust for Scotland on a masterplan for the Fyvie Estate in rural Aberdeenshire. John teaches architectural design at the University of Strathclyde, where he runs a first year design studio.

John Ferguson - Chief Techology Officer and Founder, Sisalwool

John Ferguson is Chief Technical Officer and Founder of Sisalwool. John's background is in agriculture and international development and he spent several years in east Africa training farmers on coping with the impact of climate change.  It was during this time he discovered sisal, a strong and drought resistant fibre crop and started innovating with new potential uses for it.  Out of this Sisalwool was born.

Gavin Moore - Technical Sales Manager, Sisalwool

Gavin Moore works in sales at Sisalwool, a company that provides breathable, low carbon natural fibre insulation that is safe and easy to use. With vast experience in the construction industry, he has developed a good understanding of working with historic building fabric.

Cristina González-Longo - Senior Lecturer, University of Strathclyde & President ICOMOS-CIF

Cristina González-Longo is a Chartered Architect in UK and Spain and Specialist Conservation Architect (SCA). She is the Founder and Director of the MSc in Architectural Design for the Conservation of Built Heritage at the Department of Architecture of the University of Strathclyde, where she has also created and is leading the Architectural Design and Conservation Research Unit (ADCRU).

Her research group deals with the challenges of conserving built heritage while allowing changes to adapt historic buildings for contemporary uses, as well as with the design of new buildings to conserve the environment, which requires an interdisciplinary approach. After graduating at the School of Architecture of the Technical University of Madrid (ETSAM), Cristina spent three years in Rome with a scholarship from the Italian Government to study architectural conservation at the Specialisation School of the Sapienza University of Rome. On completion of the course, she won a government competition to conserve a twelve-century church in Spain, where she set up her practice in 1996.

Since, she had a central role in taking decisions concerning historic buildings of outstanding national and international importance and wide experience in leading the design, management and procurement of award-winning architectural projects. She was the project architect and resident architect of Queensberry House, a Category A Listed building, part of the new Scottish Parliament complex in Edinburgh (RIBA Stirling Prize 2005). She also designed Bowbridge Primary School in Newark, UK (RICS Sustainability Award 2009), with an innovative lamella glulam structure.

She has lectured widely and extensible published, including her PhD thesis on preservation and transformation, published by Routledge (2020). She is, for the second term, the elected President of the ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) International Scientific Committee on Education and Training (CIF).