Registered Architect, UK, Architects Registration Board, ARB

RIBA Specialist Conservation Architect (SCA), RIBA Conservation Register

Chartered Architect, Royal Institute of British Architects, RIBA

Chartered Architect, Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, RIAS

Chartered Architect, Spain. Incorporation of Architects in Asturias (Spain), COAA

PRINCE2 Foundation, Project Management

Diploma in Advanced Academic Studies, University of Strathclyde

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, FHEA

Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, FRSA

Dr Cristina González-Longo RIBA SCA RIAS FHEA FRSA 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 to contemporary uses, incruding the need for retrofitting for energy purposes. ADCRU also deals with the design of new and existing buildings to conserve the environment and adpt to the impact of climate change,  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 prestigious Specialisation School of the University of “La Sapienza”.  She is also a practising architect with over twenty years’ experience as a Chartered architect both in UK and Spain, is RIBA Specialist Conservation Architect (SCA) and is member of the RIBA Conservation Register Assessment Panel. She has had a central role in taking decisions concerning historic buildings of outstanding national importance and wide experience in leading the design, management and procurement of award winning architectural projects (both conservation and new build). She was the project architect and resident architect of Queensberry House, a Grade A Listed building, part of the new Scottish Parliament complex and designed Bowbridge Primary School in Newark (RICS Sustainability Award 2009). She is the President of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) International Training Committee (CIF).

Cristina has 27 years experience as Chartered architect both in UK and Spain working in small companies, large multinational organisations and local and central Governments. She is RIBA Specialist Conservation Architect and set up her own practice in Spain, Cristina Gonzalez-Longo Architect (CG-LA) after graduating, winning a government competion shortly after, and the company is still running, also in UK. She has also been for ten year Examiner for the Architects Registration Board (ARB) Prescribed Examination and  member of design review groups and policy advisory bodies in England and Scotland. She is currently member of the accreditation panel for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Conservation Register and Academic Adviser to the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC). Her career is balanced between practice, research and education, and has had a central role in taking decisions concerning historic buildings of outstanding national importance and wide experience in leading the design, management and procurement of award winning architectural projects (both conservation and new build). After moving to the UK, she has been project and resident architect in high profile and award-winning new design and conservation projects, such as Queensberry House, a 17th century Grade A Listed Building, part of the new Scottish Parliament building (RIBA Stirling Prize 2005). She also designed Bowbridge Primary School in Newark (RICS Sustainability Award 2009). The building has an innovative lamella glulam structure and is an exemplary case study in the Building Schools for the Future and NCSL programme ‘Leading sustainable schools’.

- Complex architectural conservation projects

- New design in historic cities, buildings, monuments and archaeological
areas

- Reuse of historic buildings and monuments, including retrofitting

- Environmental design and reduction of energy consumption

- Conservation theory

- Architectural history and the transformation of buildings

- Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Scottish architecture

- Methods, strategies and instruments used by architects over the centuries in the transformation of a place.

- Conservation, Sustainable design and construction.

- Historic Construction technologies and systems

- Historic buildings, urban infrastructure and context

- Historic cities, buildings, monuments and local identity

- The Scottish Parliament building and the development of architecture and urban design in Scotland

- Architecture and archaeology