New club member, Lisa De Leon, delivered her job talk after the Club lunch on Monday, 7th August. Lisa is a Director with Gray Baynes & Shew Architects in Oxford and recently completed her MSc in Sustainable Building Performance & Design at Oxford Brookes.

Lisa commenced her talk by explaining that, though born in the UK, she had spent most of her life living elsewhere and cited her childhood in Jamaica, with its tropical climate and interesting vernacular buildings, as being a key influence in her decision to become an architect. She subsequently immigrated to Canada with her family and was accepted into the School of Architecture at the University of Toronto, where she graduated in 1990 with a Bachelor of Architecture degree.

Lisa returned to the UK in 1997 and worked initially for WS Atkins in Birmingham and then two smaller practices in Somerset before joining GBS in 2007. During her time in Oxford, she has been involved in a number of local projects for a variety of clients including the Oxford Anglican Diocese, The John Radcliffe Hospital, Blenheim Palace, and Wesley Memorial Methodist Church. Having spent most of her professional career being an avowed generalist, Lisa decided few years ago to specialise in Sustainable Design and enrolled in the MSc programme at Brookes. She is now putting her new knowledge to good use at Gray Baynes & Shew. Lisa’s presentation included a number of interesting photos which illustrated the scope of her training and professional work to date.