Moira Gemmill, Royal Trust Collection

Recipient of the 2015 SEGD Gold Arrow, Moira served on the SEGD Board of Directors until 2015.

Moira Gemmill died tragically in a cycling accident in London 9 April 2015.

Moira Gemmill works at the Royal Trust Collection having moved into this position after  serving as the Director of Design and FuturePlan at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) where she led the planning and implementation of FuturePlan – the V&A’s on-going programme of restoration, refurbishment and redesign of its galleries and public spaces.

Over the past ten years she has engaged world-class designers, architects and engineers to integrate restoration of original architecture with bold new interventions to reinvigorate its Grade 1 listed buildings and to improve physical and intellectual access for visitors. Visit numbers to the V&A have increased from 900,000 in 2001 to 2.9 million in 2012. Her projects have received numerous awards from the design and architecture sector.

Gemmill is the director responsible for the V&A’s first permanent presence outside London – V&A at Dundee. Actively involved in all aspects, including the selection of Japanese practice, Kengo Kuma Architects to design its building, she is also the V&A’s Board representative on the charitable company established with five Scottish partners to establish this new entity – Design Dundee Limited.
A graduate of Glasgow School of Art, design has been at the core of everything she has achieved in her career to date.

Moira Gemmill is regularly invited to give talks and presentations about the role of design in museum redevelopment, and to review design schemes for new cultural projects.

In 2011 she was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Trustee of the Robert McCann Trust and currently serves on the Board of S.E.G.D. – the U.S. based not-for-profit society for communication design in the built environment.

Read more about Moira and listen to her podcastat the V&A Museum's Futureplan.

Read about Moira's life and work in The Guardian's Obituaryby Mark Jones and the Independentby Marcus Williamson.