In 1990, Nicholas Groves-Raines and Alan Murray, working in collaboration with artist Alan Johnston, were selected to represent Scotland in an international exhibition held in Friesland, the Netherlands.

The brief brought together architects and artists from across Northern and Nordic Europe. Each national team was invited to design an autonomous pavilion that explored the relationship between architecture and art. The curators posed a complex question: “Develop and present an environment in which a personal, architecture creates the optimal ambiance for an equally personal art or develop a process of collaboration in which the two disciplines find expression in a fully integrated work of art.”

The Scottish pavilion balanced restraint with clarity. Johnston’s drawn interventions were set within a calm and carefully proportioned architectural frame. Rather than merging disciplines, the pavilion allowed both art and architecture to remain distinct while closely attuned to one another. It created a contemplative space that invited focus and reflection. This early project shaped an ongoing interest in interdisciplinary work and the potential for built form to express meaning through atmosphere, context and material precision.