HOKO’s Founder and Architect, Danny Campbell, recently got picked as the 3rd judge to appear alongside Anna Campbell Jones and Banjo Beale on the 6th Series on BBC’s Scotland’s Home of the Year.
Danny Campbell joined the other two judges as they toured Scotland judging some of the most unique properties in the country. As an Architect at HOKO Design, he is well used to visiting homes and offering expert advice on how they can be designed better. In a recent article to the Herald he said “I will bring my own disruptive views on architecture to the new series and will be looking for homes that are inventive with their flow and aren’t scared to challenge what a home can be”.
As the only Architect judge in the series, lets first delve into how Danny got started in Architecture. In an interview with Homes and Interiors Magazine, he tells us, “like a lot of teenagers, I was hunting around for what I was going to do after school, and the one subject where I had any aptitude was graphic design. I had no clue what careers you could do in those fields. And, like a lot of kids, went home and asked my mum, and she got so excited. She was jumping around the kitchen saying, “You’re going to be an architect, you’re going to be an architect!”.
I think the thing that differentiates my path into architecture was that I always had side hustles as well — I think that entrepreneurship within architecture was probably always my destiny. I’ve certainly found a purpose for myself and I’m still to this day really passionate about the topic.”
The 2024 series featured 18 incredible homes that spanned the whole of the country. Each series saw unique homes from different regions, however there were 6 homes that made the final, and these were:
- Quiney Cottage, Banchory (North East & Northern Isles)
- 1960s Bungalow, Milngavie (West)
- Earth House, Aviemore (Highlands & Islands)
- The Old Mill, Dublane (Central)
- Honeysuckle Cottage, Moffat (South)
- Coldwater, Linlithgow (East)
Danny Campbell, Anna Campbell Jones and Banjo Beale all agree that SHOTY had outdone itself this year. At the final, Danny says “They were all amazing, what an incredible experience to try and pick a winner. It was so intensely fought at the final and the final three were extremely hard to separate.”
However, in the end there was only one winner. The 1960s Bungalow in East Dunbartonshire took the crown – a quirky family home from Milngavie, Episode 2. All the judges believed it were a very worthy winner, and Architect Danny Campbell adds “The carefree abandon to which the homeowners had turned their home into their family curated artwork, but also, how cleverly they remodelled it. This one had it all – there were double front and rear dormers, a split-level kitchen and reconfigured internal layout, a large rear extension and landscaped garden – I was in architectural heaven. The new spaces they created were elevated by the commitment they had to their vision and how expertly every detail had been turned into artwork.” The seventh series will return next year, and they will be looking for worth contestants this summer. If you think your home could be crowned Scotland’s Home of the Year or for more information on how to enter, head to bbc.co.uk/shoty.