Sam Scorer

Thin shell concrete roofs were invented in Germany around the 1920s, as a means of achieving large spans with limited materials and at low cost.

The strength of the roof lies in its shape, and the way it carries the loads by the forces exerted in the planes of the shell, rather than by the weight of their materials.

The first shell roofs were simple barrel vaults.

Hugh Segar "Sam" Scorer FRIBA FRSA (2 March 1923 – 6 March 2003) was an English architect who worked in Lincoln, England and was a leading pioneer in the development of hyperbolic paraboloid roof structures using concrete.

Between 1936 and 1941 he attended the independent Repton School in south Derbyshire, where he became head boy and excelled at drawing.

One of the first engineers to specialise in concrete shell techniques in Britain was the German refugee of Hungarian-Jewish origin, Kalman Hajnal-Kónyi, who arrived in London in 1936, and who worked with Sam Scorer.

The earliest is Wythenshawe Bus Garage, Manchester, built 1939–42.

After the Second World War, the form was taken further.

He read Mechanical Sciences at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1941, and enjoyed painting as well.

In 1942 he was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and met his wife in Canada, when training to be a Fleet Air Arm pilot.

He married Anne Humphrey in 1943 in Kingston, Ontario.

He served as a fighter pilot until 1945 but was invalided out of service, having crashed while attempting to land on a moving aircraft carrier in the Baltic Sea.

Combining his interest in artwork and mechanical design, he decided to become an architect.

He entered the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in the second year in 1946, and graduated in 1949.

In 1950, he began work for Denis Clarke Hall (son of Edna Clarke Hall).

With Clarke Hall he designed three schools in Lincolnshire in the 1950s:

From 1954, his architectural practice, Denis Clarke Hall, Scorer & Bright was based at 7 Lindum Terrace in Lincoln.

Scorer was the Chairman of the RIBA East Midlands planning committee.

He was the first Chairman of the East Midlands Group of the Victorian Society.

Scorer became fascinated by the possibilities of shell roofs as a student, and designed a hyperbolic paraboloid roof in 1956 for a water tower in Ilkeston, Derbyshire.

Félix Candela in Mexico was experimenting with ‘anticlastic’ or shells with double curvatures of opposing convexity and concavity, from which the hyperbolic paraboloid emerged.

The form was particularly appropriate for developing countries because of its simple materials and low cost.

The rationing of steel in the post-war period in Britain also was reason for the popularity of these designs.

The 'hypar', as it is sometimes known, enjoyed a brief fashion, seen in buildings such as the Commonwealth Institute of 1960–2 and also the Wrexham Swimming Baths of 1964.

They had a son and a daughter (who died in April 1986).

He lived on Gibraltar Hill in Lincoln.

In 2000 he founded The Gallery, now known as the Sam Scorer Gallery, in Lincoln.

He died in Lincoln County Hospital in March 2003, aged 80.

Away from architecture he was a motor-racing enthusiast, attending many of Europe's grand prix circuits.

He owned a succession of fast cars, such as a Lotus Elan and various Jaguars, all with his personalised number plate of 'EVL 1'.

He held life memberships of the National Trust, the Victorian Society and Reform Club and took an interest in Liberal politics.

He worked for a year as assistant to George Grey Wornum.

He also was involved in architectural conservation and research into the work of local 19th-century architects, as well as founding an art gallery in Lincoln, now known as the Sam Scorer Gallery.

He held the rare distinction of having two of his buildings listed within his lifetime.

The Usher Gallery in Lincoln has an exhibition "Sam Scorer: A Life in 14 Buildings" until January 2024.

He was brought up in Lincoln, one of five children.

His father was a senior partner in a firm of solicitors and later became clerk to Lindsey County Council.

His mother was a lecturer at Bishop Grosseteste College, a teacher training college.

His great uncle was the Lincoln architect William Scorer.

A brother was Richard S. Scorer.