Meet the team

Dido Milne

DipArch RIBA

Dido read architecture at Cambridge, studying under Eric Parry and David Dernie.  Receiving a 1st class degree led to a scholarship at Harvard, studying under Rafael Moneo for the 1st year of RIBA part ll.  She completed her formal education back at Kings College Cambridge under the tutelage of Peter Beard winning an ideas competition to design a Visitor Centre for Kings College Chapel.  She was a RIBA bronze medallist nominee and won the Kings College GHW Rylands prize for Architecture.

Dido is one of three directors who launched CSK Architects (Ltd) in 2016, a design studio based in Eton, specialising in bespoke, crafted buildings with a holistic approach to sustainability.

She has been responsible for major retrofit and conservation projects at Eton College, The Mall Galleries and for the Howard-de-Walden Estate. Currently she is working on a number of key projects for The Cadogan Estate.

‘In these projects I have been interested in ‘Conservation’ in its most progressive form, where the inventive re-use and adaptation of existing buildings continues to be an intelligent and sustainable response to climate change and the pressure on resources.’

In collaboration with Matthew Barnett Howland and Oliver Wilton (UCL) in her role as co-designer and client she completed the Cork House in Eton in 2019.  This pilot project for a radical form of new plant based construction came off the back of 7 years of research into the development of a ‘cork construction kit.’ Cork House is a highly innovative project built with structural solid cork walls and roof. The project was carbon negative at completion, has exceptionally low whole-life carbon, and has been ‘designed for disassembly.’ The house won the Stephen Lawrence Prize, was short listed for the RIBA Stirling Prize (the smallest project to ever make this shortlist!)  won the Manser Medal AJ House of the Year, Gold at the Wood Awards and the AIA Sustainable Future Award.

‘I believe in the power of collaboration to take you to places you wouldn’t have reached on your own. I am currently collaborating with Sophie Parmenter Studio on The National Autistic Society Garden for RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024. We have a fantastic team of ‘makers’ behind the scenes helping us craft our garden. All design is an iterative process.  It is only by arguing a point or presenting an idea to your co-designer that you really have to fully articulate what you are trying to achieve – and when your co-designer fully understands this they are in position to offer maybe a different solution to address the same point.  This is when you go on an interesting journey together.’

Dido sits on the local Design Review Panel, was the chair of the RIBA South-East Awards in 2017, was one of the judges for the Stephen Lawrence Prize in 2020 and is the current chair of the 2023 RIBA House of the Year.