My stepdad, Matthew Kinross, who has died aged 76, was an artist, architect and musician who always found beauty in his surroundings.
Born in Shepperton, Surrey, to Rupert Kinross, a radio engineer who contributed to the invention of radar during the second world war, and Patience (nee English), who studied art in Vienna, Matt was the third of four siblings and lived in a house that backed onto the Thames. At the age of six he went to the King’s school, Canterbury, as a boarder. It was a lonely experience that made him appreciate the importance of keeping loved ones close in later life.
After studying at the Architectural Association school of architecture in Bedford Square in London, he joined Coventry city council as an architect in the early 1970s, and was committed to creating structures to benefit communities. Matt was the lead architect on the project to transform the former Locarno ballroom into Coventry’s central library, retaining features including the dancehall’s balcony. Elsewhere, he planned primary schools with an eye for fun, and he would persuade contractors to add manure to concrete exteriors to encourage the growth of moss.
Matt left the council in the 1980s, becoming a course director in architectural design technology at Coventry University and helping to develop the university’s architecture programme. He arranged trips to explore the buildings of Barcelona and Maastricht, bringing a sense of wonder that also characterised family holidays, when he would disappear to photograph obscure structures in back streets, capturing some intrinsic beauty only he could see.
Matt had three children from his first marriage, to Liz: Anna, Elly and Jonah. The family moved to the village of Long Buckby, where Matt was chair of the parish council, designed the village logo and enthusiastically Christmas-carolled every year for charity. After his divorce, he became a single parent of his then-teenage children, and met his second wife, Sue, at a barbecue for Labour party supporters. When they married in 1998 he became stepfather to her two young daughters, Kate and me.
Matt enjoyed festivals and playing his guitar. He loved the outdoors, leading a Woodcraft Folk group in Coventry. After the children left home, he and Sue began fostering, providing a stable home for young people.
He is survived by Sue, by his five children and five grandchildren, and by his siblings, Tim, Marian and Cilla.
