Robert Gordon University - Garthdee campus Sutherland had trained as an architect at the Aberdeen School of Architecture, which was part of Gray's School of Art which in turn was part of Robert Gordon's Technical College, a predecessor of the Robert Gordon University. He qualified with a diploma in architecture in 1923 and became a successful businessman, which was his main interest although he also owned an architecture practice. He moved into Garthdee House with his wife Georgina Scott Sutherland, but they found it too big for two people. Through personal and business contacts with the Aberdeen School of Architecture, Scott Sutherland knew that the school
Robert Gordon University future of UK higher education recommended major expansion, which led to the renaming of the institution to Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology to suggest its increasing role in higher education rather than further education. As well as new "plate-glass" universities, reforms following the report created the polytechnics in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It also created the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) to allow non-university institutions (like the polytechnics and Scottish central institutions) to run programmes that graduated students with CNAA degrees. The Institute's first CNAA degree programmes began in pharmacy in 1967, then in engineering, chemistry and physics