After graduating, Garnett worked in the office of
Sir Howard Robertson on the design of the
Shell Centre in
Lambeth, but did not stay long, setting off to join
Frank Lloyd Wright's commune at
Taliesin West, in
Scottsdale, Arizona. Unfortunately, Wright had died by the time Garnett arrived in the U. S. He settled instead in New York, working for
Carson and Lundin, then in
Los Angeles, where he was with
Welton Becket. Returning to Rhyl, Garnett designed a steel and glass racetrack there. He then moved to London and in 1959 formed a partnership with his old Manchester friend, Tony Cloughley, called Garnett & Cloughley. They soon accepted a third partner,
Erik Blakemore (1926-1987), an
Elstree Studios film set designer, the firm becoming
Garnett Cloughley Blakemore, or GCB. After designing sets for
Three Crooked Men (1958) and
The Great Van Robbery (1959), Blakemore had moved on to designing the Beachcomber Bar at the
May Fair Hotel, and GCB got work for
Billy Butlin at his holiday camps at
Bognor Regis,
Barry Island,
Minehead, and
Skegness. It also worked for
Lord Forte of
Trust House Forte, designing complete holiday villages. It did domestic work on expensive flats and many projects for
British Airways and the
Spaghetti House. The GCB style was greatly influenced by the Italian designer Albrizzi, who was fond of stainless steel and glass. At its peak, GCB employed a hundred architects and worked around the world as well as in Britain, its projects including holiday villages in
Cyprus, airport lounges in
Tehran, and interiors at
Windsor Castle and the
Palace of Westminster. Its interior for the
Chelsea Drugstore can be seen in the
Stanley Kubrick film
A Clockwork Orange. In 1985, Garnett left GCB to launch his own architectural practice, with offices in
Covent Garden. His later work included the Trocadero Leisure Centre,
Piccadilly Circus, and the refurbishment of the Turkish embassy in
Belgrave Square. ==Personal life==