2. The Studio embraces an interdisciplinary approach
in all scales of Design & Cultural Endeavour,
– from Tea spoon to CiTy.
It embraces Architecture, Product and Graphic
design, Development management, Interior design
and Landscape.
It absorbs and promotes events and debate at
its London base through Testbed, which acts as a
community hub for itself and its neighbours (The
Royall College of Art, Vivienne Westwood, Squint/
Opera (film and animation), Foster + Partners, and
Bed Head.
Our mission is simple,
‘Make liFe beTTer’
We have global experience and can deliver our
brand through our Toronto, Chongqing and
London offices.
We work in Strategic Partnership with other
practices throughout the world.
3
3. prof. William alsop obe
Prof. Alsop works on large-scale urban planning and design
initiatives across the world from his London, Shanghai, Istanbul
and Toronto bases.
His work is guided by the principle that architecture is both
vehicle and symbol of social change and renewal. The philosophy
extends from the design of objects and individual buildings to
embrace broader principles of urbanism and city development.
By abandoning the hegemony of an acceptable style, he has
rendered the whole process of architecture one of increasing
fluidity and transparency; a new and refreshing position for
architecture both in the UK and elsewhere.
Prof Alsop is the recipient of a multitude of world-class level
recognitions for his work, including the RIBA World Architecture
award – the highest architectural recognition in the UK – as well
as professorships in distinguished universities in Europe and
North America.
The most creative
Prof. Alsop is an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
and a Member of the Royal Academy, London.
architect in the world
scott Lawrie
Scott joined Will in 2009 as Managing Principal, and is based
London studio. In his previous roles, which included initially
working at Lohan Associates’ office in Chicago (where he won
an American Institute of Architects’ Design Award), Scott held
FaST COMPaNY magazine
senior positions with Foster + Partners in London, John McAslan
& Partners and PRP. He gained significant experience in the
design and delivery of landmark projects throughout the world,
Will alsop tops the 2009 Creative people in architecture List specializing in high density mixed use, high end and affordable
residential and commercial projects both in the form of new
build and also a high proportion of listed buildings in London. His
portfolio includes work on Masdar Zero Carbon City in Abu Dhabi;
the redevelopment of the British Museum Great Court and at
Wembley Arena in London; large mixed use projects in London
with high density residential towers on prestigious sites such as
Kings Cross and Wembley along with super high rise buildings in
China and Russia.
Scott has acted as a Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Civic Awards Judge and was involved in the review of the draft
Mayor’s Housing Guide during its consultation process.
4 5
4. Landscape
ALL Delivers.
We recognise that many of our Clients Product
operate to strict commercial parameters,
and delivering within those parameters is
integral to our service. Creativity of design is
central to our ethos, however we believe that
creativity and commercial common sense are Graphics
not mutually exclusive domains; in fact, rather
the opposite. Strategic
our studio teams are supported at all stages
partners
of the design process by a project manager
experienced in the business of development.
The project manager compliments the skills
of colleagues focused principally on design,
working with Clients to clearly define their
brief at inception stage, and to ensure that Interiors
the principles of the Clients requirements are
then driven through the project to delivery. Architecture
& Master Planning
The scope of our service can vary to suit the
needs of our Clients, from focused design
management, to a full project management Project & Design
service. our approach is collaborative, hands- Programme Management
on and rooted in common sense.
• Client brief formulation;
• Budget, cost and value coordination;
• Project team selection and leadership;
• Design programming and management;
• Commercial and practical procurement
advice;
• Monitoring of performance, quality and
programme;
ToronTo LonDon
• Risk management.
aLL aims to identify, release and enhance
value for our clients through world-class
design. ALL Delivers. Chongqing
6 7
5. HonorAry PoSITIonS AnD AwArDS
Distinctions
2010 Honorary Doctorate, Ryerson University, Toronto
2007 Honorary Doctorate, University of East Anglia
2006 Honorary Fellow, Queen Mary and
Westfield College, University of London,
Faculty of Building, Barbara Miller Award
2005 Honorary Fellow, University
College Northampton
2004 Honorary Doctorate, Ontario
Will alsop’s work is internationally recognized as
College of Art & Design, Toronto
ground breaking and thus has been recognized 2003 Visiting Professor in Urban Art –
by professional bodies and academic institutions School of Art & Design, Liverpool
around the world 2002 Honorary Fellow, Sheffield Hallam University
2001 Honorary Doctorate, University of
Nottingham Trent, School of Architecture
Prof. Alsop is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, member 2000 Officer of the British Empire (OBE)
of the Royal Institute of British Architects and of the 1997 Visiting Professor, the London Institute
1996 Honorary Fellow of the Royal
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and is Head of
Society of British Sculptors
Construction at the Technical University of Vienna. Honorary Doctorate of Law, Leicester University
La Fosca Hotel, Spain
PeCkhaM
London, UK
Studies on Tate Modern
1995 Member of the Russian Academy of Art
1994/98 Member of the Design Council
1992 Hamburgische Architektenkammer Rhône
AcADeMIc APPoInTMenTS
1997 Ongoing Professor, Technical University of Vienna
1990 Visiting Professor, University of Hanover
1988 Unit Master, Architectural Association
1986 Visiting Professor, Bremen
Academy of Art & Music
1984 Visiting Professor, Royal
Melbourne Institute Design
1984 Visiting Professor, New South
Wales Institute of Technology
1982 The Davis Professor, Tulane
University, New Orleans
1977 Visiting Professor, San Francisco Institute of Art
Visiting Professor, Ball State University, Indiana
Prof. Alsop adresses the Ryerson University Senate, Toronto
1973 Tutor in Sculpture, St Martin’s School of Art
peckham Library
received the 2000
stirling prize, the
most prestigious
architectural award
in britain
8 9
6. Awards CLarKe qUay
singapore
prof. alsop’s achievements and creativity have
been recognized by some of the most prestigious
architectural awards in europe as well as america
and asia
SeLecTeD ArcHITecTurAL AwArDS RIBA Worldwide Projects Award,
2008 Cityscape Asia Awards, Best Waterfront OCAD, Toronto, Canada
Development, Clarke Quay, Singapore 2003 MIPIM – Future Project Prizes,
Cityscape Asia Awards, Best Future Mixed-Use The Public, West Bromwich, UK
Development, Raffles City, Beijing, China AJ/Bovis Lend Lease Award for Architecture – RA
2007 MIPIM Future Projects Awards, ‘Big Urban Summer Show, Barnsley Masterplan, UK
Projects’ Category: RiversideOne (Middlehaven Laureate Preservation of Historic Buildings Award,
Masterplan), Middlesbrough, UK Speicher Am Fischmarkt, Hamburg, Germany
Cityscape Architectural Review Awards, (Tourism, 2002 AJ/Bovis Lend Lease Award for Architecture –
Travel & Transport– Built), Clarke Quay, Singapore RA Summer Show, SZ Family House of the Future
Cityscape Architectural Review Awards, (Tourism, BDA Architecture Award, Speicher Am
Travel & Transport – Future), Shanghai Kiss, China Fischmarkt, Hamburg, Germany
RIBA Commercial Building Prize for the 2001 Concrete Society Award, Cardiff Bay Barrage, UK
London Region, Palestra, London, UK AIA London Chapter Design Award for Best
Structural Steelwork Awards 2007, Building, Peckham Library, London, UK
commendation, Palestra, London, UK Civic Trust Award, Peckham Library, London, UK
2006 RIBA Education Award, The BCIA Award, Peckham Library, London, UK
Blizard Building, London, UK Renault Design Award, Speicher Am
Civic Trust Award, Fawood Children’s Fischmarkt, Hamburg, Germany
Centre, London, UK 2000 RIBA Stirling Prize, Building of the
Civic Trust Award, The Blizard Building, London, UK Year, Peckham Library, London, UK
Hot Dip Galvanising Award, Highly Commended, BCIA Award, North Greenwich Jubilee
Fawood Children’s Centre, London, UK Line Station, London, UK
Waterways Renaissance Award: New RIBA Civic and Community Architecture Award, North
Islington, Manchester, UK Greenwich Jubilee Line Station, London, UK
2005 RIBA London Region Award, Fawood 1999 RIBA Award, North Greenwich
Children’s Centre, London, UK Jubilee Line Station, London, UK
RIBA Stirling Prize Short-list, Fawood Concrete Society Award, North Greenwich
Children’s Centre, London, UK Jubilee Line Station, UK
Leaf Award, Best Use of Technology within a Large 1997 RIBA Worldwide Projects Award,
Scheme, The Blizard Building, London, UK Le Grand Bleu, Marseille, France
AIA/UK Excellence in Design Awards, commendation: RIBA Civic & Community Architecture Award,
Fawood Children’s Centre, London, UK Le Grand Bleu, Marseille, France
Royal Fine Art Commission Building 1995 Palmarés Award for Architecture,
of the Year – Special Award, Fawood Le Grand Bleu, Marseille, France
Children’s Centre, London, UK 1991/92 Paraplegic Facilities Special
Toronto Architecture and Urban Design Prize, Berlin Olympics 2000
Award: OCAD, Toronto, Canada Architectural Prize, Potsdamer/Leipziger Platz
2004 DX Design Effectiveness Award, White Rose Award, Leeds Corn Exchange, UK
OCAD, Toronto, Canada RIBA National Award, Cardiff Bay Visitor’s Centre, UK
10 11
7. press
Will Alsop
You may know his ‘wonky-legged’ Peckham library or other
striking constructions using strong colours and ‘blobby
shapes’ But the name of the man who built them? Will Alsop
.
is fast joining Foster and Rogers as one of the Uk’s top
architects. lynn Barber finds him as cheerful as his buildings
Lynn barber — The observer Sunday 8 April 2007
I thought architects came in Armani suits the others deal in doom and gloom. Yet
with shaven heads and peculiar glasses. it’s surprising how many architects dress
Will Alsop, in his crumpled black shirt, as though they’re accountants, and behave
black jacket and long, lank, greying hair, like accountants. They manage to make
looks more like a hairy biker - amazingly something that should be thoroughly
scruffy and obviously not a man familiar enjoyable into a rather dull grind.’
North West RIBA Awards Winners 2010 | News | Architects Journal Page 1 of 2
with gyms. His favourite watering hole
is the Chelsea Arts Club, which to put it It is noticeable that accountants often
mildly is not the place to order wheatgrass feature as bogeymen in his conversation -
juice. He smokes even more than me. At his father was an accountant. But he was
one point he tells me he is 59 then pauses 64 and already retired by the time Will
and adds, ‘You’re supposed to say I don’t was born. The family were comfortably
look it.’ Oh, OK, I tell him, leaving open off and lived in Northampton. Neither
the question of whether he looks older or parent showed the slightest interest in
younger. Actually 59 is still quite young architecture - though Will recalls that his
for a top architect because architecture mother was very houseproud and liked
is a famously late-flowering profession rearranging furniture, which might be
- Philip Johnson started a new practice relevant. When he was six he designed a
COPYRIGHT: This cutting is reproduced by Durrants on behalf of Cision UK Ltd. under licence from the NLA, CLA or other copyright owner. No further copying (including the printing of digital cuttings), when he was 90. But with Alsop you house for her to live in - its most striking
slightly wonder if he’ll make old bones. specification was that it had to be built in
digital reproduction or forwarding is permitted except under license from the NLA, www.nla.co.uk (for newspapers) CLA, www.cla.co.uk (for books and magazines) or other copyright body.
Article Page 1 of 2 G12208L - 392
Page 1 of 2
New Zealand.
Since his Peckham Library won the
Stirling Prize in 2000, Alsop probably He always wanted to be an architect, even
counts as number three in the hierarchy of before he really knew what architects did.
British architects, after Lords Rogers and But he remembers that there was one
Foster. His recent building for Goldsmiths modernist house in Northampton, New
College, New Cross, and the Blizard Ways, designed by Peter Behrens in 1926
Building, his science institute for Queen and actually the first Modern Movement
Mary’s College in Whitechapel, won house in Britain, and his mother took him
rapturous praise - the Guardian called the to see it, though she always used to say
latter ‘rational and romantic, questioning, how ugly it was. The lady who lived there
quixotic and necessary’. Other much gave Will and his twin sister ice cream,
admired buildings include the Hotel ‘And it was really good ice cream, so
du Departement (seat of regional maybe that had a certain positive effect.’
government) in Marseille which was his
first big commission and the Ontario When Alsop was 16 his father died, so
http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/home/riba-award-winners-2010/north-west-riba-a... 07/12/2010
College of Art and Design. The former he decided to leave school, where he was
is known as Le Grand Bleu because it is bored, and do his A-levels at evening
blue, the latter as the Dalmatian because it classes while working for a local architect.
has black and white spots. (‘Even today I think, Why are these kids
going to school full-time to do A-levels?
His buildings often have playful elements They don’t need to.’) He did a foundation
- strong colours, blobby shapes, and stilts course at Northampton Art School and
Architect Will Alsop Talks About Building a Brighter Future - WSJ.com Page 1 of 3
at crazy angles - but they are functional thence to the Architectural Association
too. When I said something about the (AA) where he entered the competition to
‘wonky legs’ of the Peckham Library he design the Pompidou Centre in Paris and
corrected me sharply: ‘There is a good was runner-up to Richard Rogers. His
structural reason for putting the legs at first proper commission was a swimming
an angle. Not that I believe in having to pool for Sheringham in Norfolk in 1984
JANUARY 21, 2011 justify everything you do, but if you have (the start of a love affair with the Norfolk
straight legs in parallel you have to put in coast) and then a visitor centre for Cardiff
Building a Brighter Future
Architect, Painter and Now, Seemingly, Park Warden, Will Alsop Refuses to Be Contained by
some bracing otherwise they might shift Bay. After that he got a lot of work in
Space
sideways but if you have a series of legs Germany, including the Hamburg Ferry
at angles they’re bracing the lateral load Terminal, before beating Norman Foster
By ANDREW MCKIE
British architect. Yet although Mr. Alsop's anyway, so there is a reason for it. People in the competition to build the Marseille
buildings, which often feature unusual structures
say, Oh, that’s just Will being wilful but Hotel du Departement in 1994. But even
and bright primary colors, aren't without their not a bit of it.’ He once said he could best
critics (the satirical magazine Private Eye has twice
then, the work still didn’t exactly flow.
chosen his work for its award for Worst Building teach his students about load-bearing by
of the Year), they possess a relatively rare quality making them form a human pyramid. ‘I came back here and went round to
in modern architecture: they are, for the most
part, extremely popular with the people who use http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/will-alsop-back-at-scho... 25/01/2011 Anyway, his buildings stand up, they are see potential clients and they’d say they
and live next to them. weatherproof, and the people who use wanted to see what you’d done - and I’d
It is a quality that has made him very busy: when I
them like them, which is more than you say, the Hotel du Department, because I
speak to him the day after the opening of a small can say for some famous architects. was proud of it and it was well received
show at London's Royal Academy, he is in Canada. - and they’d say, Yes, but what have you
By the time I call him a couple of days later, he is
in China.
And he is good fun. He has a dry wit and done here. I’d say, But I built this in a
Richard Johnson/interiorimages.ca
merry chortle. His studio in Battersea foreign language, 800 miles away, on time,
Contained in Burlington House's Architecture is a bright and bustling place, full of
Ontario College of Art & Design University in
Space—really a passageway behind the main
on budget - all the things you say - and
Toronto
staircase—the exhibition, entitled "En Route: Alsop paintings on show at London hospital | News | Architects Journal Page 1 of 1 eager-beaver young things, with his own they’d say, Ah, but it doesn’t count because
Catering to basic human needs—food, fuel, shelter
Proper Behaviour in the Park" (until March 13), colourful abstract paintings round the it’s not in Britain. Scary.’ (He says it was
comprises large, splashy, colorful paintings
and so on—is usually the work of those who are,
produced in response to drawings by students
walls. He believes that cheerfulness is even worse for Richard Rogers - he was
often literally, down to earth. And few industries
deal as directly with the concrete as the building
from Ontario College of Art & Design University in important and that ‘Being an architect is out of work for two years after he built
Canada, re-imagining Grange Park in Toronto. It to some extent a performing art because
trade. It's odd, then, that architects frequently give
offers some clues as to how Mr. Alsop resolves the
the Pompidou Centre.) But he gradually
the impression of having their heads in the clouds. you’ve got to keep people up, you’ve got to got more commissions in his fifties and is
apparent discrepancy between the abstract
Indeed, one of the exhibits at last year's
Architecture Biennale in Venice was a cloud.
thinking of contemporary architecture and the keep the whole situation buoyant and I’ve probably now one of the busiest architects
production of physical spaces that the public
actually enjoys.
noticed that the best and most successful around.
Few resolve this apparent contradiction as
successfully as Will Alsop. A longstanding favorite
projects are when everyone just keeps
"The students' job was to make a lot of noise, smiling. Architects are the only profession
of the avant-garde and winner of the Stirling Prize
really, performing the role that members of the However, Alsop was never very good at
in 2000, he is now probably, after Lords Rogers that actually deal in joy and delight - all handling the finances and, after several
public have for previous work," he says. "Of
and Foster, the best-known and best-regarded
12 13
