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Practice name: Ritchie Wrigley Architects
When we were founded, we received a lot of goodwill from the people we met throughout our careers—colleagues, clients, consultants, etc. We don’t want to lose those personal connections and want to put our name out there so we can educate more people.
based on: Market Peckham is a co-working space in South London. We balance this by working from home.
Established: January 2023
Main characters: Michael Ritchie and Joe Wrigley
Where are you from
We met at MJP Architects, where we have spent most of our careers to date. It’s an incredible place to work, consistently creative, with a nurturing and family atmosphere. Joe joined after completing Part 2 and I joined after working with Professor Alan Short for eight years. Both practices had a big impact on us.
While at MJP we worked closely together for over 10 years on projects including affordable housing for young people, commercial offices, hospitality venues, student accommodation and a range of other projects in the university sector.
What do you do and what types of projects are you looking for?
We established the practice when the opportunity arose to provide the design of a detox and recovery center for an alcohol and drug abuse charity. This project embodies many of our architectural aspirations; it is progressive, innovative, sustainable and serves a valuable social function. Its completion will be a significant moment for our young practice. More projects like this would be great.
We joined the University Design Forum because we have been designing in this field for most of our careers and wanted to continue. Their building tours and related discussions are a great way to keep up with developments in higher education thought.
We also have a range of sustainable residential renovation projects and have retained another part of our earlier work – working with interior designers to customize hotel sites. Our role on these projects is that of design team leader and the technical, organizational and coordination skills developed as architects are invaluable.
Are you being asked to do more remodeling work? Are you steering your clients in this direction?
Since the beginning of our career, we have been interested in the creative reuse of existing buildings. Our instinct has always been to reuse, but this, as well as the desire to be sustainable, has a lot to do with the historical and cultural value that any building acquires during its lifetime.
Joe is a conservation architect with a particular interest in listed buildings and the refurbishment of buildings in sensitive environments. We are fortunate to be able to deliver several projects where we sensitively improve historic structures so that they can be serviced for revitalized architecture using renewable technologies.
What are your ambitions?
In terms of scale, we are acutely aware of the feast/famine nature of small architectural practices and the factual reality of being excluded from certain projects due to turnover or insurance rather than lack of ability, ambition or resources.
We are acutely aware of the feast/famine nature of small practices
We hope to grow to around ten, but we would be delighted if we could continue working on challenging projects that are fun, exciting and have social and environmental benefits.
What are the biggest challenges you face as a startup and as an industry as a whole?
At the risk of stating the obvious, maintaining a balanced workflow in the current financial climate is the biggest challenge.
As we witness record losses reported by state contractors, we don’t expect construction costs to drop anytime soon.
We are also seeing a shift in customer focus as a direct result of inflation in the construction industry. Buying buildings becomes more feasible than building them. This can be an existential threat to architects, but it can also tip the balance in favor of more renovations. So while it’s a challenge, we’ll take it.
Which project completed in the past five years inspired you the most?
We should celebrate every moment a building transcends the ordinary – building interesting projects and making things happen in our profession are underrated but essential qualities. That said, we all agree that the Magdalen Library is a worthy winner of the Stirling Prize. We recently attended the RA’s Shane de Blacam lecture, with a Q&A hosted by Níall McLaughlin. Kahn’s pedigree is clear and enjoyable.
The most inspiring person I’ve listened to in the past five years is Kate Raworth, who spoke at the inauguration architect declares event. Her discussion compared 20th and 21Yingshi Century Economics has similarities to our own profession, and she leaves all viewers with a sense of “Why don’t you do this?” This is very powerful.
Are you using any new design techniques, such as artificial intelligence?
Advances in software have been relentless throughout our careers, and in our experience, as opposed to generative design, they are very positive at communicating ideas to a wider audience, testing design work, and automating repetitive tasks.
The architect’s role as building designer appears to be under double attack
In this sense, artificial intelligence can be somewhat threatening to architects. It has the potential to replace rather than assist, but that’s no different than other professions. When combined with renovation, the architect’s role as building designer can be doubly attacked. However, it’s hard to believe that buildings won’t be delivered using artificial intelligence, so we need to embrace it to stay relevant as a profession.
We are not yet using generative design, but CPD in 2024 will certainly involve better understanding how Discord, MidJourney and other tools can help our work.
We look forward to re-reading this article five years from now to see how much we underestimated it!
How do you market yourself?
Through our recently launched website, and more actively engaging face-to-face with the connections we’ve made throughout our careers. We also intend to use our Instagram and LinkedIn accounts to post new work and ideas on key issues.
Website and email address
www.ritchiewrigleyarchitects.co.uk
info@ritchiewrigleyarchitects.co.uk
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